Out With the Old

The smartly tailored new country music of the ‘90s has dispensed with the rustic idiosyncrasies that barred most old-line country from the commercial mass mainstream. Especially outdated is the traditionalist’s insistence on honoring the past.

A daylong country music festival by an old-guard crew, coming within weeks of the death of a signature figure of the genre, probably would have gotten all caught up in sticky sentiment and backward historicism. Not so the George Strait Country Music Festival on Saturday at Edison International Field of Anaheim, where the name Tammy Wynette wasn’t invoked in passing, much less honored with a song dedication or paid musical tribute with a revived version of one of her oldies.

In the new country music, the good life is celebrated, and death is inconvenient. If memory serves, after an onslaught of seven acts over nearly 10 hours, the day’s musical body count totaled one: the ill-fated mother of Tim McGraw’s treacly tear-jerker “Don’t Take the Girl.”

It has been said that the seriousness of an art form can be measured by how unflinchingly it grapples with the fact of death. The Straitfest was mainly serious about selling stuff: About a dozen tour sponsors had their logos bannered upon every uncovered surface on the inside facade of the newly remodeled stadium.

Other than some sappy ballads and his annoying, socially tone-deaf hit, “Indian Outlaw,” McGraw emerged as the day’s big winner with a set far better tailored to stadium performance than Strait’s.

First, let’s give “the boss,” as McGraw deferentially called Strait, his due. The no-nonsense Texan’s vast audience appeal (his festival tour has been a big draw, although this stop, with an announced capacity of 38,000, appeared to be a few thousand short of a sellout) is based on some solid virtues, including an attractive, easygoing voice that’s friendly and reassuring. Strait offers an experienced, tight band and allows it room to shine. There’s also a helpful, though never very raw, dash of traditionalism. But his long set sometimes dragged, and in the stadium expanse this famously immobile figure seemed a lot smaller than life.

McGraw, on the other hand, was dashing, urgent, going for big emotional moments and pulling many of them off. Especially memorable was his tender, heartfelt turn with his harmonizing wife, Faith Hill, on their big hit, “It’s Your Love.” McGraw caressing Hill with hand, eyes and voice was pop romance etched in capitals. He and his sharp band also were adept at doing what ‘90s country is mainly about: recycling ‘70s rock. But McGraw’s stringy, drawling tenor added a homey touch and marked everything with his own down-home stamp.

Hill was comfy in the stadium setting as well. Her set of shiny, pumped-up country-rock anthems and bloated pop hymns played strictly to the distant grandstand. The appeal--such as it was--of these songs of titanic striving for romance or personal independence lay in her clear, confident delivery.

Sometimes mediocrity becomes so complete that it’s almost noteworthy. John Michael Montgomery is a case in point. This handsome, strapping Kentuckian has parlayed a featureless if pleasant and ultra-fervent singing voice into a hit-festooned career now verging on its fifth album. Perhaps the fact that Montgomery is unremarkable is a plus with country’s predominantly female record-buyers, making it easier for them to imagine it’s their own husband or boyfriend crooning so lovingly to them, rather than some out-of-reach hunk in a black hat. He connected with several spunky rockers, but stumbled in an atrocious, agonizingly long take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Lee Ann Womack was a refreshing throwback to the sturdy virtues of country classicism--although as the most Tammy-like singer on the bill, she was the most neglectful in not invoking Wynette’s memory. Whether light and playful, or plaintive and aching, Womack put all her bets on the emotional substance in her songs and made them pay without any diva-like exaggeration. It will be interesting to see whether the country establishment embraces this debut success over the long haul, since her strengths are authenticity and a voice filled with character, not glamorous appeal.

Lila McCann is about what central casting would recruit if a director ordered up a 16-year-old country music ingenue: a chipper demeanor, an all-American girl’s face topped by blond bangs and flowing tresses, and a womanly build, tightly wrapped. Outfit her with some Ronstadt-rehash material and, presto: a gold record the first time out. But fitting a marketing niche is no qualification for commanding a big stage, and McCann floundered, a victim of inexperience and a thin, sometimes shrill voice.

Asleep at the Wheel’s lively but casually presented swing and boogie made for good bask-in-the-sun accompaniment for the early birds who caught the venerable Texas band’s opening set.