Out With the Old

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 Especially outdated is the traditionalist’s insistence on honoring the past.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

Edison Field’s most distinctive feature--the Disney-created mountain stream behind the center-field fence--gave this bare-bones, utterly untheatrical festival a bit of staging pizazz: The craggy fake rocks and running water were the perfect backdrop for a country show. Still, a stadium’s a stadium, which means compromised acoustics and insectoid live visuals.

Other than a couple of 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 (the 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 stays within a golden emotional mean well suited for carrying out New Country’s main mission (other than selling): to be friendly and reassuring. Strait’s heartbroken characters never seem in danger of falling into an abyss, like those of Merle Haggard, George Jones or Johnny Cash; and the rowdy celebrators of his up-tempo stuff are politely wild, not maniacal.

Strait offers an experienced, tight band and allows it room to shine. There’s also a helpful, though never too raw, dash of traditionalism: He covered songs by Jones, Haggard and Conway Twitty, along with several from his hero, Texas swing master Bob Wills.

Several of Strait’s peak songs are always nice to hear again, including “Amarillo by Morning” and “Cowboy Rides Away.” Several songs from his new album, “One Step at a Time,” were appealing additions. But stretches of his long set grew dull, and in the stadium expanse this famously immobile figure seemed a lot smaller than life.

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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. One song from an album in progress even had a hint of Steely Dan. But McGraw’s stringy, drawling tenor added a homey touch to everything and marked it with his own down-home stamp. His rockers often echo John Anderson, and that’s not bad at all.

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 their power to affect and inspire those who want a pep talk. Anyone seeking insight and fresh angles in music won’t find them in Hill’s hackneyed valedictions.

Wearing a short pastel blue maternity dress (Hill and McGraw are expecting their second child), she came off as a sexy suburban soccer mom. For most of her set, she sold her superficial goods effectively with a big, clear, brightly assertive voice. She faltered near the end, perhaps tiring from her battle to protect her daring hemline from the advances of a capricious breeze. Her reading of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” was vacuous as ever (Hill sings this gut-spiller as a good-timey number), and a closing hymnal ballad grew so pompous that her fading voice was eclipsed.

Sometimes mediocrity becomes so complete that it’s almost notable. 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 Montgomery’s unremarkableness is a plus with country’s predominantly female record-buying public, making it easier for them to imagine it’s their husband or boyfriend crooning so lovingly to them, rather than some out-of-reach hunk in a black hat. In fairness, Montgomery seems to be stretching vocally on his upcoming album, “Leave a Mark.” But it’s hard to imagine that a voice so bland will leave an identifiable mark after its ride on the airwaves ends.

Montgomery did connect with several spunky rockers, including “Cowboy Love,” which had a few fans line-dancing in the second deck. But he overplayed his hand with a long, gaseous take on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chestnut, “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Montgomery sounded silly as he strained to affect a bluesy husk, and his geographical displacement of the song from Alabama to Southern California was idiotic pandering. One can’t even begin to unravel the multiple layers of stupidity involved in singing “I hope Neil Young will remember / That L.A. man don’t need him around, anyhow.” Even worse was Monty’s attempt to show off his solo-guitar prowess, which stretched out over many clueless, uneventful minutes.

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 avoided diva-like exaggeration. It will be interesting to see whether commercial country embraces this debut success over the long haul, since her strengths are authenticity and a voice filled with character, not glamorous appeal.

Womack’s set marked the ascension, in spirit if not in presence, of O.C.’s country queen, Jann Browne, to the home-county mega-stage she deserves. Womack sang a fairly faithful remake of “Trouble’s Here,” a song that Browne and her sidekick, Matt Barnes, wrote and sang on Browne’s wonderful album, “Count Me In.”

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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.

She acted like a 16-year-old in the spotlight for the first time, walking the stage aimlessly and returning each greeting with a wave, as if she were a beauty queen on a float rather than a singer with songs to put across.

The best she could do musically was to sound sweetly wounded on “Almost Over You.” Deeper expression was beyond her, whether in the lusting-for-life anthem “Saddle My Dream” or the put-down of a lust-driven, insufficiently romantic suitor in “Yippy Ky Yay.” McCann sang as if she were handling repertoire rather than telling stories and crystallizing feelings.

Her shortcomings weren’t just an age thing, but a matter of an unformed artistic spirit. For proof, check out “Too Late to Cry,” the soulful, emotionally persuasive country-bluegrass album Alison Krauss cut at age 15.

In nearly 30 years of pumping out old-fashioned swing and boogie fit for a barn dance, Asleep at the Wheel may never have played to so many non-dancing feet as it did Saturday. The Austin, Texas, band’s lively but casually presented music made for good bask-in-the-sun accompaniment for the early-birds who caught its festival-opening set. Bandleader Ray Benson’s smooth, easygoing baritone wasn’t made for stadia, and when it got buried in the mix, Asleep at the Wheel didn’t have a chance to awaken more than a good-timey vibe.

A run through some of its choice covers of standards offered pleasures outside the New Country norm, such as Benson’s stomping, zooming Bo Diddle-goes-surfing guitar intro to “Hot Rod Lincoln,” and a crowd-pleasing sing-and-clap-along rendition of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”