A Fine Bass of Operations

Could it be that when Lee Rocker was a kid listening to Elvis Presley’s “Sun Sessions,” he got some lyrics garbled?

On “Mystery Train,” Presley sang, “Train I ride . . .” Rocker may have heard it as “Bass I ride.”

It seemed that way Friday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre, where the former Stray Cat treated his handsome upright bass as if it were a conveyance to be clambered aboard or a dance partner to be swung about.

But Rocker, who lives in Laguna Beach, didn’t forget what the instrument was really for. A bassman-as-bandleader might be expected to indulge in exhibitionism in the low range, but Rocker kept most of his to the visual side. His trenchant, slapping, thumping, vibrating bass lines didn’t dominate his roots-rock and blues quartet, but drove and guided it.

Rocker’s new band, a successor to his previous trio, Big Blue, justified the adjective “organic.” With the steady, subtly powerful drumming of Steve Duncan (formerly of the esteemed country act the Desert Rose Band) and the complementary solo and rhythm work of two strong guitarists, Adrian Demain and Brophy Dale, the attack was honed and unified, sounding on peak numbers like a single consciousness divided among four players.

Rocker’s agenda was divided, though, when it came to repertoire. His 80-minute show was a bit of a mishmash of the diverse roots sources he has pulled together in his three-album solo career: rockabilly, blues and songs that are a pop-roots amalgam a la Chris Isaak or Robert Cray.

On his current album, “No Cats,” Rocker has honed his songwriting with catchy melodies and lyrical images that lift the material above standard barroom roots-rock revivalism. Though his voice lacks the texture and diversity of a first-rank roots man, he sang with presence and verve.

Rocker and his band started with a fine burst of energy, moving from originals paying tribute to rock’s early sources to a one-day-belated birthday tribute to Presley--a crackling “Sun Sessions” medley of “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “That’s Alright, Mama.” Nothing garbled about those, or about a Carl Perkins nugget Rocker introduced with good wishes for the influential rockabilly guitarist, who recently suffered a life-threatening stroke.

Rocker also touched lots of blues bases, including jump, R & B balladry and tense, noir-tinged songs of desire and romantic disaster.

How to do all that, and still give his strengthened song-craft the full exposure it deserves?

Rocker hit on an answer when he stripped the band down to acoustic guitar (his own), brush drums and Demain’s sweetly gurgling electric lead for “Memphis Freeze.” With echoes of George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” and Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” the song is an outstanding evocation of a sorrowful mood brought on by rotten weather and the modern world’s neglect of a great soul-music tradition.

Rocker jumped right into a burning boogie number, “Little Piece of Your Love.” Instead, he should have kept his unaccustomed acoustic guitar strapped on a while longer and delved deeper into some of his best-crafted songs. “Mr. Newman,” a taut, dark character study, and “Hard Rain,” an elegiac ballad (both highlights of “No Cats”) would have brought Rocker’s song-craft fully into focus. Rocker didn’t play either.

But with that tight, sharp band playing a passel of songs good enough to be roots-rock standards, Rocker doesn’t have to scramble to fill out a set or worry about whether his sidekicks can help him put it across. His solvable problem is how best to present a strong, varied repertoire and reveal more about just who that little guy riding the bass really is.

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Opening act Barrelhouse faces a question similar to Rocker’s: how much to go for sweaty, bar-band glory, and how much to emphasize peak songs that are more insightful and revealing.

The Orange County band’s combination of Otis Redding-style gritty soul, roadhouse blues and Skynyrd-like Southern rock hit with satisfying impact as the six musicians played with let-it-fly freedom. But there wasn’t much sense of a personal vision, and bandleader Steave Ascasio, has shown on Barrelhouse’s three self-financed albums he can do better.

Bubba & the Big Bad Blues featured talented musicians who tended to put demonstrations of chops before the more important blues aim: burrowing into a mood and emotion and bringing it to life.

Drummer Nick D’Virjilio has fancy sideman credits with Tears for Fears, Genesis, Peter Gabriel and Toy Matinee, but his flash and clutter were worse than useless in a blues setting. Nothing in this band complemented anything else, although Fullerton-based leader Christopher “Bubba” LeClerc was a fluent guitarist and decent singer. A closing, high-speed rendition of “Mustang Sally” was a funkless, grooveless, bombastic atrocity, as bad a piece of music-making as competent players could emit.