A Hootenanny in a Holler

Hootenanny, the distinctive annual music festival in Santiago Canyon that has surveyed the roots-music scene from its originators (Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buck Owens) to its young traditionalists (Russell Scott and His Red Hots, James Intveld, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys) and its punk rock inheritors (Social Distortion, X, Supersuckers), aims to go national.

Planning is almost complete for a 12-city Western tour this September of outdoor venues holding 3,000 to 7,000 people.

Still, Bill Hardie, a Hootenanny promoter, cautioned this week that the tour isn’t a done deal.

“We’ve got about 90% of it done, but it could fall apart any second,” Hardie said. “We’re waiting for the headliner to confirm, and once that happens we’re ready to roll.”

This weekend’s fourth annual Hootenanny at the verdant Oak Canyon Ranch marks the event’s growth from one to two days. The 4,000-capacity festival grounds will host 18 acts on three stages, with X, Social Distortion, the Cramps and the Reverend Horton Heat topping the bill; Buck Owens, who plays Sunday only, continues the festival’s tradition of presenting seminal artists from the 1950s and 1960s on a youth-oriented bill.

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Even if the proposed tour falls through, Hootenanny still will gain a wider presence with the launch later this month of Hootenanny Recordings, a partnership between Hardie and Lee Rocker, the former Stray Cats bassist who lives in Laguna Beach.

The label’s first release, “The Best of Hootenanny Compilation,” features studio tracks (most previously released) from 17 artists who span the festival’s stylistic range of rockabilly, blues, swing and roots-informed punk.

Four of its artists--the Royal Crown Revue and three deep-blues acts on the Fat Possum/Epitaph label--haven’t appeared on Hootenanny bills. X, the Reverend Horton Heat, the Cramps, the Supersuckers, Rocker and Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys are among the acts featured; previously unreleased tracks come from the Blasters, the Paladins and Russell Scott and His Red Hots.

The album will be available at this weekend’s festival and in stores starting July 14.

Rocker said Hootenanny Recordings will follow through this fall with: a debut CD from Russell Scott and His Red Hots; a reissue of Hot Rod Lincoln’s do-it-yourself debut CD; and a live album from Rocker himself made up mainly of songs not on his three studio albums. Another possibility is a reissue of the Paladins’ hard-to-find first album, with new material.

“I would like to see the label grow into what Sub Pop was to the grunge movement,” Rocker said. “What’s cool to me about the Hootenanny Festival is that it’s not just narrowed down into fragments [such as] rockabilly or swing, but the whole [roots music] movement. It shows the whole lineage and how it’s being taken in different directions.”

If a Hootenanny tour does take shape, Hardie said, the inaugural lineup will not include any ‘50s-vintage heroes, the aspect that has given the Orange County festival its special breadth and distinctiveness.

“I would love to do that, but it’s a little expensive to do the first year,” he said. “They’re awesome; they’re legends, but they get paid for it.”

* Hootenanny ‘98, Saturday and Sunday at Oak Canyon Ranch, 5305 Santiago Canyon Road, Santiago Canyon. $32.50. Saturday’s show is sold-out. (714) 991-2055.