Ballad(s) of Big Sandy: a Can-Doo-Wop Attitude

Some labors of love turn laborious, but with his first solo album, Robert “Big Sandy” Williams has fun paying tribute to doo-wop and ‘50s R&B; influences that have not surfaced in his main, ongoing career as front man of Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys.

With “Dedicated to You,” Big Sandy completes a rare roots-music pentathlon: With his regular band, he has excelled singing rockabilly, honky-tonk, western swing and a touch of jump blues. Now comes doo-wop.

It’s not his strongest event, but he performs credibly on the ballads that make up half the album. And when the tempo picks up for rocking or rolling R&B;, Big Sandy is in his element.

As a doo-wop balladeer, the creamy-voiced Anaheim resident doesn’t quite have the touch of wildness, the piercing, urgent vocal attack that enabled the classic doo-wop tenors to turn silly teenage love songs into street-corner opera. But he comes up with game, worthy efforts--putting a touch of traditional nasality into some vocals without sounding contrived. Where some roots-revivalists fall into sameness, Big Sandy here is a vocal chameleon, raw and low-down on the tough R&B; stuff, smooth and insinuating on the romantic tunes.

A proven ace songwriter capable of enlivening retro forms with knowing, economically drawn slices of the human comedy, here Big Sandy devotes himself to dredging up mainly obscure nuggets from the Los Angeles vocal-group scene of the ‘50s and early ‘60s. The lone new original, “Baby Baby Me,” is, typically, a fresh take on an old idiom, as good as anything on the album.

The choices favor humor along with romance; the rollicking “Pretty Girls Everywhere” is a prime slice of fun, and “Guided Missiles,” by the Cufflinks, is notable for translating Cold War nervousness onto the battlefield of romance: A wrongdoing girlfriend stands accused of letting loose with “guided missiles, aimed at my heart.” Big Sandy plays the straight man on the doo-wop dirge “Death of an Angel,” but his accomplices on backing vocals satirize the stylized doo-wop tragedy form with exaggerated moans and cries of grief.

The Calvanes, a vintage L.A. doo-wop quartet, provide superb harmonies. Another ‘50s roots-music hero, Dewey Terry of Don & Dewey, turns up as a vocal duet partner, a nimble piano man and, in two numbers, a guitar soloist who distills Chuck Berry licks into their rawest form. Several younger mates (including Fly-Rite Boys pianist Carl “Sonny” Leyland) are as adept as Big Sandy in staying true to the period form.

It’s slightly disappointing that Big Sandy’s first album to emphasize ballads along with rockers doesn’t play to his strongest suit: The handful of slow songs he has sung with the Fly-Rite Boys have been superbly rendered honky-tonk laments a la Hank Williams and George Jones. Maybe that can be the second Big Sandy solo album.

Still, “Dedicated to You” is a fun, fondly rendered detour full of catchy, charming songs that are likely to grow on anyone who has laughed with the Coasters or hummed along to “Earth Angel.”

* Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys, DJ Tom Ingram and Paul Ansell’s Blue Rhythm Boys play July 24 at the Foothill, 1922 Cherry Ave., Signal Hill. 9 p.m. $10. (562) 494-5196 (club) or (562) 984-8349 (taped information).

Albums are rated on a scale of * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.