POP MUSIC REVIEW : Shelton Gives a Lesson in Musical Roots

With country music getting more attention than it has for years, Ricky Van Shelton--hardly among the most dynamic of recent country stars--might have found a worthwhile role. His show at the Universal Amphitheatre on Monday was a veritable classic country primer, providing a valuable public service for country neophytes.

Despite a track record of hits, the Grit, Va., native has never really been much more than a voice and a body under a wide-brimmed hat. Monday’s show started true to form, with the first baker’s dozen of songs a non-cohering mishmash of classic country styles.

Then, rather than delving into the limp gospel of his latest album, Shelton took a turn toward left pasture with a surprising, if perfunctory, version of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” and a two-song tribute to Buddy Holly. By the time he’d finished his set, he’d also roped in Jerry Lee Lewis (“Great Balls of Fire”) and Roy Orbison (“Oh, Pretty Woman,” a great song for Shelton’s limited but round baritone voice). If Shelton and his six-piece band failed to add anything to the classics, at least they provided an always-needed lesson on the common roots of rock and country.

But more than that, the once-uptight-seeming Shelton was clearly having fun, something that continued in a really loose encore set in which he went way out to left with a rocking version of Los Angeles rockabilly veteran Ray Campi’s “Rockabilly Rebel” (“a song we found in a truck stop,” Shelton told the crowd) and a silly “Long Tall Texan” (“just for the kids”). Illinois-raised Suzy Bogguss opened the show with a set of polite numbers rooted in the early ‘70s country-folk-pop of Judy Collins and Linda Ronstadt, highlighted by Ian Tyson’s “Someday Soon” (a 1969 hit for Collins) and Nanci Griffith’s “Outbound Plane.” Pleasant, but not very moving.