Billy Ray Not Loyal to Country

SANTA ANA —  If Billy Ray Cyrus really were a country singer, he’d have some achy breaky vocal cords to go with that famously damage-prone heart.

As much as Garth Brooks has dipped into pop sources and styles in achieving across-the-board popularity, the catch in his voice and the sudden dips and broad bends in his phrasing are as unmistakably country as his cowboy hat and boots.

Cyrus, the rookie success story whose album came out last month and took an unprecedented (for a debut release) two weeks to hit the top of Billboard’s pop chart, was at the Crazy Horse Steak House on Tuesday, playing his first Southern California shows since the mid-’80s. Back then, he came to Los Angeles with a guitar, a demo tape, and high hopes, only to wind up selling Oldsmobiles before retreating to his native Kentucky to start over.

Cyrus made his album, “Some Gave All,” in Nashville, and he’s nominally a country act. But he looked like a bar rocker (sneakers, muscle shirt and pony tail), moved like a bar rocker (hip-shakin’ all over, unless he was striking dashing poses) and sounded like a bar rocker, eschewing catch-in-the-voice colorings. Instead, he favored a husky approach that, with its unforced masculinity, reinforced the ardor that his athlete’s build and Mel Gibson looks elicited from female fans who shrieked their affection loudly and often. Cyrus, 30, made sure to give them ample opportunity, taking long pauses to soak up the noise. “I love it when women go ‘whoo,’ ” he confessed, after noting that “ ‘whoo’ is one of those universal sounds--you don’t ‘whoo’ if you feel bad.”

Cyrus’ musical attachment to country tradition was only tangential. Like the early Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd (whose rambunctious rocker, “The Breeze,” Cyrus covered in his 70-minute early show), country was a point of reference, but no foundation. Only one song, the humorously sloshed “Where’m I Gonna Live?” provided a fix for those in need of good old honky-tonk.

To the extent that Cyrus is “country,” it’s more in his manner than his music. He wasn’t out to sell attitude, rebellion, or what Todd Rundgren dubbed “the ever popular tortured artist effect.” He was there to please and to be liked, to playfully flash a nipple (after first demurring) at a woman who kept calling for him to take off his shirt and to be properly, humbly thankful to the fans who’ve made him a hit.

Cyrus’ performance had some of the appeal of good, basic bar rock (it was tuneful and well played) but also some of the drawbacks (his music was conventional, pleasant on the surface but with little sustaining substance).

The show began slowly with two new, unreleased songs that didn’t make a strong first impression--”Throwing Stones” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” (definitely not the Clash basher, but an Eagles-like number that ruminated upon troubled love with unconvincing moderation). Obviously, not everything Cyrus touches is as instantly indelible as “Achy Breaky Heart.”

After those openers and an unremarkable, rocked-up version of the bluegrass standard “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” Cyrus got down to playing album material that was unrelentingly catchy. His five-man Sly Dog band displayed no dazzling individuality, but it was always effective, and occasionally pretty hot (especially on the Skynyrd tune and a good, brawny rendering of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ ”). Strong backing vocals enabled Cyrus to achieve that mark of barroom professionalism: exact replication of his recordings.

As the show went on, you could hear numerous echoes of familiar pop and rock sources. “She’s Not Cryin’ Anymore” may owe something to Conway Twitty, but on the chorus Cyrus sounded like Elton John. “Ain’t No Good Goodbye” copied Elvis Presley’s ‘50s ballad style, and “Never Thought I’d Fall in Love With You” was virtually a Bruce Springsteen tribute.

“Could’ve Been Me,” to be released soon as a video, called to mind Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” except Cyrus’ stentorian vocal sounded more like Harry Chapin. The song reflects the lack of psychological depth in the singer’s music. (Cyrus wrote most of his album, but “Could’ve Been Me,” like “Achy Breaky Heart,” was the product of an outside writer.) It expresses the surface sadness of a man who lost the woman he wanted to marry because he couldn’t get up the nerve to propose to her. But it never probes deeper to consider what character flaw might have held him back.

“Some Gave All,” Cyrus’ homage/memorial to war veterans and their comrades who didn’t make it, was sincere (Cyrus said he regards the song so highly that he wants its title inscribed on his tombstone) but failed to get beyond pieties about the debt democracy owes to its military defenders. The music, with swelling synthesizer strings and spiraling guitar heraldry, was strictly manipulative, and it achieved its sought-after effect: a standing ovation.

Cyrus played his “Achy Breaky” ace well, using it at mid-set to rev up the action. It was a good, unassuming move, implying that his gaily lurching signature rocker was just part of the concert’s larger framework. But Cyrus couldn’t resist the temptation of reprising “Achy Breaky Heart” for an easy, crowd-pleasing show-closer. Like his concert as a whole, that second run-through was fun, but not very original or daring.

Cyrus has looks, hooks, energy and likability on his side. As long as the hooks keep coming, so, most likely, will the hits. But unless he can probe deeper and get beyond the stock sentiments of his first album, those hits won’t linger in a demanding listener’s heart--achy, breaky or otherwise.