POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Safe Trip for Highway 101 at the Strand

For having collectively named themselves after a freeway, the members of hit country group Highway 101 are rather content most of the time to be the musical equivalent of Sunday drivers. Though the band certainly has some strong tunes, the sameness of the pleasantly loping material became a bit wearing at the Strand in Redondo Beach on Monday

Like her four compatriots on stage, singer Paulette Carlson is a likable enough presence--less of a Rosanna Arquette look-alike than she appears to be on album jackets, more like a Southern-fried P. J. Soles with long tresses and a frilly, lacy white dress.

Not an especially soulful singer, Carlson can still put a good lyric across with Emmylou Harris-style efficiency, and she does have a strong, feminine perspective to communicate in songs like “Woman Walk the Line” (a Harris-penned number about a gal at a bar wanting to drink alone, thank you very much) and the new single “All the Reasons Why.”

Too much of the band’s other material, though, feels like passionless product from Nashville songwriting factories, played as safe and close to the vest as possible. When drummer Cactus Moser announced “I guess it’s time that we do a rowdy song,” it was a good bet that he wasn’t introducing anything from either of the band’s decidedly non-rambunctious albums. (It turned out to be Steve Earle’s “Hillbilly Highway.”)

Still, even if there wasn’t much variance in tempo or feel, it was nice to actually hear Moser, a terrific percussionist who’s quite dynamic within his given confines. One thing you can just about always count on: The folks who mix the sound at country concerts tend to be a lot less scared of drums than the folks who mix country records.