MUSIC REVIEW : Oslin Struts Her Saucy, Savvy Stuff

EL CAJON —  Post-modern, Pacific Rim country music.

That’s the description that came to mind Thursday night at El Cajon’s Theatre East (East County Performing Arts Center) when the curtain rose to reveal country singer K.T. Oslin in a very un-rustic setting.

Oslin was dressed in a patterned, black-lace, neck-to-ankle unitard, black high heels, black evening gloves (a personal trademark), and a chic purple dinner jacket buttoned just high enough and draping just low enough to cover, in Monty Python-ese, the “naughty bits.” In one hand she held an ornate Japanese fan.

The get-up corresponded to three immense, pastel, faux-Oriental wall hangings that served as a stage backdrop. Banks of lights bathed the stage in high-tech hues that have never been seen at the Grand Ole Opry. The combined visual stimuli created an exotic, almost erotic atmosphere.

Did I say this was in El Cajon?

As disconcerting as these images might have been to those accustomed to the blue-collar simplicity of George Strait or Garth Brooks, they were in character for the Arkansas-born Oslin, a thoroughly modern woman whose countrypolitan style and darkly candid songs about love and life from the perspective of the liberated female have made her a big, albeit unlikely hit, in country circles.

Although she’s been singing at least semi-professionally since joining the folk boom in the early ‘60s, Oslin didn’t hit her stride until 1987, when her first hit--the generation-analyzing “80’s Ladies”--pushed her to the top of the country heap. She was 45 at the time. Thus given carte blanche, Oslin has continued to explore her own ripe view of the world, and in so doing has cut a new path in the Nashville wilderness with an approach that defies country’s pro forma standards of style and attitude.

Playing to a near-capacity house of just under 1,000 on Thursday, Oslin gave a feisty, 100-minute performance that proved she is, in fact, the saucy, savvy, sage, strong-willed, opinionated, urbanized woman depicted in most of her songs.

Throughout the concert, she alternated between the two poles of her protagonist’s psyche--the sexually unfettered woman and the vulnerable romantic. Opening with the wink-wink salaciousness of “Hey Bobby” (“ . . . would you like to go for a ride in the country with me?”), Oslin followed with “Dr., Dr.” (“ . . . how many times can a heart be broken?”). Then in succession came two more contradictory ditties, the mid-tempo ballad, “I’ll Always Come Back,” and the tough-as-acrylic-nails “This Woman” (“ . . . don’t stay in love for long”).

Pacing the stage and schmoozing with the audience between tunes, Oslin was obviously in her element. But one would have the right to ask, what is her element? Much of the singer’s material boasts the arrangements, instrumentation, even chord progressions of adult-contemporary pop. Her sturdy touring band consists of two guitarists (one of whom doubles on saxophone), a drummer, a synthesist-keyboardist and a bassist. The sound they produced could just as easily have suited Kenny Loggins or James Taylor.

No matter. Oslin’s iconoclastic reputation is rooted in her virtually inventing a brand of country music for the woman of the ‘90s who finds herself straddling the psychological gap between comfy-homestead tradition and modern self-sufficiency. And that dichotomy finds its appropriate analogue in Oslin’s music.

Throughout the show, Oslin made references to the long, occasionally embittering road she took to fame in the music biz, and these remarks brought the hard, worldly edge of her lyrics into sharper focus. But the fact that she looked at least 20 years younger than her age (50), one concluded, is testimony both to her flinty resilience and to the rejuvenating effect of well-earned success.

To humorous effect, Oslin called on her don’t-mess-with-me reputation about five songs into the show. An obnoxious Jed Clampett-type seated in the fifth row had been talking loudly enough to be heard in La Mesa. Suddenly, he shouted “Damn, you’re good!” The outburst seemed to startle Oslin, but others in the audience took it as a cue to yell requests.

“All right, wait a minute,” said Oslin, mock-scoldingly. “I stayed up half the night working on this set list. This ain’t no hootenanny!”

Oslin left most of the music-making to the hired hands, but she stood playing a cart-mounted keyboard for a mid-concert series of songs that included the funky-tonk “Round the Clock Lovin”’ and the easy-shufflin’ hit, “Come Next Monday,” a procrastinator’s anthem from Oslin’s most recent album, “Love in a Small Town.”

Although these less-serious, more familiar songs hit pay dirt with the audience, Oslin struck raw nerves with such trenchant tunes as “Wall of Tears,” “New Way Home,” the twin odes about mid-course reassessments of marriage--”Do Ya” and “Hold Me”--and, of course, “80’s Ladies.”

The singer is blessed with a laser-like voice that cuts through the crud and meets her lyrics at the heart of the matter. So, while Oslin took pains to do a mood setup before each song, she didn’t need one for “Mary and Willi.”

The song plumbs the well of ‘90s loneliness via portrayals of two at-odds, contemporary archetypes--the career woman and the male chauvinist. Although the never-married Oslin obviously has more in common with the “Mary” character, she hits a centrist note by showing that intractability leaves both title figures alone and miserable. In the hushed auditorium, the song was almost palpably poignant.

After a long show of frequently sobering music, Oslin made an unusual choice for an encore, a languorous ballad that only extended the melancholy mood.

“This song could be the aria for a country opera I’m going to write someday,” she said in introducing the song. People chuckled.

I took Oslin at her word.