You Can Tell by Hat He’s a Country Boy

If you closed your eyes during John Michael Montgomery’s concert Sunday night at the Pond of Anaheim, you might have sworn at times that Garth Brooks was singing those ever-so-sweet songs about romantic devotion.

Even when you watched, it looked from certain angles like Brooks was standing at the microphone in that cowboy hat, twisting his head as he tried to pull an extra ounce of emotion from a song.

Those similarities have helped Montgomery sell more than $100 million worth of albums in the last five years, even though he falls woefully short of Brooks in terms of charisma and vocal character.

Call him Garth Lite, or even Garth Flat.

Montgomery’s 90-minute set--though well-received by the far-from-capacity crowd--was a demonstration of why country music has lost so much of its early-’90s vitality and sales punch.

Instead of searching for unique artists such as Brooks, record company executives and radio programmers have tried to build on Brooks’ unprecedented popularity by trying to sign Garth clones.

The norm has become guys in hats, singing songs whose arrangements and design are inspired as much by ‘70s pop-rock radio as by classic country. The result: Country music has become predictable and bland, and sales have dipped alarmingly.

Label executives in Nashville now talk publicly about the mistake, and of the need to find bold new artists with individuality. But radio programmers resist change. Nashville’s Steve Earle, Johnny Cash, Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris made some of the most acclaimed albums of 1996, but they were ignored by country radio. Even Brooks has run into radio resistance lately by recording songs that have challenged the status quo.

Radio continues to embrace such generic singles as Montgomery’s “Friends.” The tune, by Jerry Holland, speaks nicely about the delicate point in relationships when one person doesn’t want to move beyond friendship. Yet Montgomery’s vocal and arrangement lack the convincing tension that Brooks could bring to it. The record, like so much of Montgomery’s music, sounds recycled.

One exception Sunday was “I Miss You a Little,” a song Montgomery wrote (with Mike Anthony and Richard Fagan) after the death of his father. It contains a slice of winning country wordplay, which Montgomery delivered with feeling:

I miss you a little, I guess you could say

A little too much, a little too often,

A little more every day.

Unfortunately, Montgomery followed it with a witless version of “Sweet Home Alabama” that must have dragged on for 15 minutes and merely showed that Montgomery is also Lynyrd Skynyrd Lite.

The rest of Sunday’s bill wasn’t any more enticing. Ricochet, which opened, came across in a brief set as a band willing to play any style as long it can sell a few records. We heard a touch of the Eagles (minus the great songs), hard-core Alabama and even an a cappella interlude. None of it gave us much reason to want to hear more.

But country fans definitely will be hearing more of Rhett Akins, who has pin-up looks and knows it. He prowls and prances across a stage with the self-consciousness of Dwight Yoakam, making you feel as if you are watching a man in an endless photo session.

Several of his songs are well designed. But they seem simply devices that allow him to go through the moods one might find on an Akins calendar. In January, he’s flirtatious. In February, he’s tender. In March, he’s a good ol’ boy. In April, he’s in love. The lingering question: Will he find some soulfulness before his career reaches December?