Deana Carter at National Music Center, 7/17/98

by Seth Rogovoy

(LENOX, Mass., July 17, 1998) -- Deana Carter's songs are populated by smart, down-to-earth women who, while appreciative of good manners and romantic gestures, can't be fooled by lies or superficialities. Thus her songs become paeans to honesty and sincerity and arguments against slickness and false witness.

On her debut album, "Did I Shave My Legs for This?", the message of the songs occasionally rubs up against the slick, state-of-the-art Nashville production. But in concert on Friday night at the National Music Center, the arrangements emphasized the rootsiness and rough edges of Carter's music, going a long way to argue for Carter as the real, down-home, no-nonsense woman she says she is.

Playing down her self-confessed bleached-blonde good looks in a pair of faded jeans and a billowy man's shirt, and floating around the stage and into the audience barefoot, Carter combined the effervescence of a former cheerleader and student-body president with the adventuresomeness of a daughter of a rockabilly rebel, all of which she is.

Mixing up favorites from her best-selling debut album with songs from her upcoming, sophomore effort, Carter touched a variety of musical and emotional bases, rooted in country-music tradition but freely borrowing from mainstream pop, soul and rock music.

Carter and her six-piece band took the stage with their uptempo, country-soul hit, "How Do I Get There," whose chord progression recalls the Bee Gees' "Islands in the Stream" by way of Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

Strapping on a mandolin -- she was to play that, acoustic and electric guitar throughout the evening -- Carter launched into "You Still Shake Me, Baby" off her upcoming album, a country-boogie number which, like several of her new songs, suggested Carter intends to stretch her style in a manner that might raise eyebrows in Nashville while it gains her a wider audience. The hard-rocking riff that fueled the song seemed borrowed from ZZ Top or Ted Nugent, and a complex bridge came right out of ELO.

Carter grabbed the audience on her third number and didn't let go, figuratively and literally, when she selected a lucky and only slightly embarrassed teen-age male fan from the first row to slow-dance with while she sang her hit ballad, "Count Me In." This was just the first of several such gestures throughout the evening by which Carter revealed herself to be a generous, consummate entertainer.

It was gestures like these, as well as her seemingly sincere, between-song patter, that made Carter's show a success, as much as songs such as "Absence of the Heart," a minor-key, pop-soul ballad a la Carly Simon, or "The Train," her attempt at Lynyrd Skynyrd-style Southern rock.

Carter's band included a fiddle, two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards, and was more of a hard-rocking, honky-tonk bar-band than a slick Nashville group, suggesting the frontwoman truly has designs on staking out authentic territory of her own. It's early in her career, and her music lacks distinction, but Carter's show suggested huge potential.

Singer-songwriter Michael Jerling, based in Saratoga, N.Y., warmed up the crowd for Carter with a set of his original folk ballads and story- songs.

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