POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Night in the Old West : Michael Martin Murphey Ropes in Crazy Horse Crowd

SANTA ANA —  During Michael Martin Murphey’s show at the Crazy Horse Monday night, the wooden cowboys and Indians on the wall must have been ecstatic. Murphey played an entire set of their kind of music--real Western music. He even nodded to them at one point, noting that “this is a place where you can play a cowboy song and feel at home.”

Sure enough, his 75-minute set brought the audience right into the world of Western ballads, cowboy poetry, Western history and life on the range. Murphey had no trouble enlisting the crowd for his trail drive: The audience was with him from his first number, “Cowboy Logic.”

As Murphey would sing “if life’s a fence,” the audience would shout the finish (“mend it!”). On the upbeat songs, like “Yellow Rose of Texas,” the crowd joined in with hand claps, and throughout the evening, folks shouted comments and encouragement.

The relationship between Murphey and his fans had been considerably more strained the last time he played the Crazy Horse, two years ago. He was on the verge then of releasing his album “Cowboy Songs,” and all he wanted to sing were the songs from it. All the audience wanted, though, were his country pop hits such as “Wildfire,” “What’s Forever For” and “Long Line of Love.” The result was a standoff, somewhat akin to the climax of “High Noon.”

But “Cowboy Songs,” though it didn’t come close to unseating such chart busters as Garth Brooks’ “Ropin’ the Wind,” turned out to be a deeply influential album. It inspired a sequel last winter (“Cowboy Christmas”) and encouraged Murphey’s record label, Warner Bros., to launch a line of cowboy albums, Warner Western. Obviously, Murphey had tapped into something. (“I’m often asked what’s the difference between country music and Western music,” Murphey said. He paused and explained, “Western music is great.”)

Monday night, most of the songs in Murphey’s 12-song set were from “Cowboy Songs” and this time, there was only one garbled cry for “Wildfire” late in the show. Murphey also played the traditional ballad “Billy the Kid,” which he said he would include on his upcoming album, “Cowboy Songs III.” He didn’t do a single one of his old hits.

Even without wavering from the cowboy theme, he kept things unpredictable and lively, alternating between fast songs, slow songs and fairly lengthy spoken interludes. His five-piece band, which included his son Ryan on guitar, provided excellent backup. With acoustic bass, fiddle, banjo and accordion (played by Joey Miskulin), the musicians gave the songs an old-time feel without sacrificing contemporary smoothness.

Murphey acted out many of the numbers. He was a high-stepping cowboy at the barn dance during “Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail” and a mourner for a fallen comrade during “Streets of Laredo.”

He also took a few digs at country’s young Turks. During “Cowboy Logic,” he improvised the line: “If you saw three men in a pickup, how could you tell which was Garth Brooks, which was George Strait and which was the real cowboy?” A little later, to “I Ride an Old Paint,” Murphey added: “Leave K.D. Lang behind.” (Vegetarian Lang’s “Meat Stinks!” ads have made her persona non grata in Cowtown).

Murphey even managed to fit a Western rap into his set. “Cowboys couldn’t haul Fender guitars on the trail,” he explained, “and some of them had horrible singing voices so they’d have to talk the lyrics.” He then proceeded to make a hilarious rap song out of “The Old Chisholm Trail.”

“Friends,” Murphey he said at the end of the evening, “it has been a source of constant joy to me to be able to be your wandering minstrel of the West.” For those who love Western music, the feeling is mutual. Murphey’s revival of the form is the next best thing to seeing Roy Rogers and Gene Autry riding the range again.