The Morning Call from Allentown, Pennsylvania • 68

ASS THE MORNING CALL, SATURDAY MARCH 10NM RECOUPS I IrWi.hvri lift I I mm if i1 A Jo-el Sonnier winning converts -I lit I 4 Kentucky HeadHunters naughty, not bad. -1(7 'wl A THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS: Pickin' On Nashvilie (Mercury) Such a savage name for such refined sensibilities) The HeadHunters two sets of siblings plus a cousin, some of whom were in a band called the Itchy Brothers have been heralded for their "timeless mixture" of country and blues-rock by just about everyone with access to a word processor. I like their debut pretty much, too. But it is kind of tepid and weight in spots, like Alabama on a good day, not that urban bumpkins will notice. My two favorite tracks are cover tunes.

Bill Mon- -roe's "Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine" and Don Gib- son's "Oh Lonesome Me," which the HeadHunters do Chuck Berry style. But the band wrote the three I like next-best the Georgia Satellites-flavored shuffle "Dumas Walker," about a place where marbles tournaments are held; the Rank File-like "My Daddy Was a Milkman," and the slick Chicago blues-flavored "Some Folks Like to Steal." I'm not one to be pickin' on anybody, but the HeadHunters think being naughty is the same as being bad. Trust me, guys, it's not the same thing. Len Righi JO-EL SONNIER: Have A Little Faith (RCA) "Faith" should win a lot of converts for this Louisiana singeraccordion player, who converts Cajun into country (or vice versa) on his impressive second major-label release. Sonnier only wrote one of the nine songs, the Carl PerkinsBilly Swan sound-alike "Ooh, Ooh, Ooh," making his pretive abilities all the more phenomenal.

Sonnier gives a Tex-Mex reading to Dennis Linde's "The Scene of the (The crime? A broken heart, of course.) On his country hit, "If Your Heart Should Ever Roll This Way Again," which deserves a Title of the Week" award, Sonnier uses his ac-cordiorfas a backdrop for traditional guitar twang. The torch is carried in two John Hiatt ballads, the pedal steel-flavored. Van Honey" style "I'll Never Get Over You" and the rock-edged title cut. Side two starts with an hurtin' song, "The Hurt In My propelled by a sinister bass line and Elvis approximations. Dyla-nesque darkness pervades the bare "Walls," a Hollies original written by Allan Clarke and Spencer Proffer.

Delbert McClinton's "Solid-Gold Plated Fool," with polished female backing vocals, and "Evangeline Special," a traditional zydeco tune sung in patois, are added spice to this eclectic gumbo. Yum. Paul Willistein A Sweethearts Of The Rodeo A Marty Stuart only fair to middling A Mac McAnally strong vital signs DASH RIP ROCK: Not Of This World (Mammoth) I don't know if it's the work of the devil (better Cardinal O'Connor to check) or producer Jim Dickinson, but this Louisiana roots-rock trio sounds harder and nastier than ever on its third LP. The women in "World's" 12 songs are mostly faithless or manipulative sirens, and singer Bill Davis is driven into a bilious rage on most every song. -On first listen, the cranked-up guitars and cranky sirtg-ing are just obnoxious; after a while, though, the orneri-ness seems less a pose and more like the real thing.

So when a gentle, lilting song like "Little Girl Blue' comes along, it's all the more effective. Side two doesn't have the cohesrveness of side one, but if it's scruff -of-the-neck manhandling you're after, welcome to Dash Rip Rock's "World." Len Righi (Dash Rip Rock plays tonight at J.C. Dobbs, Philadelphia.) JANE CH3LD (Warner Bros.) L.A.-based Child straddles the fence between Cost-punk and funk. Her de-ut LP is an honest, if eccentric, collection of songs which deal with topics like the pace of the human race To The Real the damaging effect of drugs Mr. obsession My Religion Now," and cheating Got News For Child, who wears her hair cropped in front and braided Bo Derek-style on the sides and back (one braid is attached to her nose with a ring), wrote, performed and produced nine of the 10 tracks.

(The one she didn't is a hodgepodge of psychedelic voices and noises.) But before you run out and buy this album, don't be fooled into thinking all the songs are as perky as the VH-1 hit "Don't Wanna Fall In Love." Many of her lyrics are intriguing, but Child has an ax or two to grind, and the music is at times plodding. Ernie Long MIRACLE ROOM (Bar None) Your worst (Tangerine Dream) nightmare? Perhaps, if melody and linear thinking count for anything. This New York City (by way of Austin, Texas) trio makes its guitars shimmer and writhe, its chords toll, and percussion rumble and thunder. Sometimes there are little electronic yelps and whines. Only two of the four songs on this EP have real lyrics, and you can't make out a lot of them.

But when you can (on "Mother of Destruction" and serial murder and mental crackups seem to be the topics. Electrified crates, water jugs, drills, propane tanks, doors and pieces of metal are part of Miracle Room's furnishings on stage. To paraphrase Louis Adamic: "Listening to Miracle Room is like licking honey off a thorn." Len Righi (Miracle Room plays Monday night at Khyber Pass, Philadelphia.) A Jimmie Dale Gilmore deserves attention larized by Joe Ely), and the beautiful "When the Nights Are Cold." Gilmore and his excellent band, the Continental Drifters, know their way around heartache and compromise Hardwood but they don't pass up a chance for fun A fine LP like this should get Gilmore the attention he deserves. Diana Valois SWEETHEARTS OF THE RODEO: Buffalo Zone (Columbia) If the name of this twosome sounds familiar, it should singers Kristina Arnold and Janis Gill took their group name from the classic Byrds country-rock LP, "Sweetheart Of The deo." Now they've become so bold as to almost exactly reproduce the artwork of that Byrds LP for the front of their own. With that kind of chutzpah you'd expect a work of similar strength and flavor, right? Wrong.

Many of the album's 10 songs focus on primarily acoustic guitar work backing the vocals of the two. Dobro, fiddle and pedal steel, guitars help spice up the country flavor, but the' big flaw here is extreme simplicity of the songs, which are mostly about affairs of the heart (a third voice with the presence of a Dolly Parton or Linda Ronstadt wouldn't have hurt, either). The songs' accessibility index ranges from fair to middling, but I'd be surprised if this LP appeals to more than hard-core country vocal fans. Harry Fisher strings and ivory or writing songs for other country singers. But he turns a nice lyric, he knows about timing, and he has a way of handling harmonies that other singer-songwriters don't have.

The result is a fresh sound. And "Simple Life" is a good record. The words to "Back Where I Come From" are a treat. Listen for the competing harmonies, and rythyms in the title song. The sounds boast in "The Invisible Man." There's a nod to tradition in "She's All I Got.

Going." Country music owes its health to fellows like McAnally. Based on "Simple Life," its vital signs are strong. Dave Seaman JIMMIE DALE GILMORE (Hightone) Gilmore has been around for a long time, but this Texan's first solo LP, "Fair Square," was released only two years ago. ft made USA Today's Top Five Country list, and Gilmore's earlier work with the Flatlanders has beep reissued. On his -second LP, Gilmore captures the "Saturday Social" ambiance of the '50s, when lots of talented, down-home cowboy bands played in the Valley, filling the summer nights with cool steel pickin' and hot fiddlin'.

Sounding much like Hank Williams Sr. (the gentleman cowboy, not the blue-collar cliche Jr. has become), Gilmore delivers upbeat covers, such as Mel Tillis' "Honky Tonk Sonq" and Ricky Skaggs' "Up To You," and plenty of his own frank ballads, tike "Deep Eddy Blues," "Dallas" (popu- sion of the late Del Shannon's "I Go To Pieces." Southern Pacific also is joined by the Beach Boys on the surfer chestnut "GTO" and by Carlene Carter on "Time's Up," an upbeat, sure-fire winner of a single. "County Line" won't be the end of the line for this veteran-smart quartet. Would that the same could be said for "Fast Movin' Train" by Restless Heart.

"Train," like the rest of the records from this collection of anonymous Nashville studio types, is so bland it makes Alabama seem as quirky as Talking Heads. Restless Heart can sound like honey with its prefab harmonies, but alas, the material shows that it's only the band's hearts and not its creative impulses that are restless. "Train" taps all the usual country wells Hollywood folk with "Dancy's Dream;" "virile woman" tearjerkers with "Long Lost Friend;" soulless with "When Somebody Loves You," and midtempo neo-rockers. "Fast Movin' Train" has bolted onto the country charts, but this locomotive has done run dry of coal. 77m Darragh (Restless Heart performs Friday night at the Valley Forge Music Fair, Devon.) MAC McANALLY: Simple Life (Warner Bros.) McAnally starts off the '90s doing something he didn't do much of in the last decade recording his own music.

He spent much of the '80s either plunking first record for MCA (third overall) is spotty. The title track isn't as wild as you might expect, although there are some nice guitar breaks, which in later songs, like "Western Girls," take on a boss Duane Eddy twang. Best cuts are "The Wild One" (by Merle Kilgore) and Stuart's own real-l-l-l-y slow tearjerker, "Since I Don't Have You." "The Coal Mine Blues" should please Stevie Ray Vaughn fans, and Stuart's cover of Joe Ely's "Me and Billy the Kid" is a natural. But fully half of Stuart's LP fades into routine court-try-radio fodder. Diana Valois SOUTHERN PACIFIC: County Line (Warner Bros.) RESTLESS HEART: Fast Movin' Train (RCA) The only similarity between these two country-pop groups are the words Restless Heart." They describe a) a pleasant tune from a thoroughly enjoyable new record and b) a crock of mush.

Southern Pacific is the former. The band is an amalgamation of former Doobies and Creedence members, plus keyboardist Kurt Howell. "County Line" is a good-natured collection of songs clearly aimed at the Adult Contemporary market, which Southern Pacific cracked with last year's popular "Zuma." The band touches all the bases straight pop with "Anyway The Wind Blows," languid ballad with "Beyond Love" and a cappella with a ver MARTY STUART: Hillbilly Rock (MCA) Stuart joined Lester Flatt's band as a mandolinist and guitarist when he was 13, and later backed Johnny Cash, so you know his credentials are good. But his.