Chris Isaak

 ((House of Blues; 800 capacity; $ 25))

By PHIL GALLO

Presented in-house. Reviewed May 22, 1995. Never a surprise, never a disappointment, Chris Isaak shimmied, swayed and even hippy-hippy-shaked his way through his opulent tales of heartbreak at a sold-out House of Blues just hours before the release of his new Reprise disc, "Forever Blue."
 
Band: Isaak, Hershel Yatovitz, Rowland Salley, Kenny Johnson, Johnny Reno.
 

Warner/Reprise rolled out the -- in this case -- blue carpet for Isaak's showcase; the restaurant level was closed preshow to all but media, friends and Madonna as the singer (dressed in an electric blue suit) bounced between a host of camera crews and interviewers.

The outside back of the club and the nearby Tower Records -- where Isaak gave an 11:30 p.m. in-store performance and signed copies of the album into the ayem -- were bathed in deep blue lights.

The investment shows the label's belief that Isaak can transcend the core crowd that was paying close attention to the singer's moves even before David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" established Isaak's "Wicked Game" as the left-field hit of 1990.

Isaak's show emphasized more of the upbeat numbers from his four-album catalog, most of which are lyrically within one degree of separation from a key line in his new single "Somebody's Cryin' ": "You don't love me like I love you."

Musically, Isaak takes his cues from an abundance of sources -- Southern soul guitar, Mexican norteno music, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, surf guitar and even Woody Guthrie's guitar riff from the dust-bowl ballad "Tom Joad"-- and applies each individually to his silky-soft rock 'n' roll.

He paces himself expertly, positing ballads after five bright mid-tempo tunes peppered by various influences. He caps that brief segment with "Wicked Game," before heading into the spunkier material that sends the crowd home thinking what a delightful rocker they have just witnessed.

Isaak, a genuinely relaxed performer, galvanized the aud by pulling a dozen women onstage to dance to "Diddley Diddley Daddy" before venturing into the crowd with sax man Johnny Reno.

A natural comedian, his between-song stories balanced the clever and the crude -- a necessary divergence from the melancholy of his music. Perhaps someday, the ultimate compliment for a Chris Isaak show might be one of the oldest cliches in the book: "I laughed, I cried."