POP MUSIC REVIEW : LOVETT PUTS THE CITY IN COUNTRY

When was the last time you heard baroque cello at a country music concert? Well, that’s just what Lyle Lovett employed as a lead-in to his very traditional-sounding country song “Cowboy Man” at the Roxy on Tuesday.

Opening for Chris Hillman’s Desert Rose Band, the long, lean Texan for the most part stood somewhere between those two styles: an urbane cowboy with a sound that’s generally more uptown than down-home. Backed by a nine-piece band that included a saxophone section and a black woman singer as well as the cellist, Lovett displayed a bluesy musical bent and lyrics with a jaundiced, often misogynist view that frequently drifted closer to Tom Waits than to Ricky Skaggs.

But it was Lovett’s great material (his ultimate breakup song, “God Will,” is one of the best country entries of the decade) that attracted and impressed the heavily industry crowd (including Elton John, Bernie Taupin and Bruce Hornsby). How he will go down in the country heartland is another matter.

There’s no doubt how Hillman’s Desert Rose Band will do there. The L.A.-based sextet follows a straight line, stretching from Buck Owens and Merle Haggard through the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers (both of which Hillman was a founding member of) to the current country-roots revival of Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam et al.

Though the band’s sound is not particularly inventive, it’s still California country at its best: classic harmonies from Hillman, Herb Pedersen and John Jorgenson, liberal use of material from such esteemed country and bluegrass sources as Owens and the Louvin Brothers, and enough rock punch (mostly from Jorgenson, a gifted, nimble guitarist) to give a contemporary aura. And not only that, the band looks mah -velous with its flashy custom suits!