*** BR5-49

COAST TO COAST LIVE

(Arista)

With a high-energy amalgam of ornery sounds traceable to folks ranging from Bob Wills to Charlie Daniels, BR549 have earned themselves a lot of fans within Nashville and without by jamming on some well-chosen covers and originals in the fine tradition of countrified irony and humor. The quintet's latest collection rounds up 40 minutes of tunes recorded while the band toured with the Brian Setzer Orchestra in 1999. Guitarists Chuck Mead and Gary Bennett take twangy turns on vocals while the band rock Gram Parsons's "Big Mouth Blues" and Daniels's longhair redneck anthem "Uneasy Rider" -- kind of a blend of the rockabilly staple "Hot Rod Lincoln" and Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue." Mead and Don Herron, who plays fiddle, steel guitar, and mandolin, get into it pretty good on several numbers, and the hollow boom of "Smilin' " Jay McDowell's upright bass leads into the only slow tune on the set, Wills's "Brain Cloudy Blues." Snippets of between-song banter are included to underscore the feeling conveyed by wayward lines like "I'll apologize if you just call me" (from "Pourin' Pain"). It's all pretty joky, but it's also real lively, and nobody gets hurt.

--Bill Kisliuk