Crazy Horse Steak House

Hal Ketchum doesn't come to Nashville by the usual country roads. Born and raised in the Adirondacks of New York state, he played drums in R & B bands as a youth, then moved into the Austin singer-songwriter scene of the early '80s--Lyle Lovett, Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt et al. Add Van Morrison and Jonathan Edwards influences to the usual country foundation of Haggard and Jones, throw in a bit of literary sensibility and you have the makings of something slightly different.

For years, Charlie Daniels has been crowing "The South's Gonna Do It Again." When the singer-fiddler-guitarist first recorded that song back in 1975, he was talking about how Southern boogie bands such as his, the Allman Brothers and the Marshall Tucker Band were on the move, in some manner echoing the way that the South was, shall we say, asserting itself back at Ft. Sumter in 1861.

A grizzled and gifted veteran of country music, MERLE HAGGARD, begins a two-night stand at the Crazy Horse Steak House and Saloon in Santa Ana. See WHAT GOES ON.

* Tickets will be available Sept. 7 for the Who's Oct. 25 performance of 'Quadrophenia" at the Pond of Anaheim. . . . Tickets go on sale today for Steve Wariner's Oct. 7 show at the Crazy Horse Steak House in Santa Ana.