I'm a sap, and here's proof

I first saw *Chris Isaak* at the Anti-Club in L.A. in the mid-'80s. This was an alternative night spot that was located way off the main drag (if L.A. ever had one) and attracted all kinds of acts. Isaak was on tour promoting his first album, Silvertone, and I had read something about his sound that piqued my interest. I wasn't disappointed. *Chris Isaak* has everything you would expect to find in a '50s or '60s, pre-Beatles American rocker - catchy, melodic songs, a great voice, rakish good looks, and a killer pompadour. While this last has subsided a bit over the last few years, nothing else has changed. Very few male vocalists would even dare to go where Isaak goes in almost every song - deep into *Roy Orbison* territory, alternating between lilting, vulnerable high notes and gutsy, powerful, drawn-out notes that would put almost any other contemporary vocalist to shame. All of that said, the lyrics tend to be sappy. That's the only word I can think of that aptly describes his lyrical style. I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it completely fits his chosen milieu of early rock 'n roll, despite the fact that his more recent work has been somewhat updated. Isaak's songs are unapologetically vulnerable. Take, for example, _Let Me Down Easy_, which, at risk of sounding repetitious, is strongly reminiscent in tone to *Roy Orbison's* _Pretty Woman_ - a man completely taken by a woman's beauty to the point of feeling inferior, but also compelled to approach her, even at risk of being cruelly rejected. How many artists today can write directly, in no uncertain terms, about a subject like that? More importantly, who can't relate to such plain-spoken sentiment? It's always been the stuff of good music, in the hands of the right songwriter.So, I'm a sap. I like *Chris Isaak*, for all the right reasons.