“Wicked Game.” That’s the song that not only made Chris Isaak a star but cast a shadow over his 19-year career. Lilting, pristinely sung, haunting and sorrowful, it’s the kind of arresting recording that pretty much defines who the singer is and what an audience can ever expect from him. Two other grand examples of “the one-hit wonder” syndrome are Big Country’s “In A Big Country” and Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” But unlike Big Country (who were doomed to make a few albums that repeated “In A Big Country’s” Grammy-nominated sound into obscurity until lead vocalist Stuart Adamson’s suicide), Chapman and Isaak kept releasing daring and idiosyncratic music that went beyond there debuts. Both have had hits since then but living down or over those debuts hasn’t happened or is likely to.
Isaak has turned his talents into certified celebrity of a sorts. Apart from his recording career he’s had a go as a semi-pro boxer while popping up in Jonathon Demme films (as a SWAT commander cornering Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs, and as a clown assassin at a fast-food joint in Married to the Mob), his own sitcom on Showtime, in John Waters’ agonizingly unfunny A Dirty Shame and on his current talk show on The Biography Channel—all of which contradict his dreamy heartthrob looks and melancholic music. In short, how can you take this guy seriously?
The answer is you have to take him at face value, as both a broken hearted Romeo and a wisecracking smartass. His new album, Mr. Lucky (Reprise Records), is exactly what we’ve come to expect from him musically but that’s certainly not unwelcome. Isaak has a formidable vocal talent; Elvis Presley’s bottom range with a seemingly effortless cathedral touching falsetto and the dramatic finesse of Patsy Cline that borders on torch. His oeuvre slides toward bluesy rock with mondo reverb and a pop sheen while the tone of his voice harbors vulnerability and romantic despair. The guy makes misery sound damn cozy.
Mr. Lucky, like its 11 predecessors, is perfectly modulated roots-blues-rock and has i’s share of breezy rockers like “Best I Ever Had.” But the good stuff is in the heartbreakers. “We Let Her Down” and “We Lost Our Way” are full of regret and self incriminating resentment, but the killer is “You Don’t Cry Like I Do,” a break-up song perched right after the “shouting stage” when Isaak’s wounded protagonist realizes that his departing lover isn’t nearly as torn up over there split as he is. It’s cruel because it implies some things that don’t need to be said (that she never loved him nearly as much as he loves her). Dramatic to a fault, a smidge over the top and emotionally insulting, “You Don’t Cry” is both brutal and vulnerable, pitiable and cruel. Isaak could stop singing forever this moment and he’d be remembered for eternity for that one.
Isaak’s sold-out New Year’s Day gig at the House of Blues was hardly a sobfest, though. He and his band, resplendent in matching black suits with flaming red and blue embroidery, looked like a high-end honky-tonk bunch playing the Catskills, but were anything but that. Isaak balanced the show with nonstop wisecracks that made this gig a jack-in-the-box full of verbal slapstick, spontaneous charm, goofy choreography, powerhouse vocals and a touch of bawdiness—none of which got in the way of Isaak ripping the roof off the sucker. “You Don’t Cry Like I Do” was spectacularly over the top and worth the price of admission (not a dry eye in the house) while “Speak of the Devil” and “Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing” were serrated and hard-bop rock with attitude. On a letter-perfect impromptu version of Presley’s “Love Me Tender,” where Isaak ventured out into the audience he quipped, “People are touching me all over…and I LIKE IT!!!” And that’s an idea of how this show went with one knockout surprise after another: bassist Rowland Salley’s vocals on his Grammy-winning “Killing the Blues,” Isaak’s respectful reading of Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely;” a jolly toss off of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You (to Want Me) ;” surprise joyrides through forgotten chestnuts “Blue Hotel” and “Going Nowhere;” percussionist Rafael Padilla constantly stopping the show; and an intoxicating take on “Wicked Game.” Maybe Isaak is a clown in his “Howdy Doody Hair” (his words), but he’s a hell of a smart, talented clown. Take him seriously? No problem.