The Netherlands' exported soul singer is no Dutch treat

Waylon

At Revival
in Toronto on Tuesday

There's a scene in an old episode of The Larry Sanders Show in which Elvis Costello is introduced to Jeffrey Tambor's boorish Hank character. "Hank, this is Elvis," says Garry Shandling's character. To which a disbelieving Hank replies with some disgust, "I don't think so."

Just as Costello is no Elvis Presley, Waylon, the country/soul-singing prospect from Holland, is no Waylon Jennings. He's no James Brown or Otis Redding either, no matter how hard he tried at the hen party at the Revival club on Tuesday, the second of four Canadian dates for the parachuted-in performer who finishes at Vancouver's 560 Club Thursday. This blue-eyed singer tried southern-fried R&B, tried CMT-worthy rock - even tried a little tenderness.

But when he sang "papa's got a brand new bag," he lied. Waylon's bag is made of carpet, it ain't new and it holds not much more than a pair of gambling dice and a well-thumbed beginner's guide to Real American Music. The Holland's Got Talent winner can sing - gutsy and scratchy-throated on the pleading soul, smoother on the Nashville rock - but if he means to roll the bones for a shot of big-time North American success, he needs songs.

Wicked Ways, his debut album's soul-popped title track and lead single, was indeed wicked at Revival, but it's nothing we haven't heard already from England's James Morrison. After Wicked Ways, Waylon and his four-piece bar band left the stage, returning for the closing Until We Meet Again, a slow, soul-shattered ballad that marries Redding with Sam Cooke. "Until we meet again" could be a promise, but after this show it felt more like an open question.

A hundred and thirty or so gawkers - a fair amount of them women - had shown up to see the most peculiar of pop animals: the unknown sensation. Waylon (born 30 years ago as Willem Bijkerk) takes his mono-name from Jennings, the late outlaw-country legend who, reportedly, served as some sort of mentor to the young Dutch singer. (By the way, this Waylon speaks accent-free English; if he's a full-blooded Dutchman, then I'm Rutger Hauer.)

The singer, recently signed to the illustrious Motown label and coming off a European tour with Whitney Houston, opened his set holding an acoustic guitar, upon which he strummed the minor chords of a pair of soulful country-rock numbers in the style of Scottish-Canadian star Johnny Reid.

Later came Waylon's capable but unremarkable covers of Redding, Brown and Stevie Wonder material, which may wow the windmill people, but won't blow anyone away over here.

Waylon told us he had grown up on country music, and that he lived in Nashville for a while. And then he dedicated an earnest ballad to Memphis, Tenn., a city he had once lost his heart to, we learned.

The late Southerner Jim Dickinson - or maybe it was Ronnie Hawkins - used to warn young players to stay clear of Memphis, because that city had street-sweepers who would be stars anywhere else. With that in mind, I say this: Waylon, son, how are you with a broom?