Recap Jamey Johnson at Riverside Theater

A wide-ranging, 25-song behemoth, rooted in country music tradition but not beholden to it, Jamey Johnson’s The Guitar Song is one of the best, most ambitious records of 2010, and certainly one of the most important releases of its genre in the last several years. Johnson pulls off an incredible feat seemingly unmatched by his peers: He feels like a throwback to early-’70s outlaw country, and yet his songs don’t seem out of place on modern country radio. (The Guitar Song topped the Bilboard country chart this fall.) Johnson can cover Hank Williams without seeming self-consciously retro, and pen stone-classic steel-guitar weepies like “Cover Your Eyes” as well as unabashed junk like Trace Adkins’ “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” (The Guitar Song is so good you can’t even hold that against him.)

There was no “Badonkadonk” on Thursday night at Riverside Theater, as Johnson stood stoically at the microphone like a backwoods Rob Zombie in front of his crack Southern-rock six-piece band. He never swapped out his beat-up acoustic guitar during the lengthy performance, which covered a good bulk of The Guitar Song as well as his 2008 breakthrough The Lonesome Song and a collection of well-chosen covers. Sounding like a mellower Waylon Jennings, or perhaps Kris Kristofferson after an all-night whiskey and coke bender, Johnson began every song singing in his low and surprisingly expressive baritone rumble, strumming out guitar chords until his band picked up the melody that he was playing. Even catchy numbers like “Lonely At The Top” and “Playing The Part” didn’t immediately reveal themselves, but by the choruses Johnson’s hulking charisma always succeeded at drawing you in.

The Guitar Song highlight “Can’t Cash My Checks” was a knockout live, demonstrating Johnson’s knack for penning populist anthems that feel personal and sincere without being pandering. That also goes for the glowering “Poor Man Blues,” a cold-blooded statement of blue-collar resentment that says as much about the desperate protagonist as it does about the wealthy “sorry ass” that’s about to be stomped.

Johnson’s threat came via a slumping, almost jazzy delivery that hearkens back to Willie Nelson, a debt he acknowledged with back-to-back, fantastic covers of “Walkin’” and “Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground.” For many country singers, covering Willie Nelson would seem like an undeserved co-option of another man’s unquestioned integrity. But with Johnson, it just seemed like the next step in the country music continuum.