Bob Malone }-- Reviews

Think of Bob Malone as the lone Jerry Lee Lewis in a sea of James Taylors.

The singer-songwriter-pianist, a Jefferson Township native who now lives in Los Angeles, plays venues that are typically headlined by modern folkies -- the kind who strum acoustic guitars as they croon sensitive love songs and earnest protest anthems. But for much of his solo show, Saturday night at the Watchung Arts Center in Watchung, he backed himself with fast, boisterous piano riffs, and seemed more concerned with laughs than poetry.

Sometimes his playing was reminiscent of Lewis' hyperactive boogie-woogie. More frequently, it was in the tradition of New Orleans keyboard masters like Professor Longhair and Dr. John.

"I was born a Yankee, but God was only fooling around/'Cause when I finally found my feet on Rampart Street, I knew I'd found my real hometown," he sang in "Born a Yankee."

Malone, who also performs in New York on Wednesday and in Jersey City on Friday, has released four albums on his own Delta Moon label since 1996. His most recent effort, 2003's "Malone Alone," is a live CD, capturing the irrepressible energy of his concert act.

He's not just a performer, but a showman. He wore a three-piece suit Saturday -- pretty spiffy by folk-circuit standards. His voice was a bit hoarse, but he still belted out each song at maximum volume. As he was playing, he stomped on the floor so hard that pieces of the ceiling in the room below him came loose. He found out about this during the show's intermission, and bragged about it in the second set.

He is not incapable of sensitivity and sincerity. "Meet Me In Manhattan" was a sweet little love song, and "Gold Rush Inn" was the kind of world-weary look at life on the road that all modern folkies write. (He introduced it semi-apologetically). He closed the show with a dazzling cover of Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up In Blue"; building a new piano arrangement around the familiar melody and singing in a tender, soulful way, he made this classic song seem new.

Still, most of his material was rowdier, and peppered with sly jokes.

"Just 'Cause I Sing the Blues (Don't Mean I Want To)," for instance, had the trappings of a traditional blues song. But, as the title implied, it came with a twist. "I don't think pain is so romantic ... It ain't like I stood up and volunteered to have all these evil women chasing me," Malone sang.

He introduced another song by saying "As far as I know, this is the only blues song with the word 'ennui' in it."

"Like It Or Not" was about love between two unsympathetic characters ("We can't go on hurting people forever/We'd do all our future exes a favor if we got together"). He gleefully played a rogue in "I Know He's Your Husband (But He Don't Know That I'm Your Man)," and impersonated The Grinch in a cover of Dave MacKenzie's "I Don't Like Little Kids."

"I don't like little kids/Don't like 'em now and I never did/Let 'em go play in the street and have fun/You know I didn't even like 'em when I used to be one," he sang. But his jaunty piano riffs and cartoonishly growling vocals suggested not only that he was kidding, but that he's still something of a big kid himself.

Malone is double-billed with Dave's True Story at The Living Room, 154 Ludlow St., New York, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, and with Kate Jacobs at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Justice William Brennan Court House Coffeehouse Series, 583 Newark Ave., Jersey City. $5 suggested donation for New York; call (212) 533-7235 or visit www.livingroomny.com. $10 ($5 for students and seniors) for Jersey City; call (800) 542-7894 or visit www.hudsoncountynj.org.