Zac Brown Band performs an ear-pleasing set

The key to Zac Brown Band's mega-success with country lovers and jam-band enthusiasts got summed up before its sold-out show (they estimate it was their biggest crowd ever - 16,000-plus) on Friday at Camden's Susquehanna Bank Center.

During a video of ZBB at play, Brown - wearing his ever-present wool cap - stared into the camera and recalled toting around James Taylor's Greatest Hits in his knapsack while fellow teens flaunted Nirvana CDs. The Georgia youth didn't care about being grunge-era cool; he dug Taylor's plain-spoken lyricism, flat nasal clarity, and simple, pretty melodies.

Much of Sweet Baby James' influence is heard in Brown's present-day aesthetic: the nuance-less vocals (Brown's are higher and fluid), the direct-address poetry geared toward romance and roads traveled. Yearning ballads such as "Colder Weather" (from You Get What You Give, due next month) took pages from JT's songbook. Brown even sat at the front of his back-porch-themed stage to sing and strum "Fire and Rain."

But with his long-standing band beside him, his sound was bigger than Taylor's, for better and worse, filled with broader lyrical and musical themes that aimed to please.

ZBB was best sawing quickly through the C&W continuum. The bawdy, galloping "Whiskey's Gone" and the thumping "Settle Me Down" found the ensemble furiously tackling mandolins and fiddles. ZBB's fascination with reggae-lined country ("Where the Boat Leaves From" paired with Bob Marley's "One Love") and Spanish-tinged soul ("Neon" with an intro/outro from Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?") worked shockingly well.

The let-down: Most of Brown's ballads were saccharine and devoid of sharp melodies. New tunes like "No Hurry" were tiny and turgid.

The doldrums didn't last. Brown made his opening acts (moody Wood Brothers, quirkily comic Gary Mule Deer) part of his set in revue-like fashion. And while it may have been corny to tie a howling gospel version of "America the Beautiful" to his hiccupping "Chicken Fried," with lyrics about loving "Cold beer on a Friday night/ A pair of jeans that fit just right," the effect was oddly magical.