DOWN HOME DUO: CARTER & CONNELLEY: MUSIC TO BELIEVE IN (MUSIC REVIEW)

Thursday night, millions of people tuned into the MTV Video Awards, a glitzy extravaganza at Radio City Music Hall. Fifty people were at the University Center listening to the Southern Illinois folkies Carter & Connelley.

The contrast is stark not only in numerical terms but in the differences in the music. There's no smoke and mirrors to Carter & Connelley, simply songs they believe in.

There may not be much money and fame in that. There is honor.

Tom Connelley, the tall one, is the technical director at the SIU Student Center. Curt Carter is an environmental educator. Their voices blend like strong coffee and sweet cream in original songs about essential needs like a river to call your own or a place to call home or learning to live together.

Joined by bassist Jeff Maring Thursday night, the two played a 2 1/2-hour concert of socially and environmentally conscious songs that rarely preach and most often reach for the universal truths to be learned from rivers and mountains and for the humor in the human situation.

As one of the John Prine songs they sing observes, "It's a big old goofy world."

Both are deft guitarists and trade off high harmonies and lead vocals without giving anything away. Connelley's "Where the Gravel Meets the Hard Road" is a poetic and poignant song about departures. Carter sang a similarly touching song about the meaning behind a sign on a pole barn that reads "Built by friends."

Another Carter song called "The Shack," inspired by an ecology professor who moved to the country to listen for "the universal roar," was mesmerizing.

Their show isn't all consciousness raising. One C&C song is about the culinary possibilities of having a five-pound possum between your headlights. Another titled "The Gospel Didn't Show" is a rollicking bluegrass ramble through the difficulties of finding salvation.

Despite the fact that Carter & Connelley don't sell millions of CDs, they seem awfully happy and have a rare talent for making their audience feel the same way.

"Ooh baby, it's a big old goofy world."