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On the road to revolution, Michelle Shocked has taken a sharp turn to the right.

The onetime solo acoustic folksinger has grown tired of “preaching to the converted” and says Marilyn Monroe came to her in a dream and told her to “entertain the troops.”

That’s exactly what Shocked did at The Warfield Saturday night, as she and a crack band rolled through a set filled with good-time roadhouse boogie and New Orleans jazz—much to the surprise of her cult followers, who came expecting left-leaning folk songs delivered in a Texas twang.

But no one complained about the music, which was hot stuff from note one to the final goodbye. Shocked’s band turned up the heat on material from her third album, Captain Swing, and had heads nodding in time throughout the one hour, 40-minute set.

Shocked did include a superb acoustic break—with just her, her guitar, and the audience—which in many ways was the highlight of the evening. Her a cappella version of Steve Goodman’s “Ballad of Penny Evans” was a riveting look at the stateside casualties of the Vietnam War and was her most heartfelt number.

When the band was on, Shocked had the perpetual smile of the professional entertainer locked into place. The group went through the usual choreographed moves of rock bands—and somehow it came as no surprise that since her last show at the Great American Music Hall, Shocked has moved from a houseboat in London to Los Angeles.

She even had a star-turn entrance—announced by her bass player—and left the stage before the band at the end of the regular set and both encores.

Those show-biz frills are a major change in direction for Shocked, who seemed more likely to inherit the mantle of Woody Guthrie than Janet Jackson, but it was pretty clear Saturday night that Shocked is out to be a star rather than a revolutionary.

Of course, with that band (led by rock-solid drummer, Jeff Donovan), she just might make it happen. The Warfield was rockin’ and rollin’ all night long, and the crowd, even though it may have been unprepared for the new style, was right with it from start to finish.

My concern, though, is that there are a lot of bands that can get the crowd dancing but very few singers who can articulate the needs of the nation. Michelle Shocked is one of the latter, and if she keeps going in this new direction, a voice of passionate reason will be stilled.

As she did at her Great American Music Hall concert, Shocked concluded by saying music and politics are too important to be left to professionals—yet Saturday night she and her slick band were clearly in that category.