POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Calmer but Strong McKee

Once there was a time when no one, and we do mean no one, would have drowned out Maria McKee.

Back in her early days as the miracle prodigy frontwoman of Lone Justice, she was the little L.A. girl with the huge Dolly Parton bumpkin voice. That gave way to the even more sonorous Joplin-fronting-the-Stones wailing of the later years.

Performing at Bogart’s in Long Beach on Saturday in her new, toned-down style, McKee had a little sonic competition. For touring purposes, her own acoustic guitar and piano are accompanied only by the keyboards of Bruce Brody, and the distracting sounds of a blues band next door had the habit of bursting into the club every time a customer opened the door in between.

The big showdown didn’t really come until the climactic number, “Nobody’s Child,� a tender, haunting new ballad. The band next door seemed to be reaching its peak just as McKee was settling down into her most fragile mode.

Then the most phenomenal thing happened: Though most in the room were undoubtedly aware of the noisily incongruous fast-blues backdrop, McKee’s carefully controlled high-range soprano--which is now as strong in technique as it always was mighty in emotion--conquered the intruding sound, made it inconsequential, even, like a personal moment of clarity when a quiet inner voice overpowers all the outside urban clamor.

The miraculous is nothing new with McKee. Only slightly less remarkable than an infant being born as a full-grown woman was the way she sprang forth on the club scene in the early ‘80s as a fully-realized, teen-age singer/songwriter with no apparent need for musical baby steps.

If her current, more mature and downbeat work seems less precocious, less supernaturally spooky in its greatness than the early songs did, it’s not much less wonderful.

“I love to play the part of the damsel in distress,� she sings in one of her new songs, and she’s not kidding. “Maria McKee� the album presents Maria McKee the person as something of an introspective, even introverted loner reeling from a romantic split. But one shouldn’t discount the notion that she may be role-playing here as much as she was when waxing nostalgic over dust bowls back in the country-punk days.

Selections from the Lone Justice songbook Saturday were limited to “Shelter� and “Wheels,� perhaps the two songs that most prefigured her current direction. But the tune that most recalled the group was the feisty new “Drinkin’ in My Sunday Dress� (an essential CD-only cut), in which the arching eyebrows, batting eyes and hillbilly fervor of years past returned for a welcome encore.

Otherwise, McKee tends toward being still as a stone on stage this time around, and is no less captivating for it. The more propulsive numbers Saturday were effectively driven by her foot-stomping, which the microphones picked up so well that it threatened to overpower her guitar playing; the more dramatic, dynamic tunes were powered by a naturally gifted vocal instrument that--the screaming days behind her--has been refined to the point of brilliance. Dare it be repeated that no one in rock ‘n’ roll sings any more powerfully, any purtier, any better?

McKee was also scheduled to play the Coach House on Sunday before moving on to her opening slot on the acoustic Neil Young tour, with stops at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Aug. 18 and the Greek Theatre on Aug. 19-20.