Pop music reviews : cheryl wheeler: deal her in

Imagine a performer with the songwriting whimsy of a Randy Newman, the soul of a Joan Armatrading, the vocal pyrotechnics of a Diane Schuur and the wry humor (and cluttered look) of a Linda

Ellerbee. Too much to ask for? Maybe even too bizarre to imagine? Well, she exists, her name is Cheryl Wheeler and she made a spectacular Los Angeles debut Tuesday night at At My Place.

Displaying not a speck of anxiety for her initial appearance in front of, as she described it, “a big time L.A. audience,” the irrepressibly buoyant New Englander, accompanying herself on

acoustic guitar, breezed through an hourlong program of mostly original songs and storytelling. Her material was almost breathtaking in its range: The feisty love chatter of “Give Me the

Right Sign”; a paean to fading yuppie dreams in “Paradise in Troubled Waters”; and an atmospheric parable of everyday existence in “Quarter Moon”--all from her current album on North Star

Records. Wheeler’s bubbling, off-the-wall humor filled the cracks between the more serious pieces with comedy songs so overflowing with wit and waggery that it was impossible to catch every

line. Among the best: “We’ll All Get Fat Together,” about the ecstasies of junk food (“We’ll eat parts of dead pigs, stuffed and fried, though some think boiled is better.”) One would, in

fact, be hard put to ask for a more complete performance. Wheeler’s rare blend of fine music-making and folksy audience interactivity simply whetted the appetite for more time with a young

woman whose future seems to be aimed directly at the stars. Wheeler returns to At My Place on April 23. MORE TO READ