FOR BLIND SINGER DIANE SCHUUR, A BRIGHT FUTURE

“Call me Deedles,” she said, a radiant smile breaking across her cherubic face. “Everyone does.”

This self-bestowed nickname, too cute for others, seems just right for the exuberant personality of singer Diane Schuur.

Seated in a Hollywood hotel room earlier this week, rocking back and forth slightly in her chair, the blind singer overflowed with the enthusiasm of a performer whose career is skyrocketing.

The last two weeks have been spent working on a new record album--her third release for GRP Records in barely two years. Saturday night at 8, she will appear at Saddleback College’s McKinney Theatre in the first leg of a summer schedule that will take her from the United States to Japan.

Not bad for a performer who has spent, in her words, “most of my professional career working in Holiday Inns, Moose Lodges and Elks Clubs.”

Schuur burst onto the broader public arena with an electrifying, and controversial performance at last spring’s Grammy Award Show. Singing “How High the Moon” with a group of jazz performers that included, among others, Dizzy Gillespie, Dionne Warwick and Sarah Vaughn, Schuur launched her powerful contralto voice into a musical orbit that soared above the proceedings like a comet on the loose. When Warwick turned to look at Schuur with a shake of her head, it wasn’t clear whether she was dismayed or astonished.

Given the circus-like atmosphere that generally prevails at all-star jam sessions, it was probably just as well that Schuur kept things together with her strong lead vocal. More to the point, her irrepressible musical enthusiasm would probably not have allowed her to do it any other way.

Blinded at birth when a mishandled oxygen feed tube to her incubator seared her optic tissues, Schuur turned to music at an early age for an aural window into the world. She discovered she could sing at age 2, was influenced by Dinah Washington at 6, and started working professionally at age 9.

“I tried to hide it,” she explains. “Until I was 8, my singing was literally in the closet. Then, when my mother finally persuaded me to sing for my family and I saw the reaction I got, I pretty much knew what I wanted to do with my life.”

But it wasn’t easy. Schuur had an abortive brush with fame in 1975 when “Tonight Show” drummer Ed Shaughnessy heard her in her native Seattle. He brought her to the Monterey Jazz Festival to perform in a gospel suite written by Tommy Newsom for Shaughnessy’s “Energy Force” band.

Schuur’s performance had a powerful effect on the audience, but not nearly so much as it had on her. She knew at that moment that she had found a new language. “It was the real turning point for me,” she said. “The impact was so great that I told myself, ‘No more top 40s,’ and ever since then, my main pursuit has been jazz.”

However, Schuur’s success at Monterey was short and sweet. The anticipated record contracts never came through, and a much-hoped-for appearance on the “Tonight Show” failed to materialize when Doc Severinson said he didn’t feel Schuur was ready yet for stardom.

“Oh, I was disappointed all right,” Schuur said. “But I know now that he didn’t mean it negatively. The truth is that I really wasn’t ready yet. I was too immature, too naive to face the responsibilities that come with being a successful artist. You know, the public is very demanding, and you’ve got to put on your best face, even when you don’t want to. I couldn’t have done that 10 years ago.”

Schuur has no difficulties dealing with the public these days. Her bubbling, outgoing personality and unexpectedly mature jazz skills create an easy connection with her audiences.

Her first two albums, “Deedles” and “Schuur Thing,” have kept her on the jazz charts, and the new album, scheduled for release in September, should give Linda Ronstadt’s Nelson Riddle collections a good run for the money.

“I’m really excited about it,” she said. “We’re doing half the tunes with a big band and the other half with strings and French horns. And the arrangers--wow! Billy May, Johnny Mandel, Pat Williams and Jeremy Lubbock. You couldn’t ask for any better than that.

“We’re doing mostly standards this time. I’ve got nothing against contemporary material, but I do love a lot of the old stuff--it’s so down to earth. ‘Easy to Love,’ ‘Come Rain or Come Shine,’ ‘Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me,’ Johnny Mandel’s ‘Time for Love,’--12 songs, altogether, and every one just as good as these. I think it will be the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Schuur’s easy way with her present success makes it hard to believe that it’s only been a few short years since she was working club dates in the Pacific Northwest, recording for a small local record company and worrying about where her next meal was coming from.

“The truth,” she said, “is that my music has made me a happy, fulfilled human being. Who could ask for anything more?”