MARTI JONES COMES OUT SINGING--AND SMOKING

The mellifluous voice of Marti Jones--smooth, calm and clear, but with an intriguingly smoky quality--is one of the loveliest in all of pop music. So lovely, in fact, that multitudes of rock critics are raving about her even though she has committed the unpardonable post-Dylan sin of not writing her own songs .

In being what once might have been regarded as an interpretive singer, Jones--who opens for Everything but the Girl at the Beverly Theatre on Monday--is bucking the post-1965 school of auteur rock thought, which has it that only singers who write their own material are worth taking seriously. The cool and calm Jones is no showboat stylist, but her voice is just good enough, and her song choices impeccable enough, that she might start a reverse vanguard.

But guess what? She used to hold the same bias against singers--as opposed to singer/songwriters--in the ‘70s.

“I’ve got to tell you that I did always have that little bit of disrespect for Linda Ronstadt because she didn’t write her own songs,” admitted Jones shortly after arriving in town this week.

“I grew up during that time when people would ask, ‘Who’s your favorite singer--Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon or Linda Ronstadt?’ And I always respected Carly and Joni more. I thought Linda was a great singer, but yet I thought, ‘Well, she just sings other people’s songs. . . . ‘

“Well, the shoe’s on the other foot now. I can’t say that anymore.”

Darn tootin’ she can’t--especially now that phrases are coming up like “Marti Jones: the Linda Ronstadt of the ‘80s.” (“The Dusty Springfield of the ‘80s” is probably a more applicable tag.)

Though their voices and styles are widely divergent, Jones and Ronstadt do share a predilection for recording Elvis Costello compositions, one of which (“Just a Memory”) is on Jones’ new “Match Game” album. The mercurial Costello, who mercilessly excoriated Ronstadt for her renditions of his songs, reportedly had kinder words about Jones’ treatment of his work, much to her enormous relief.

Should commercial success catch up with her critical predictions, Jones could help popularize several unknown songwriters--again, a la Linda. The only song on either of her two LPs that would be recognizable to most rock fans is David Bowie’s “Soul Love”; other talented writers she’s interpreted include Marshall Crenshaw, Peter Holsapple of the dB’s, Richard Barone of the Bongos, and Liam Sternberg.

But the most remarkably hook-laden songs on her albums mostly come from the pop pen of producer Don Dixon (R.E.M., Smithereens), a mentor of sorts who rescued Jones from a probable non-musical career. Dixon’s been with her for two years, since ringing up to see what Jones was doing shortly after her first and only group, Color Me Gone, broke up following the release of a lone EP.

Jones is singing more subtly since her days fronting Color Me Gone, with a quality invariably described as “smoky”--and the elixir is no farther away than the pack of Marlboros visible in her shirt pocket. Jones is a two-pack-a-day singer.

“I started smoking when I was 15. That’s 15 years ago. It’s horrible. I quit smoking one time for about five days, and the most stupid voice came out of my mouth, this really saccharine, yucky thing--it sounded like I should be singing car commercials! I was singing sharp because I was used to overcompensating for not having enough wind. . . . I immediately started smoking again.

“That’s my excuse: ‘I have to, I gotta keep my voice like this, can’t stop.’ No, one of these days I will quit. Then maybe it’ll be like the thing Bob Dylan went through when everybody said, ‘Did he quit smoking or was it the motorcycle accident?’

“Of course, that’ll come right after the real insightful period after I have a baby. I remember one of the first times I met Don Dixon he was saying this stuff: ‘OK, after your third record, that’s usually when you get married and have your baby. So you do that and then you come back with another record and you’re real insightful because you’ve had a child.”’

So there’s one more album to do before the baby boom, then?

“No, I’m not following his plan. I’ll listen to him when he tells me I’m singing flat, but not about when I should have children.”

FOR THE RECORD: The Christmas blues show at the Music Machine featuring Hollywood Fats, Ronnie Barron, Paul Butterfield and others will be held tonight. The incorrect date was reported in Friday’s Calendar.

LIVE ACTION: Huey Lewis & the News will be at the Forum on Jan. 12. Tickets go on sale Monday. . . . Tickets go on sale Sunday for Bon Jovi’s Jan. 21 stop at the Long Beach Arena. . . . Los Lobos will appear on New Year’s Eve at the Wiltern Theatre. . . . Millie Jackson will be at the Beverly Theatre on Jan. 10. . . . Robert Cray headlines the Palace on Dec. 19.