Familiar Voice With New Slogan

Cindy Fee is not a household name, even if her lyrics touch on a lot of household brand names.

Fee is the voice behind Wheaties’ “What the Big Boys Eat” and Levi’s “501 Blues.” And now she wants to skip from jingles to singles.

“Jingles are a way to make money,” said Fee, 32, who will appear on “Country Music Night” at the Music Machine on Nov. 30. “But they don’t give you any artistic expression. Sometimes I look at the words I see, and they don’t make sense.

Despite achieving some success on television--Fee sings “Thank You for Bein’ a Friend,” the theme song of NBC-TV’s “Golden Girls”--the transition to mainstream music has not been automatic. Especially for a singer who found herself stuck between pop and country, unable to steer herself and her music in either direction.

“I finally decided that I was just going to sing what I like to sing, and however it turns out, there will be a place for it,” Fee said.

She calls the result “country soul,” a combination of Motown and country.

Fee plans additional dates throughout the West Coast and will perform in Nashville later in the fall. She is also finishing her first solo album, although no record deal has been signed.

Fee’s concert will begin at 9 p.m. and costs $5. Tickets will be available at the door.

Dave Durham, a Van Nuys country singer who performs with the Valley-based Bull Durham band, is getting significant air play with his first released single, “In My Car.”

Durham, 34, submitted the single about two months ago to radio stations across the country, and is being heard on about 80 of them, said Beth Bleiberg, his public relations director.

Bleiberg said the song, recorded on the Sherman Oaks-based Pearl Records label, is about how a person can become a star in his own car.

“You’re on your way to work, and you’re singing in your car, being a star,” Bleiberg said, “and then you can’t wait till 5, when you’re back in the car doing it all over again.”

Among the Los Angeles-area stations playing the song are: KZLA, KLAC, KFOX and KCSN.