POP MUSIC REVIEW : Vonda Shepard Lacks the Songs and Backdrop

It’s hard to tell whether newcomer Vonda Shepard is a soul singer dressed in pop clothing, or vice versa.

Whatever the pedigree of her hybrid sound, Shepard’s song arrangements Wednesday night at the Coach House were dressed too slickly to make a deep impression. The 70-minute performance served as a showcase for an appealing voice that hasn’t yet found the strong songs or the sympathetic musical surroundings that can turn promise into fulfillment.

About half the set was given over to mid-tempo songs that neither soared with soul ardor nor rocked with authority. Shepard sang with intensity, but her voice was moving in chilly space. Her own digital piano rang with a hollow chime, and her five-member band provided arid synthesizer textures, nondescript guitar colorations, and rhythms, embellished at times with canned tracks, that were plain and stiff.

The show’s more sparsely arranged ballads--luckily there was an ample supply--provided a far better vehicle for the Los Angeles-based singer. “Looking for Something” combined soprano fragility that recalled Joni Mitchell with the sort of melismatic soul grace notes that Chaka Khan might dab onto a ballad. Shepard’s voice may lack the full mass of a first-class R&B; singer, but her soul borrowings added dimension to mainstream pop songs. Shepard could fit into the niche that Carole King and Laura Nyro created 20 years ago with their intimate, soul-informed pop. But the songs on her debut album, “Vonda Shepard,” don’t herald her as a particularly strong candidate for that niche.

The best of Shepard’s original songs were “Don’t Cry Ilene,” which took on some urgency with its offer of comfort for a jilted friend, and “Out on the Town,” an evocative, unrecorded ballad about bar-hopping to forget sorrows. One of the biggest letdowns was “A New Marilyn.” In concept, the song shapes up as a gutsy attempt to debunk Madonna’s cloned celebrity. In execution, it wimped out completely. Instead of shredding the material girl, Shepard expressed little more than a vague uneasiness over the popularity of her borrowed image. What should have been the first stinging claw-slash in a good cat fight was merely a mild meow.

Not above trying on a star precursor’s style herself, Shepard borrowed Tina Turner’s throaty and sassy tone for a furtively funky recasting of the Beatles’ “Come Together.” It needed more steam from the band. Shepard scored at the end, though, with a straightforward soul reading of Otis Redding’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is.” The band finally heated up on that standard, finally stoking Shepard’s ardor instead of forcing her to sing against a chilly backdrop.

Shepard responded at every turn with low-key friendliness to an audience that was small, but always enthusiastic. You might say they were kinda fonda Vonda.

The opener, Vinnie James, delivered a solo acoustic set full of his customary fire and in-your-face passion. Based in Orange County, James soon will hit the national scene (he has the unusual distinction of having his debut album, “All-American Boy,” reviewed favorably in Playboy this month--almost half a year before its scheduled late-September release date). A more promising pop talent hasn’t germinated here since the Righteous Brothers emerged more than 25 years ago.