On Key With Offbeat ‘Gypsy Woman’

Mixing musical genres--four, five or six at a time--is all the rage now.

Of the handful of artists fusing jazz and house music, nobody does it better than singer-writer Crystal Waters, whose “Gypsy Woman” is possibly the season’s most riveting dance tune.

It’s certainly the quirkiest.

Conventions fall by the wayside on this Top 10 single from her debut Mercury album, “Surprise,” with a house beat careening along under her dry, emotionless vocals.

Waters ignores melodic and phrasing standards while spinning a touching tale of a proud, fashion-conscious, homeless woman. Not exactly the kind of subject matter for a tune with a cheery, racing beat.

“The point was to capture this woman, whose style is unusual, in a song with a style that’s also different and offbeat,” says Waters, 27, who as recently as late May was working as a computer technician for the D.C. parole board.

Waters’ tale isn’t fiction. It’s based on a woman she used to see regularly on the streets of Washington.

“She was this intelligent woman who was in the retail clothing business, but she lost her job and wound up on the streets,” Waters explains. “She always wore full makeup because that’s what she did when she was working. She earned money singing gospel songs on the streets and always kept her pride. I had a hard time getting her out of my mind.”

That’s the same thing people have been saying about Waters’ single, which has a chorus--”La da dee la da da / La da dee la da da”--that glues itself to your consciousness.

“I was looking for some catchy line that might get across what this woman’s life is like--detached and monotonous but still not really drained of emotion,” Waters notes.

Though she’s had limited performing experience, Waters is such a hot artist that she’s been added to the Ziggy Marley tour, which begins Aug. 14 and runs through October. The Southern California dates are Sept. 20 at the Forum and Sept. 22 at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. At the end of August, Mercury will release Waters’ second single, “Makin’ Happy.”

A Howard University graduate and New Jersey native, Waters actually recorded “Gypsy Woman” two years ago with the Basement Boys, a Baltimore production team she’s been working with since 1987. But record-company red tape delayed the release until last March. In April, working within a tight, two-week deadline--they cranked out what has turned out to be one of the year’s finest dance albums.

Niece of the late jazz-gospel singer Ethel Waters and daughter of a jazz pianist, Waters deserves much of the credit for the jazz influences on this album of hot jazz-house hybrids. She quips: “If Billie Holliday had made a dance-music album, it would have sounded something like this.”

Styx Schtyz: Styx, whose comeback tour included Thursday and Friday shows at the Universal Amphitheatre, plays two kinds of pop-rock: Schmaltz and Super-Schmaltz.

On Thursday, the veteran Chicago-based quintet, which was a supergroup in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, resurrected such cornball tunes as “Babe,” “The Best of Times” and “Lady.” The group had broken up in 1983 but reunited last fall with four original members, joined by singer-guitarist Glen Burtnik, who has replaced Tommy Shaw (now in Damn Yankees) but fails to bring any badly needed freshness or vitality.

In the Super-Schmaltz mode, lead-singer/keyboardist Dennis DeYoung wailed about such “deep” things as the loss of innocence and the quest for life’s lofty goals. Even Styx’s up-tempo rock was riddled with schmaltzy, pseudo-meaningful lyrics. But it’s milquetoast rock ‘n’ roll, a side dish served up for those who can’t stomach the real meat ‘n’ potatoes.

Opening act Vinnie James is a rarity--a black folk singer. Accompanying himself on guitar, he sang his thoughtful songs with, at times, spine-tingling intensity. He could be the Richie Havens of the ‘90s.

Guns N’ Lawyers: Steven Adler, the original drummer for Guns N’ Roses, filed suit Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming other members of the best-selling hard-rock quintet unfairly forced him to leave the group in 1990, defamed his character and cheated him out of his share of the band’s profits.

In the complaint, Adler alleges that the other band members introduced him to heroin and then kicked him out of the band when he sought treatment for his addiction. Adler says in the complaint that side effects from medication taken during treatment affected his musical performance.

Adler, who joined the Los Angeles-based band in 1984, is suing to recover his share of the partnership and is asking for unspecified damages. A representative for Geffen Records, the band’s record label, had not seen the suit and could not comment.

Times staff writer Amy Kuebelbeck contributed to this column.