Peggy Watson to Shift Focus of Her Folk-Singing Career

Peggy Watson is a rare musician, as much for her lack of steely ambition as for her considerable talent. The singer-songwriter has the tools to be a headliner on the national folk circuit, including a gift for melody and a bel canto voice whose soft, trilled vibrato recalls a young, less-strident Joan Baez.

Instead, Watson has been a mainstay of local folk clubs and coffeehouses for more than a decade. And her current plan is to assume a different, if not necessarily a lower profile.

“Lately, I’ve been going through a change in my attitude toward music,” Watson said. “I’m a little tired of playing in clubs. A couple of weeks ago, I performed at the ‘Courageous Voices’ exhibition at the Lyceum, which was produced by Women for Change, and I’ve decided I want to focus more on performing at those kinds of political and community events, at galleries and at places that feature more specialized programming.”

On Friday, Watson will join locals Deborah Liv Johnson, Marcia Holdaway, Tom Cahoon and Steve White for “An Evening of Singer-Songwriters” at Choice’s restaurant in La Jolla.

The musicians will perform mostly original material, which for Watson means selections from her two local releases, 1989’s “I Live in This World” and the newer “Knee Deep”--a collection of lyrical, acoustic tunes scheduled for release later this spring. Like its predecessor, the new album will enjoy limited distribution, in keeping with Watson’s desire to keep her musical life in perspective.

“I take songwriting seriously, and I won’t put any song out there that I don’t feel good about, but I’ve never been very serious about music as a career,” Watson said. “People are constantly asking me, ‘Why aren’t you out there trying to get a recording contract?’ Well, I have a family, children, and a life I’m trying to sustain, and I just don’t think that lifestyle would work too well for me.”

One reason Watson isn’t obsessed with perusing a career is because she already has one. She teaches bilingual, seventh-grade courses in world cultures at a local school, and admits she is “worn out” at the end of each 60-hour work week.

“Thankfully, I don’t have to do music for a living,” she said. “I perform because I love music and because I can have an emotional, political and personal impact on people. I feel that in clubs I don’t really get to do that. When I play at community events, like the recent Pete Seeger program, people are really into it. They enjoy themselves, but at the same time they feel something on an emotional level, and I prefer that.”

In Friday’s show, Watson will be joined on a couple of songs by Lou Ann Gurney, who was her singing partner in the early ‘80s. One would hope that Watson might also duet with Johnson on the English traditional ballad, “The Water Is Wide,” which they do to gorgeous effect on “Knee Deep.” But Watson allowed that such couplings probably will be more spontaneous.

“Debbie and I might do one or two together, but mostly we’ll be doing solo spots,” Watson said. “I’m just happy to be sharing the stage with her and Marcia, who are both wonderful singers and writers. And Tom and Steve are good, too. I think it’ll be fun.”

“An Evening of Singer-Songwriters” begins at 7 p.m. Choice’s is in the Shiley Sports Center at 10820 North Torrey Pines Road. Tickets are $4.50 at the door. For more information, call the San Diego Folk Heritage at 436-4030.

Watson also will perform solo at 8 p.m. Saturday at Caffe Fiore (Fourth and University Avenues). For ticket information, call 291-6557. Also on Saturday, Johnson will perform at the Insomniac (a coffeehouse above Croce’s on Fifth Avenue) from 10 p.m. to midnight. For information, call 239-5320.

REPLAY: “Buddy Blue’s St. Patrick’s Day Acoustic Nightmare” provided many hours of offbeat kicks at the Spirit on March 17. If nothing else, the program--which featured members of local rock bands playing acoustically (many for the first time)--proved that if you put the same acoustic guitar in the hands of 18 different people, you’ll get 18 different kinds of music.

One memorable highlight was Jose Sinatra’s performance of a medley he calls, “To Sir, With a Whole Lotta Love Boat.” Eyes were daubed when Sinatra duetted, a la Natalie Cole, with a rare, poignant video clip of his apocryphal father, Iglesias Sinatra, performing on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

REPLAY II: The skies remained blue over Tijuana’s Bullring by the Sea for both days of Santana’s “Homecoming” celebration. A crowd of better than 17,000 was on hand for Saturday’s event, and another 10,000 attended Sunday’s show, at which the guitarist and his band played for more than three hours. The seating snafu that marred Saturday’s gala was corrected for Sunday’s show, as yellow-shirted, bilingual locals were hired to help the Tijuana constabulary direct concert goers to their proper seats. In all, it was a great weekend and possibly a harbinger of things to come at the bullring, which sits a block from the ocean.

BOOKINGS: (Tickets for the following concerts will be sold at all TicketMaster outlets unless otherwise specified.) White Trash Debutantes are at the Casbah on Thursday, with Deadbolt opening (so to speak). . . A second show has been added to Sandra Bernhard’s appearance Friday at Montezuma Hall. She’ll perform at 7:30 and 10 p.m. . . A new, seven-piece version of Jefferson Starship, featuring Paul Kantner, Jack Casady, and Papa John Creach, will perform at Rumours on April 2 and 3. . . Aster Aweke will be at Bogey’s in Mission Valley on April 9 (297- 8361).

A show called “Acadian/Canadian: The Rollicking French Music of North America” will bring the band La Bottine Souriante and D.L. Menard to the Poway Center for the Performing Arts on April 11. Tickets are $26, $22, and $18, and can be ordered by phone at 748-0505, or by mail at PCPA Box Office, P.O. Box 647, Poway CA 92064. . . Dramarama plays Iguanas April 11, and Soundgarden plays the same venue April 24 (both on sale now). . . Social Distortion, Pegboy and Best Kissers in the World will play the UCSD Gym on April 17 (on sale now at TicketMaster and at the UCSD Box Office, 534-6467). . .

Apparently, the Judds finally have exhausted the “farewell concert” bit. Wynonna Judd plays her first local date without mom May 3 and 4 at the San Diego Convention Center (525-5678). . . Pearl Jam has been booked into Iguanas for May 10 (on sale Friday at 3 p.m.).