POP MUSIC : For k.d. lang, It’s Bye-Bye, Patsy--Hello, ‘Ingenue’

For seven years, k.d. lang was the odd woman out in country music. Her home was British Columbia, Canada, not Tennessee; she was a graduate of performance art spaces rather than honky-tonks; she recorded for a label known for acts like the Ramones and Talking Heads, not Garth Brooks and Tammy Wynette, and she wasn’t averse to ruffling Nashville’s feathers by camping up her country now and then.

Against those odds, lang (who reduced her name, Kathy Dawn, to its initials and prefers the lowercase spelling) hung in pretty well, thanks to her remarkable voice and her dedication to the spirit of Patsy Cline, whose torchlike emotionalism she emulated to great effect on the 1988 album “Shadowland,” which was produced by Cline’s producer Owen Bradley.

Like fellow maverick Lyle Lovett, lang maintained a wary relationship with Nashville, winning some fans as she tried to loosen up country conventions, but never really fitting in. Her 1989 album “Absolute Torch and Twang” sold 750,000 copies but received no airplay or country awards.

The singer’s instincts extended beyond Nashville. She started branching out in 1987 when she recorded a duet with Roy Orbison of his old hit “Crying.” Later she contributed a version of Cole Porter’s “So in Love” to the “Red, Hot + Blue” AIDS benefit album.

She was seen less as a quirky country novelty than as a singer’s singer, and she came to be widely acknowledged as one of the most stunning pure vocalists in pop--her performance of “Crying” on the star-studded Orbison memorial concert at Universal Amphitheatre in 1990 all but stopped the show. At the same time, the vegetarian’s militant views on the issue of animal rights endeared her to the alternative rock audience, though her appearance in an anti-meat commercial had a slightly different effect on the folks in the farm country of her native Alberta, Canada.

During a two-year break from music that began in 1990, lang played a lead role in the movie “Salmonberries,” by director Percy Adlon (“Baghdad Cafe”). During the same period she also underwent a major musical transformation that led to her new album, “Ingenue.”

An often melancholy mood piece with Latin, continental and jazz flavors, “Ingenue” is a flat-out d-i-v-o-r-c-e from Nashville, with Piaf replacing Patsy as a prime role model. The songs form about half her current live show, which comes to Universal Amphitheatre on Friday and Saturday and to San Diego’s Symphony Hall on Aug. 11.

Her new musical direction isn’t the only transformation in lang’s life that is making news. After years of “is she or isn’t she” speculation, lang unburdened herself in an interview in the June 16 issue of the Advocate, speaking publicly for the first time about her homosexuality.

The 30-year-old singer reflected on the changes in her career and life in a telephone interview from Washington. She was playing her last concert there before taking a two-week break on her farm near Vancouver, where she lives with a pig, two goats, three horses and four dogs.

Question: How serious were you about country music? Some people always took it as a bit of a put-on. Were you really out to conquer Nashville?

Answer: I think as a youngster, yes. When I started, when I was 22, 23, I knew that I was odd, but I thought that I could somehow conquer or influence it. And as it progressed I realized that I was never gonna change it, but I still loved to sing it. The whole reason I was there was because I loved the form, the musical form as a root music. Because of its relationship with human emotions, and its simplicity.

And to be really honest, I think it’s no surprise that I also understood and appreciated the kitsch in country music and used that as a part of humor too. . . . I think that put (people in Nashville) on guard. But to me, humor and making fun of yourself, making fun of being a hillbilly or whatever, was always an integral part of country music. And I think that during this attempt to urbanize country music it got shoved back in the closet and people were offended or afraid that I was trying to nullify its progression, when actually I was trying to add to it. . . . Really, I think in retrospect it was great, because I was successful but I still had this alternative edge to me.

Q: Why didn’t you proceed in that direction?

A: Well, it’s so many things. I knew that I would never fit, and I knew that the only way I was gonna fit and get radio airplay was to play by the rules and compromise, and that word kind of makes my skin crawl. Plus it was really that I just wanted to explore me and explore what’s inside.

Q: Did you have any hesitation about changing your musical style? Were you afraid it would confuse people?

A: No, it was just a necessity. I really had no choice. . . . I couldn’t make another country record, because the passion had died for it. . . . I think it was just a matter of time. Country music was this affair that I had, this passion that I had, for seven years, and it just seemed to subside.

I think “Ingenue” is like the resurfacing of my earliest influences, which were stuff like film music and Broadway and classical. I was the youngest of four siblings and we all studied classical music, so for years and years and years I was exposed to that.

And I listened to pretty much everything growing up. My sisters’ collections, which were things like Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Maria Muldaur, that whole camp. And when I got older I was listening to Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones and Kate Bush, and then into jazz. And then country came. I didn’t really even listen to country till I was about 20, 21.

Q: Do you think the new album is more personal than your other ones?

A: Yes and no. I think definitely it’s more personal in terms of me allowing my vulnerability to be on record. But I think that each record that I’ve put out is a very personal record and that I’ve given a lot. I think that it just sort of exemplifies that I’m trying or evolving as an artist or as a woman.

Q: How did you allow this vulnerability to come out?

A: I think it’s a conglomeration of a lot of things. I took, for the first time, two years really away from the music business, which I needed very much after the “Torch and Twang” tour. Because previous to that I’d been basically touring since 1983, making records and touring, making records and touring nonstop, and I just came to a time when I said I wanted to reassess myself and my art.

I’m influenced by so many different styles of music that I want to explore those different personalities and those different musical sides of me. And it’s so easy to get entrapped in this snowball formulation, and I just stopped and changed. Something just happened and my life just took this turn. But again, I don’t think it’s that big a change for me personally. I think as an outsider looking at my musical career who only knows me as a country singer, yes, it’s a big change. But for me it’s not really that big a change.

Q: Did you try anything new vocally on this album?

A: Definitely. I was listening to people like Julie London and Peggy Lee and Billie Holiday, and I found myself really being attracted to the strength in their subtleties. I tried not to use my power range at all on this record. I found that on the country stuff I was relying on that, and I wanted to explore the other areas of my voice, and using intensity not in volume but in emotion.

Q: What’s the key to good singing? Do you give yourself over to a lyric, is there calculation involved?

A: Boy, it’s everything at the same time. You have to give yourself up and react to every little thing that your voice is doing, but at the same time you have to be aware of what it’s doing. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t listening to myself sing, and producing myself at the same time.

Integrity is probably the No. 1 ingredient. It’s really a combination between your life, your spirituality, your sensuality. And intellectual and technical. It’s really undefinable. You can’t segment it. And I have the desire to give to the audience, and that’s one of the things that makes you a good singer.

Q: What was it like acting in “Salmonberries”?

A: I was flattered beyond words (to be asked), and I read the script and I just thought it’s the right time, right place. . . . It was a big thing. It was challenging because it was a lead and I had a nude scene and it was basically a love story between two women. It was this big challenge artistically, and I just thought, “If I’m at all going to progress I have to take on this challenge.”

Q: You indicated that you reassessed your personal life as well as your art. Why did you decide to become open about being gay at this time?

A: I guess I was ready. I felt that my career’s always had this undercurrent of speculation, and people have been trying to ask me for years about the whole androgyny or why my hair’s short. . . .

And, really, I feel quite strong now. And I kind of took the responsibility on because I didn’t want to react defensively to some stupid tabloid story or something, and it seems like it would be the responsible thing to do for myself as a person and for the gay community.

Q: Were you interested in encouraging others to follow your example?

A: I believe it’s a very individual thing, just like everything is, including vegetarianism. But I would hope that people in any oppressed minority would feel proud and a little more secure about themselves, that they would feel that any example of strength would be a positive thing.

Q: Was there any thought about its effect on your career?

A: Of course. But again, I think it would be better to be honest and open about it than to get married to try to cover it up. Because I don’t believe in lying, really. I believe that it will become a non-issue and people will focus on my music. That’s what I hope will happen.

Q: How has it made you feel as a person?

A: Total emancipation. I feel much better.

Q: Did the controversy over the anti-meat commercial help or hurt your career?

A: I think both, but I think historically it helped it. It was very difficult for me and my family to go through it. But it helped record sales. That’s not why I did it. . . . But whenever there’s a ban, people buy records that are banned. But it was difficult. The personal impact it had on me was it was my first experience at dealing with real critical controversy. It was kind of good for me because it toughened me up. It was another type of emancipation. I just went, “Look, art is above what people think about it, so do really what’s inside.”

Q: Is your involvement with causes--animal rights, etc.--something that’s evolved gradually?

A: No, I’ve kind of always been opinionated about those issues, but I know that I also don’t want to be a political artist. My issues are based from my spirituality and are things that I happen to have spoken out on. But I don’t want to become a political rallyist and a musician. I want to be a musician who speaks out about a couple of her beliefs.

Q: Do you think it’s important for popular artists to make statements like that?

A: I think there is a danger of abusing your position or your ability to use issues for self-promotion, and I think that’s wrong. But I think that if you believe in something, there is a slight responsibility being a popular artist--which is in some ways being voted in by the public--to deal with things that have a hard time getting exposure.