POP MUSIC : Speaking Up in Her Own Voice : In her first album, Patti Scialfa uses fairy-tale imagery of childhood to write about the need to move beyond a careless youth

Patti Scialfa’s debut album is called “Rumble Doll.” But an equally fitting name might have been borrowed from her famous husband’s song titles: “Growin’ Up.”

Myriad comparisons are bound to be drawn between Scialfa’s confessional, romanticized style and the similarly sin ‘n’ salvation-drenched lyrics of Bruce Springsteen, whom she joined as backup singer nine years ago and married two years ago. But “Rumble Doll,” whatever its comparative merits, reveals that Scialfa definitely has her own voice--and it’s most assuredly a woman’s voice.

She uses, for instance, a lot of childhood fairy-tale imagery that a male writer probably wouldn’t, dealing in decidedly feminine terms with the tough transition between an extended girlhood and a harder-fought maturity:

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Now tomorrow comes abandoning

Painted ponies and a little brass ring

Well I got that ring I pulled it down

And my little girl’s world came tumbling down

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Scialfa’s album makes profuse use at times of “toyland” and “rag man” images. But she insists the songs aren’t about anything so sentimental as trying to stay in touch with that innocent side but, conversely, the bigger battle to instead put childish things away.

“It’s such a big part of me that I don’t feel I have to try and stay in touch with it,” she says. “I think it’s more of a struggle to stop it from ruling you.

“Children live in maybe a complicated imaginary world, but it’s not as complex, it’s not a real world and there aren’t those real threats. So for me, I think it’s more difficult to take the safety of that away and say, ‘OK, I’m gonna be a woman here and stand inside a woman’s skin, not a child’s skin--and not a teen-ager’s skin, because I’m not a teen-ager.’ And wow, that’s hard. It’s easier to run and hide under the bed . . . under the bunk bed.”

Rather than being nostalgia-indulgent, then, “Rumble Doll”--which sounds as much like a preternaturally matured Ronnie Spector album as a Springsteen record--is about facing the challenge to grow up.

“Even if it’s a little bit late,” adds Scialfa (who turns 40 this month) with a breezy laugh. “I did everything late. I got married late, I had children late. And part of that is I think I felt very safe not having all those adult things. The less you have, the less you have to be responsible for, and the less things can have power over you, to hurt you. . . . I guess some of it’s when you’re younger, you do a lot of things out of just sheer fear, making your world as small as possible so you can have control over it.”

Having been writing original material, forming bands and trying to get a record deal since she was a 17-year-old Jerseyite--long before she was picked to become the E Street Band’s last member, and a couple of decades before she wed its lead singer--Scialfa had stumbled upon that most peculiarly 20th-Century channel for the artificial prolongation of youth. Rock ‘n’ roll, that is.

“It’s funny, because that was the first thing that drew me into being a singer when I was young--it was a refuge and a thing of sanctuary. But it can extend your childhood. I think I would’ve had that struggle no matter what I chose to do, though. And in crossing those lines, you’re fortunate if you find somebody who helps you walk down those roads.”

The somebody Scialfa found just happened to be the most popular rock singer in the world. Which meant that in the 1980s the erstwhile unknown suddenly did a lot of--to borrow a line from Lou Reed--growing up in public.

“I know there’ll be that kind of shadow on it.”

Scialfa is sounding resigned, momentarily, at least, about what kind of reception awaits her debut, due in stores Tuesday (see review, Page 71). The cloud she’s speaking of is “the thing of having to justify yourself”--that is, the preconception many pop fans are likely to have that Scialfa was just some workaday professional backup singer who got lucky enough to cut an album through extremely good connections. The speculation that this could be some sort of vanity deal may be fueled by the fact that she’s signed to the same label, Columbia, as her mega-platinum husband.

“I did get my deal after the ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ tour, way before Bruce and I got together (romantically),” she says, just in case anyone had the idea there might’ve been some kind of quid pro quo with the record company. In fact, Scialfa points out, she’s not sure Springsteen even knew when the signing with Columbia first went down. But the potential suspicion of cynics “is there, yeah. I bump into it--more than I’d like to. And it’s unfortunate, but it’s a reality, and it’s a small price to pay for the good things that have happened in my life.”

Mike Campbell, longtime guitarist for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, was picked to produce “Rumble Doll” in part because Scialfa wanted to work with someone who had a strong identity that was “totally outside of Bruce’s camp.” Springsteen did play guitar and keyboards and offer production assistance on two of the album’s dozen tracks, but otherwise he remains uncredited.

Asked if Springsteen might have gotten more involved if not for the potential perception problem, Scialfa responds, “Yeah, maybe so. I think he probably would have been on it a little more, but I would have done it by myself, because I know the way that I am, and I’m very independent, and I like my independence.”

Naturally, Scialfa is a wee bit press-wary. In much the same way that singer Michael Penn turned down a People profile that had been offered when his first album came out because he feared the magazine would focus on the connection to his brother Sean, Scialfa has said no here and there, a liberty that few other new artists promoting their debuts can afford to take.

“I’ve tried to pick things that would hopefully have a more serious lean to them and be about the writing and stuff. I turned down things, and I’d always felt that I didn’t want to take anything that wouldn’t have been offered to me under another circumstance.”

She pauses. “Then, I don’t know if this would have been offered to me, as I’m thinking about it,” she adds, suddenly chuckling.

It’s good that she’s able to laugh about it because, as strong as “Rumble Doll” is, it’s not the kind of obvious blockbuster that would have necessarily commanded a swell of immediate attention had Scialfa entered the market as a typical no-name newcomer.

Scialfa was never really spotlighted enough in the E Street Band for fans to have a clear handle on her vocal style. Anyone expecting a former backup singer to be a “belter” let loose to her own designs will be surprised by “Rumble Doll,” then, which mostly sounds as tender as its subject matter.

“It’s funny, because some people that I played it to expected like, I guess, a louder record,” says Scialfa.

“Somehow making a really introverted record felt safer. Because it can be so internal you can say, ‘Well, this is just what I’m about, period,’ and you’re not opening your arms to embrace a lot, so if nobody wants to embrace you back, you’re OK. If you make a record where you’re just kind of inward and putting your arms around yourself, it’s just so contained that maybe your chances of being hurt are less than if you make a big record and aim it out there with your arms wide open.

“Some of the stuff on the record has that starkness, but I ended up putting in more pop stuff, so in the end I made a compromise. I put one arm out,” she says, laughing.

Scialfa grew up in Oakhurst, N.J., with parents who operated a TV store together. But it was sharing a piano bench with her grandfather, a songwriter whose tunes were published overseas, that gave her the music bug. “Music always made me feel like it made sense out of everything, and it was comforting, in that people could be just emotional and it was safe to be emotional.”

Leaving Jersey to study music at the University of Miami for three years, Scialfa ended up fronting a jazz trio on Florida’s then-decaying hotel circuit, often with guest professors like Gerry Mulligan sitting in. After transferring to New York University, Scialfa began fronting rock ‘n’ roll bands in the big city that (apart from a brief foray into late-’70s new wave) accommodated her preference for a somewhat restrained “singer-songwriter” style, “the kind of music that always anchored me, where I would learn about myself.”

Scialfa got into backup singing as a way to pay the backup musicians in her own group. For a while she sang in a traveling bar band behind Michael Walden, better known now as the slick hit producer Narada Michael Walden. Then she got a gig as lead singer in a band led by David Sancious, the former E Street keyboardist, and finally went out on tour with Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. In 1982, she was spotted by Springsteen singing at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J., and they socialized occasionally before he asked her to try out for the E Street Band in 1984.

“I wasn’t musically being pushed to my limits at the time, but I had so much to learn it was a great, great thing. I had never known that kind of stability and that kind of focus on the work. It really helped me grow up.

“When I joined the band, I had known Bruce’s music, I’d seen him play once live, but I had a lot of learning to do. I didn’t know the songs. He asked me to join the band three days before the first show. We never really had time to rehearse. So when I was working with him the first few months, I was just catching up. When I went out there to sing for the first time, I didn’t even know where they were gonna stand me on stage.”

She signed her record deal after the “Born in the U.S.A.” tour, but Scialfa decided to wait until after the shorter subsequent “Tunnel of Love” tour to record. But that plan was postponed by the unexpected Amnesty International tour, which was accompanied by the unexpected romance with Springsteen. Since he was still married at the time, the tabloids had a field day ferreting out photos and gossip, and when Scialfa went into the studio for her first abortive try at recording in 1988, the pressure of being a very public figure proved too great a burden for her private music.

“It’s funny because a couple weeks after the Amnesty tour, I was really gung-ho to go in. I thought I’d feel good. But I went to work and I just felt like I wanted to hide. I couldn’t go to work. I wasn’t ready to work. The kind of music I write is always personal to me, and I just thought I can’t take this . It was too much.

“Bruce and I had gotten together, it was a very turbulent time, and I just thought, ‘Wow, I’m just gonna back up here a little bit and just settle in.’ We really worked on our relationship for those couple years instead of just going right into working.”

About a year and a half later, Scialfa hooked up with Campbell and they began to record together, only to find out two months into the sessions that she was pregnant with her first child, Evan James Springsteen. Later on, the recording was delayed a second time by a second pregnancy and the birth of Jessica Rae Springsteen. Somehow, after three years of on-again, off-again production, Scialfa and Campbell managed to finally get the album done before she became pregnant with her third child, which is due in January.

Springsteen wrote songs about the experience of having children that he included on his “Lucky Town” album last year. Scialfa says she has, too, but she’d accrued enough life experience to write about prior to parenthood that she didn’t feel songs about the children quite fit into the already packed autobiographical arc of “Rumble Doll.” Such are the hazards of getting started better-late-than-never.