Solitary Refinement : Oleta Adams Is Content to Stand Apart From Mainstream Pop Singers Who Do Vocal Acrobatics

From Michael Bolton to Mariah Carey to Whitney Houston, contemporary pop singers seem to ensure success by over-emoting and by utilizing as many vocal chops as humanly possible in each and every song, appropriate or otherwise.

The more refined approach of Oleta Adams, who performs Monday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, is unlikely to garner as much attention as her platinum-plated peers, although she may sleep easier at night, secure in maintaining her dignity.

Adams, who admits only to being “old enough not to tell you how old I am,” likens her style to those of Roberta Flack and Nina Simone, singers of decades past whose introspective, courtly manner effectively conveyed genuine sentiment without screaming “look at me.”

“Roberta Flack had a wonderful way . . . of wiping you out, but she never resorted to yelling, she never did a bunch of melismatic phrasing and vocal acrobatics,” Adams said in a recent phone interview from a Los Angeles hotel room. “She knew how to draw you in with intelligent words and a simple melody. Control and discipline are a lot harder to do than that other stuff.

“It’s kind of like dancing. When you go to the ballet, everybody applauds the pirouette, and yet when the ballerina stands on her toes and lifts her leg really high for just a few seconds, that’s the hardest thing to do.

“That’s like my style. If everyone else is doing vocal flips, then why should I? What I have to offer transcends labeling.”

What Adams has to offer is a soothing, graceful voice, a natural instinct for phrasing and interpretation, and competently unaffected piano and composing skills. Her 1990 debut album, “Circle of Life,” garnered two Grammy nominations and sold more than a million copies worldwide, charting No. 1 in England, but she remains lesser-known in the United States.

Still, Adams believes that her recently released “Evolution” album will take her another rung up the ladder to greater recognition.

“The first album was a great way of introducing myself to the public,” she said. “It was a way of saying, ‘Here I am, this is what I have to say, this is the kind of music that I love.’ But I wanted the second album to be more romantic and warm-sounding. As Stewart Levine, my producer, says, it sounds very expensive.”

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“Evolution” mixes elements of jazz, pop, gospel and world beat into the adult contemporary formula and focuses on utopian love songs sometimes so unabashedly romantic that they approach the old-fashioned mawkishness of Tin Pan Alley.

“I’ve been in love with the same person for over 11 years, except now I know I’m in love,” said Adams of her paramour, whose name she did not give. “I guess it takes a few years to figure it out. That’s the inspiration for a lot of my love songs.”

Adams grew up in Yakima, Wash., the churchgoing daughter of a Baptist minister. She moved to Kansas City, Mo., in 1982; it was while she was singing in a hotel lounge there in 1985 that she was discovered by Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal of the alternative rock group Tears for Fears. She went on to record and tour with the group, which led directly to her getting signed as a solo act.

“They sat there at the bar and cried as they listened to my music, but I left right after the show was over, so I didn’t talk to them or anything,” Adams said. “Two years later, they hunted me down. I didn’t even know that my music had meant anything to them before that.”

Adams, who toured as an opening act for Michael Bolton after the release of her debut album, has just begun her first American tour as a headliner. The idea of playing before her own audience thrills Adams.

“We did our first two shows last week, I made them turn the lights up on the house because I wanted to see what the people looked like,” she said. “We had people of all ages and all colors . . . and they were all gorgeous!”

Adams has set lofty goals for her career, hoping one day to be included among the top names in her field.

“I hope to attain the kind of success that a Barbra Streisand or a Neil Diamond has, where people just love what they do,” she said. “They don’t have to have a record at the top of the charts; people are still going to show up at their gigs. When people buy my records, they don’t need to look for a hit single, they buy the album because they’ll love the whole thing.”

* Oleta Adams performs at 8 p.m. Monday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. $23.50. (714) 496-8930.