Singer With an Iron Will Finds a Way to Communicate Tolerance

Ferron remembers a recent drive across the vast, frigid Northwest Territories of Canada en route to a small town named Yellowknife. After she’d gone hundreds of miles without seeing any sign of human existence, a man with a shotgun and his dog trudged out of the wilderness.

A true fringe dweller, that guy.

On the surface, Ferron--a veteran singer and songwriter under a long-term contract with Warner Bros. Records--would appear to have little in common with that isolated mountain man. Yet a deeper look might reveal that both individuals have sought to escape the rigid norms of conventional society.

Ferron, a 44-year-old lesbian feminist, has been no stranger to disapproval, even scorn. She and her companion of six years are raising a 2-year-old girl, Maya, and that family unit well generate whispering and finger-pointing.

But “my ultimate goal is to communicate that my feelings, even as a gay person, are not unlike anyone else’s,” Ferron said on the phone from Asheville, N.C., a stop on a tour that brings her and her six-piece band to the Coach House on Saturday.

“I’m striving for some kind of tolerance. One of the things that everyone should understand is that people are different, and diversity is the key. The definition of society includes those living on its farthest edges.

“Even that guy living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”

She makes a compelling case musically on her latest album, the primarily autobiographical “Still Riot.” Backed by guitars, bass, drums, piano, strings and horns, she takes listeners on a trip from self-doubt and isolation to discovery, fulfillment and belonging.

“Alice Says Yes,” about two women in love, captures their tenderness and sensuality without apology or qualification. Ferron sings it in a smoky voice that recalls both Marianne Faithfull and Tanita Tikaram.

“What I’ve been trying to learn over the years is the word ‘yes,’ ” she said. “For some time, ‘no’ was a very important word. But ‘yes’ is really vital, and the idea that I could write a love song essentially between two women . . . with no negativity, no jadedness . . . meant a lot for my own personal growth.”

She grew up in a working-class suburb of Vancouver, B.C., the eldest of seven children. She remembers that her childhood was rough, complete with domestic abuse, and she said her sense of self-worth didn’t begin to develop until 1971 when, at 19, she legally changed her name to Ferron. The word, a variation on the French for “iron,” originated in a friend’s dream.

She cites Joni Mitchell and lesser-known folk singer Greg Brown among her musical inspirations. Her own career started in 1975 with a benefit performance in Vancouver, after which she came up through the local coffeehouse circuit. Her music has been released on such independent labels as Philo, Redwood and her own Lucy and Cherrywood Station. Now that she has signed an eight-album deal with Warner Bros., her scuffling days seem to be over.

“It’s so uplifting to realize that the people who signed me love my writing and what I’ve been doing for such a long time,” she said.

Still, she remains pensive as to the fleeting nature of good fortune.

Writing songs is still “a mystery to me. It’s stressful, demanding, dreamlike . . . all of those things. I finish an album and allow myself to bask for maybe a couple of weeks. Then I feel like I should be picking up thoughts and thinking again. Those insecurities die hard, if at all.”

She wants the public to accept her music on its own terms. “I don’t want to go on a talk show as a gay person. I don’t want to be a personality. I want to be invited for creating a respectable, enduring body of work. I’d love to get on a show that’s interested in how songs and poetry can widen our tolerance and thinking patterns.

“I’ve been down a very long, rocky and narrow path. We can all get through these narrow areas if we just widen them, at least a bit.”

One source of joy is baby Maya, who is being raised on Vashon Island, a ferry-boat ride from Seattle.

“It’s hard being away,” said Ferron, whose current tour covers 27 dates. “Maya brings more beauty and tenderness into this world, plus a few well-needed laughs. You can shut everything else out, lay on the floor and roll around with her.

“Being a good solitary person is not enough. I mean, I realize that no matter what we do, you’re you and I’m me. We are different. But I’m interested in how we can stay connected, through our shared sense of humanity.”

* Who: Ferron, on a bill with Jennifer Corday and Susan Toney.

* When: Saturday at 8 p.m.

* Where: The Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano.

* Whereabouts: Take Interstate 5 to Camino Capistrano and go left. The Coach House is in the Esplanade Plaza, on the right.

* Wherewithal: $12.50--$14.50.

* Where to call: (714) 496-8930.