Mary Lou Lord, Ben Lee Succeed by Sticking to Their Own Truth

Mary Lou Lord has spent much of her musical life busking on street corners and in subway stations, and her appearance at Spaceland on Tuesday had the casual charm of an impromptu sidewalk serenade.

With guitarist Nick Saloman joining her for part of the evening (technical problems eventually prompted him to leave), Lord alternated between her delicate, determined delivery of some dozen folk-pop songs and somewhat rambling explanations of her selections--a mix of originals and tunes by the likes of Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson. The set was uneven and rough in spots but Lord’s disarming stage presence won out, and no one seemed to mind the general lack of focus.

Focus was no problem for Australian Ben Lee, who shared the bill. The precocious 18-year-old took the stage with dapper confidence and barreled through a solo, acoustic set that flared with passion and crackled with wry humor. Though his songs are sometimes too smartly self-conscious for their own good, Lee’s witty banter gave the songs a personal frame of reference that brought them down to earth.

As a rule, the fewer components there are to music, the more it relies on the personality of the people playing it; both Lord and Lee were true to themselves, and that’s ultimately why their music succeeded.

* Ben Lee plays on Saturday at McCabe’s, 3101 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, 8 and 10:30 p.m. $8. (310) 828-4403.