Talented Celtic Songstress May Need to Get Her Irish Up

There is no better formula for a memorable evening of song than a big talent in a small room.

These ingredients were at hand on Saturday as Susan McKeown, a striking but unheralded Irish singer-songwriter, made her Orange County debut in the intimate La Sala Auditorium at the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library.

McKeown offers a rare combination of gifts: a mastery of traditional Celtic and British folk music dating to medieval times and the ability to draw on a wide range of contemporary influences in her often excellent original folk-pop songwriting. On two recent indie-label albums, “Bones” and “Through the Bitter Frost and Snow,” McKeown’s grounding in the old anchors and flavors her explorations of the new.

The absorbing albums and the propitious setting raised expectations as the Dublin-raised, Manhattan-based McKeown and her unplugged bass-and-guitar backing duo arrived for two performances under the auspices of the library’s Multicultural Arts Series. But expectations went largely unfulfilled in an early show that failed to combine attractive elements into a combustive effect. McKeown sang well in her rangy alto, and her 75-minute set included prime material. But the undefinable alchemy by which strong live performers turn pleasing sounds into bracing experiences was missing.

McKeown began well, putting voice and roots forward in an a cappella ballad, “Bonny Boy.” Its tale of a woman willing to sacrifice a measure of her pride to her desire dovetailed well with McKeown’s own songwriting theme of ardor and its entanglements. The ballad’s singer catches her “bonny boy” cheating on her, but reconciles herself to sharing his affections, reasoning, evidently, that half a lout is better than none.

Next came “Winter King” and “Ce Leis e?,” two good original folk-pop songs in which the unsettled, gurgling, bass-driven rhythms and unpredictable vocal cadences were reminiscent of Joni Mitchell’s “Hejira” period. Back to the old-time songbook for “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” and one began to think McKeown might be a Celtic equivalent of jazz-blues singer Cassandra Wilson, moving unpredictably yet fluidly and fruitfully between traditional and pop styles.

McKeown did little to build upon that solid foundation, though the rest of her set included such strong material as “Snakes,” a good, Rosanne Cash-style folk-pop anthem, and the cabaret song, “Bones,” which recalled Tom Waits under the influence of Kurt Weill. Lindsey Horner’s bass and Aidan Brennan’s guitar didn’t always give McKeown enough room in her lower range, and although she mustered some nice, piercing vocal jabs up high, they weren’t part of a sustained, hypnotizing spell. In short, she only sang what she sang; she didn’t become what she sang.

McKeown’s stiff bearing brought a sense of tentativeness to music that cried out for rapture and transportedness. Straitjacketed demurely into a long, dark sweater over a more Boho low-necked satiny purple blouse, she kept her shoulders taut and still, as if the no-arms rules governing traditional Irish step-dancers also governed traditional Irish singers.

In her often exceptional new album, “Through the Bitter Frost and Snow,” McKeown takes both contemporary songs about winter and hoary Christmas songs seriously as expressions of humanity’s grappling with life’s dark, cold elements. The title song is as close as we’re apt to get to a channeling of Sandy Denny, probably the greatest folk-informed female rock singer ever. But that Denny-an magic and majesty weren’t there in McKeown’s Saturday performance.