Laura Coyle Comes West, Falls in Love

Laura Coyle knows she’s not an easy sell.

The singer, songwriter and guitarist recognizes that her poetically worded tales of spiritual and romantic longing are unlikely to attract the attention of radio, MTV or major record labels.

“In New York,” the East Coast-bred musician said, “it’s hard for a singer-songwriter to get noticed. It’s not like the folk boom in the Village back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. There is no more ‘artist development,’ and harder-edged urban music is what’s happening these days. I had done what I could do back there without catching a break.”

Rather than singing the blues or packing it in, Coyle packed up and headed west--West Hollywood to be precise.

“Here,” she said by phone from her apartment, “I find inspiration just walking out the door. Plus, I’m playing these rooms that are more conducive to the acoustic approach . . . where I feel the audience actually gets me.”

Since moving here last year, Coyle has fre-

quented Los Angeles-area clubs, including Ghengis Khan, the Crooked Bar, LunaPark and the Gig. On Saturday, she’ll play in Orange County for the first time at Abilene Rose in Fountain Valley, topping a triple bill dubbed “A Celebration of Women Singer Songwriters Relatively Plugged . . . “

Coyle said her infatuation with Southern California was not a case of love at first sight. Her initial exposure to the area in 1992 coincided with the riots that erupted after the Rodney King verdict.

Two years ago she came back to visit her sister but still had no intention of staying.

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“I just had this magical trip, where following some rain, I literally saw rainbows everywhere,” Coyle said. “It just felt right. So I stayed longer, rented a car, learned my way around and hooked up with some old friends. Then I made some new friends who wanted to help me make contacts and get gigs. I really felt like I was being embraced.”

Coyle got hooked on music 10 years ago. She was focusing on acting at the time, something she still does on occasion, when she heard Shawn Colvin sing the title song from her “Steady On” album on a live radio show.

“I could feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck,” she said. “It was one of the most powerful songs I’d ever heard. I bought the album and listened to it for the next two years.”

In addition, she names Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Carole King, Patty Griffin and Ani DiFranco as key influences on her emotionally charged songs of love and longing, hope and regret.

Her two independent releases--1996’s “Lift Your Head” and this year’s solo acoustic “Five Mile River Road”--use fictitious characters in vivid story songs that are sometimes based on real-life experiences. She wrote the haunting “Uncle Ezra” after reading newspaper accounts of student suicides at Cornell University, while “Lu Lu’s Lament”--a song about fear and denial--addresses some of Coyle’s own struggles.

She also has learned that it’s important to tap her sense of humor, which comes out in “Fat Faced Lady,” about a woman pining for Elvis in her corner booth at a local diner, and the tender “Roy” a gender-bending bookend to Johnny Cash’s 1969 hit “A Boy Named Sue.”

“I had been concentrating on a lot of heavier material when I realized, hey, I’ve got to get over myself,” she said. “So I lightened up and tried having a little fun. What I found is that by not taking everything so seriously, you actually have more to say.”

The commercial and critical success of the Lilith Fair tours--and artists like Alanis Morissette, Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan--has helped put more attention on women in pop music.

But has there been a trickle-down effect for grass-roots artists such as Coyle?

“I think we have benefited from Lilith because of the credibility it has given women, particularly in the eyes of the industry,” she said. “One of the repeated knocks was that even if we made good music, it wouldn’t sell. Well, Lilith disproved that one, didn’t it?

“What’s also encouraging is what Ani DiFranco has done. She’s basically said, ‘I can do it on my own.’ The reality is that particularly by using the Internet, you can successfully work outside of the mainstream,” Coyle said. “That’s a very liberating thing.”

Coyle has also been heartened by one-on-one feedback from her audiences.

“After a show one night,” said Coyle, “this man came up to me and said he was going back to his wife because of ‘Tonight Might Be’ [a song of reconciliation and fate.] To affect someone like that with one of your songs is incredibly motivating. That tells me that people still want to be moved by music.

“That’s what I’m in this for--to have someone remember my work.”

* Laura Coyle, Zeora Sage and Anna Marie perform Saturday at Abilene Rose, 10830 Warner Ave., Fountain Valley. 8 p.m. $3 plus two-drink minimum. All ages. (714) 960-4176.