Stone’s Soulful Mix Hurt by Limited Range, Sluggish Pace

For a while there, it looked as if Angie Stone might pull a Whitney Houston. The R&B; singer kept a capacity crowd at the House of Blues waiting for an hour past her scheduled start time Monday, which prompted her band to go into time-killing mode and play wedding versions of old-school soul hits.

Not an auspicious start for an artist making her L.A. debut. By the time Stone, who was apparently detained at Arista Records’ 25th anniversary concert at the Shrine Auditorium, hit the stage after midnight, the crowd was restless, and the singer needed to summon something special.

But she didn’t have the stuff to do so. One of a handful of singers who are leading the charge back to ‘70s urban music styles, Stone plucks what she wants from the past and glosses it in a hard veneer of racy self-assertiveness--she’s part Millie Jackson, part Chaka Khan, part Star Jones.

But those components don’t add up to a compelling whole. An adequate singer with limited range, Stone, whose hurricane hair and hoop earrings made her look like a Nixon-era Soul Train dancer, favors songs that decry the opposite sex, celebrate sex or celebrate herself. The show was sluggishly paced--not a good move when you’re working into the wee hours--and Stone worked far too many mid-song digressions into the set. This classic soul acolyte needs an education in old-school showmanship.