A Different Kind of Folk

Singer-songwriter Christine Lavin, who’s performing at Cal State Northridge on Saturday evening, is hard to categorize.

In record stores, her CDs are usually stocked in the folk music section. But Lavin does not fit the mold of the typical folk singer. “When I’m onstage,” she says, “I feel completely at home.”

Her concerts are known for her baton-twirling demonstrations, her invitations to people in the audience to come onstage to play “Jeopardy” and her pre-show offers of free sparkle manicures to concert patrons.

Lavin views herself as a concert performer who occasionally records, rather than as a recording artist who performs live. She hones her new material for months in front of live audiences before she even considers recording it.

“By the time a song ends up on record, it’s a keeper,” she says.

The New York Times called her a “garrulous comic observer of contemporary manners.” Her songs reflect humorously on a number of familiar situations on the modern romantic landscape, usually from a feminine perspective. Sometimes with a bittersweet, non-gender specific flavor as in her “I Want to Be Lonely Again”:

“I used to be so lonely/Empty nights, endless days/Till I met you, my one and only/Now I wish you’d go away.”

Lavin is probably best known for her song “Sensitive New Age Guys,” a gentle comic swipe at the ‘90s male. The 1991 tune, which has received a lot of airplay on alternative and public radio stations across the country, poses a series of musical questions--”Who like to talk about their feelings?” “Who like to cry at weddings?” “Who think Rambo is upsetting?” to which a male chorus, usually selected from the audience, sings the refrain “Sensitive New Age Guys” as the answer to each.

Lavin has won many awards, including four ASCAP composer awards, two New York Music Awards and the Kate Wolf Memorial Award.

Despite the acclaim, Lavin readily admits her biggest thrill was when New York chanteuse Andrea Marcovicci performed her “The Kind of Love You Never Recover From” at Carnegie Hall. Marcovicci asked her to stand and take a bow.

As she turned to acknowledge the audience, Lavin saw that actor John Malkovich was sitting behind her. When she sat down, he leaned forward and whispered “That was a beautiful song.”

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Born in 1952, Lavin grew up in upstate New York listening to Manhattan-based WNEW-FM radio. She learned her first guitar chords from lessons on public television.

Her life changed in the mid-1970s when she met and performed before two men--singer Don McLean’s manager, and blues artist Dave Van Ronk--on the same night at a folk club in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. McLean’s manager told her she should go to New York City, but she needed to play guitar better. Van Ronk advised her to come to the Big Apple and offered to give her guitar lessons.

“I studied guitar with Dave for two years,” Lavin remembers. “And then for another year I worked for him as a transcriptionist in exchange for more lessons.”

After eight years in New York City, Lavin bravely gave up her day job as a secretary at Bellevue Hospital to become a full-time performer.

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Lavin comes to Northridge just as she’s released her 11th solo album, “Getting in Touch with My Inner Bitch,” a live concert offering and her third CD on her own label, Christinelavin.com Records.

“The recording industry today is like the Wild West,” Lavin says. “All the performers have their own record labels. We’ve come to the realization that if we can do it ourselves, we can keep a bigger piece of the pie.”

Lavin has also produced several compilation CDs of other artists whose music she believes in.

“I’m not that altruistic; it’s good business,” she says. “People don’t have one CD on their shelves--they have hundreds.”

Constant touring is part of her life and she admits it’s wearing her down. She’s currently working on a one-woman theatrical stage show that would play in New York.

“I hope I can continue to make a living at music,” Lavin says. “But I still keep my typing skills up.”

BE THERE

Christine Lavin performs Saturday at 8 p.m. at Cal State Northridge’s Performing Arts Center, 18111 Nordhoff St. $16-$20. (818) 677-2488.