Williams Delivers a Magical Night of Standards at El Rey

Singer-songwriter Victoria Williams and her band temporarily transformed the El ReyTheatre stage into her back porch on Thursday, re-creating the magical desert-sky vibe of her latest album, “Water to Drink.”

Accompanying herself on guitar and piano, the Louisiana native and Joshua Tree resident was backed by a casually precise sextet that included her husband, Mark Olson. They shaded her jazzy folk-pop with R&B; nuances and Brazilian flavors that brought out fresh dimensions in both the new material and older favorites.

The surprisingly sparsely attended two-hour performance was looser than the new recording, but not as rambling as Williams’ shows can get. Anyway, she’s among the rare artists who don’t need much momentum to hold your attention--a few syllables sung in her breathy, girlish voice is usually enough to pull you in.

Her singing style was naturally suited to the whimsy and bliss of such originals as “Lagniappe” and “Joy of Love,” but she also used it to make others’ tunes her own.

Standards form the framework of her new collection, but Williams put her own lyrical stamp on the title track by Antonio Carlos Jobim. And she channeled Billie Holiday so convincingly during “Until the Real Thing Comes Along” that it reminded a few audience members of similarly squeaky-voiced R&B-pop; singer Macy Gray.

Of course, Williams has been doing her deceptively whispery thing longer, but she shared with Gray a way of radiating heartfelt glee that seems to bubble up from deep inside. Yet, still deeper, her sense of emotional detail made the songs not just charming, but also cosmically thirst-quenching as well.