Singer in search of herself

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Even so, last night, the first of two at Hammersmith, she didn't make things especially easy for herself. Dressed like the Mayoress Of Frumpton, she certainly does not trade in sex.

Moreover, she is not a natural performer either. A technically gifted but charisma-free band offered her no support whatsoever and the on-stage detachment soon transferred itself to the audience.

"That was really crap," she smiled (through gritted teeth) after the crowd's feeble attempt to sing along to the evening's nadir, an unspeakable assault on Mockingbird. Perhaps she might pause to wonder why the response was so "crap".

She tried her hand at country on Bobbie Gentry's rags-to-riches-via-prostitution fable Fancy and as a jazz chanteuse on the standard Blues In The Night. Neither came close to working and the suspicion lingered that despite two frighteningly successful albums, the 22-year-old doctor's daughter from Georgia is unsure who she is.

But, elsewhere, things were surprisingly interesting. English may be her second language, but her voice was unremittingly gorgeous. On up-tempo versions of producer/manager/chief-songwriter/ex-Womble Mike Batt's My Aphrodisiac Is You and John Mayall's Crawling Up A Hill, it had the knowing twinkle lacking in her physical presence and she convincingly wrapped herself around Batt's ballads Call Off The Search and The Closest Thing To Crazy.

The more life experiences she has, the better an interpretive singer she will become.

Melua's own songwriting, as showcased on Piece By Piece and Spider's Web, is developing slowly but surely. More heartening still, she was unafraid to throw a curveball. She somehow added something new to Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; she reinvented Babylon Zoo's heroic Spaceman (Number 1 10 years ago this week, as she correctly noted) as a lament and she delivered The Cure's Just Like Heaven with an instinctive understanding of its tacit melancholy.

Once she truly finds herself, there will be more surprises.

Katie Melua
Ronnie Scott's
Frith Street, W1D 4HT