Jane Siberry

Jane Siberry is a rare artist: intelligent and earthy, both groundbreaking and heartbreaking. When she first attained her fame, back in the mid-1980s, she struck me as something of a cross between Kate Bush's alluring moodiness and Laurie Anderson's droll sophistication. On 1985's "No Borders Here," which was her Stateside debut, she delivered a wide range of styles and sounds, from the pop/rock punch of "Mimi on the Beach" to the dreamy and somewhat funky jazz/rock of "Dancing Class" to the angsty ballad, "I Muse Aloud." It was during that tour that I first saw her, at the Roxy in L.A. I was eager to see her in concert, but I had no idea what a great show I'd see, with a first-rate band and two topnotch backing singers who moved in sync with Jane's motions. Near the end of the show, she knocked me out with "The Taxi Ride," perhaps her most beautiful lover's lament. Since then, I've seen her at the Wiltern, again at the Roxy, and then after several years of backing off on touring, again in her alter image, Issa, at the Knitting Factory -- the one that used to be in Hollywood. That was an entirely different sort of show -- just her on guitar with one keyboardist -- and yet she was so striking, so committed to her material, which itself can often be so revealing and honest, that I was just as taken with her then as I had been years earlier. Now, to have her coming to the Largo for three nights, this is a treat for L.A. music fans to savor.