CULT FAVE KELLY BUILDS FAN BASE VIA STELLAR GIGS.

Standing at a phone booth beside a desert highway somewhere between Albuquerque, N.M., and Tempe, Ariz., recently, Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly must have felt at home.

It's not that it reminded him of his native country, where he always returns after tours that take him all over the world. It's just that the big, open blue skies and endless country highways are images that have been dancing around in his head since he first heard the music of George Jones and Hank Williams.

``It doesn't really matter where you are from,'' Kelly said from a phone he found between tour stops on his way to Los Angeles. He will be at Largo in West Hollywood on Saturday for his second show here in two weeks.

``I listened to all sorts of things when I was growing up, and it didn't need any translation. It was all just great music.''

Kelly has become a critic and cult favorite in the U.S. despite not getting much radio play or selling many records. His show at the Alligator Lounge on Aug. 25 - a roaring, charged-up set reminiscent of Neil Young's Crazy Horse or Springsteen's E Street Band - was packed despite it being late and on a Sunday night.

He spent seven years playing with an Australian-based band, the Messengers before breaking out on his own in 1991. He recorded several solo albums, including the critically acclaimed ``Wanted Man'' and ``Deeper Water'' (both Vanguard), before this year's live album, ``Live at the Continental and Esplanade.''

``We have a lot of fun playing live - it has always been great fun,'' he said. ``That's the feeling we tried to capture.''

The new album shows Kelly's remarkable versatility and talent as a songwriter (he has been called Australia's Bob Dylan) and indeed, he has seemed to find musical inspiration wherever he turns. While influenced early on by the bands of his homeland, he learned how to play guitar to old Hank Williams records and developed his passion for country music listening to George Jones, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.

After that, it was British bands like the Beatles and the Clash and, from America, the Ramones and the Beach Boys.

Kelly's solo career has been marked by sounds and settings as sparse as the wide-open spaces he writes about, but when he adds the band to the mix - as he has on this tour - his groove is closer to his rock roots than his country ones.

``I've been playing mostly acoustic shows, but I've been working my way back to being in a band again,'' he said. ``I liked breaking it down to playing with just a piano player or just a guitar, but after a while you miss the power of the band, the danceability and the groove.''