k.d. lang: Live by Request.

k.d. lang: Live by Request * Warner Bros.

k.d. lang's new live album provides listeners with an intimate connection to one of music's greatest voices as well as the singer's eclectic repertoire of fans' favorite songs

We've gotten used to "concept" albums from k.d. lang. There was the trad-country album (Shadowland), the desperate-love album (Ingenue), the smoking album (Drag), the summertime album (Invincible Summer). The conceit of lang's new album, Live by Request, is simply that it's a recorded performance (albeit one in which a national audience could request their lang favorites). We don't have to think about philosophical themes or musical genres or anything but lang's supremely gifted and assured vocals. Gosh, what a concept!

The live recording took place last December at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York and was also videotaped for an A&E television special (now available on video and DVD). John Jay ain't no Carnegie Hall, but it doesn't matter. This is a stripped-down, almost barband version of k.d. lang--not a diva up on a hoity-toity stage.

When her band rocks hard, k.d. mounts up for the ride; when it slows down to a graceful trot, her voice becomes a clarion in the mix. The well-paced song lineup covers her career from Angel With a Lariat through Invincible Summer, including such disparate numbers as her showstopping version of Roy Orbison's "Crying," the country rave-up "Big Boned Gal," her surprising hit "Constant Craving," and her perky '60s homage "Summerfling." She also reprises my personal favorite, "Pullin' Back the Reins," and comparing the new version with the 1989 original (from Absolute Torch and Twang) illustrates the progress k.d.'s made as a singer and as a woman. Her voice has grown a bit deeper, but mostly it's been enriched with a soulful breathiness and grit. The new "Reins" sounds like lang has lived the blues, not just learned how to sing 'em. As she sneaks up on age 40, it seems that she's rethinking all her repertoire with such hard-won wisdom.

Despite lang's maturity, this CD reminds me of the first time I saw her, around 1987, at the now-defunct Palomino country nightclub in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. I was both floored by her vocal power and flummoxed by her gender-fuck combo of punk hair, combat boots, and long dress. I watched her set from maybe 20 feet away, standing at the bar, and couldn't help wondering about this cute androgynous girl's sexuality, let alone where she conjured up such sound. Live by Request makes me feel that intimate with k.d. lang once again.

Kort is writing a biography of Laura Nyro for St. Martin's Press.