COURTESY PHOTO

k.d. lang

The versatile singer connects
with the audience by pouring
her life and emotions
into her songs

k.d. lang, whose music spans two decades and several genres, has become a prophet of emotion, sharing so easily on a public stage intimate feelings that you expect a nervous breakdown at any moment.

But lang, who performs Monday night with her band and the Honolulu Symphony at the Waikiki Shell, says storytelling her life's experiences in song lessens any chance of a meltdown, calling it "freeing and rejuvenating."

In tune k.d. lang and her band with the Honolulu Symphony: Where: Waikiki Shell When: 7 p.m. Monday Tickets: $45 and $55 Info: 591-2211, 877-750-4400, or www.ticketmaster.com

"I've always really tried to deliver a song with as much knowledge of the emotional content as possible," she says during a telephone interview from Sydney, Australia. "I'm not adhering to one emotion, but delivering a broad idea of the compassion one would need as a listener, whether they're going through a death or a celebration ... "

Emotional honesty, lang says, is necessary on a professional level, as well as a personal one.

"Being open like that on stage forces an artist to avoid the static-ness of attaching your ego or idea to something which can create lethargy," she said. "It lets the audience take you where they want to go. I'm really not the controller of the night.

"I just happen to be in the middle of the room. I'm a voice floating there redirecting the energy."

Lang still loves country music, which was on her first album in 1985, though she admits she didn't quite fit the mold of your typical Nashville star. She came from a small town in Canada -- Consort, to be exact, population 650 -- and grew up largely without a father. Her passion for singing and belief in her talent are what has carried her through the ups and downs of fame and living on the road, she said.

Lang has recorded albums of various genres: country, ballads, pop, a recent classic with Tony Bennett, and her current homage to Canadian songwriters/singers, "Hymns of the 49th Parallel."

"I don't think of them as genres, but as music," lang says. "It's up to critics, record companies and marketers to label them. To me I'm just a singer and I'm singing songs."

THAT SIMPLE approach is what's made lang such a favorite with audiences.

She is honest, direct, avoids small talk, asks nearly as many questions as she answers, and avoids political correctness. Maybe that's the small town influence which, she said, was far more real than what goes on in large cities.

"Did I fit in?" she says. "Yes. Living in a small town is the opposite to what people believe. There are as many eccentric people if not more ... but you just know them intimately, so their eccentricities become normal.

"Every day, my math teacher would drive to school on his tractor, and that seems funny, right? But it wasn't because every day at 8:15, there was Bill Holmes driving his tractor to school. So because you know these people and because you see them every day, the eclectic nature of their personalities just are who they are, whereas in the city, I think you have the tendency to be drawn to people of the same basic ilk as you, and that people who are very different than you are strangers."

Growing up in Consort prepared lang for life in the public eye because "people know everything about you."

"I've developed a very open and honest approach to being in the public eye because I really ... you know, my flaws and my idiosyncrasies, I don't have a problem sharing, I don't think," she said.

Which is one reason why lang signed with the artist-friendly Nonesuch record label.

"I'm with the greatest record company in the world because they just let an artist be themselves," she said. "I have always been given enough rope to hang myself.

"Nonesuch focuses on nurturing the artist and what they want to do, not sales, but putting out good quality music and art. That dreaded comment from a record company, when you hand a new record in, is 'We don't hear a single.' I definitely will not hear that from Nonesuch."

When lang released her first major-label album in 1987, she caused considerable controversy within the conservative world of country music. With her vaguely campy approach, androgynous appearance, and edgy, rock-inflected music, very few people knew what to make of her or her music, although no one questioned her considerable vocal talents.

The confusion never dissipated over the course of her career, even when she abandoned country music for torchy, adult contemporary pop in 1992 with her fourth album, "Ingenue."

COURTESY PHOTO

SHE WAS first drawn to music by three older siblings who studied classical piano and played daily in the family home.

But it was in college where lang connected with popular music, and was attracted to the music of Patsy Cline.

She became acquainted with Cline's music while she was preparing to star in a collegiate theatrical production based on the life of the late country singer.

"I immersed myself in Cline's life and music and decided that I would pursue a career as a professional singer," she said. With guitarist/co-songwriter Ben Mink, she formed a band named the re-clines, in tribute to the cline, in 1983. Their debut album was "Friday Dance Promenade." A follow-up album, "A Truly Western Experience," was released in 1984 and received even better reviews and led to national attention. In 1985, lang was named the Most Promising Female Vocalist by the Canadian Juno Awards.

Sire signed lang in early 1986, and she recorded her first record for the label later that year, "Angel With a Lariat," a mix of 1950s-style ballads, kitschy rockabilly and honky tonk numbers. As she was recording her second Nashville album in 1987, lang sang with Roy Orbison on his old hit "Crying," which was recorded for the film "Hiding Out." The single was released at the end of the year and was a hit, marking her first appearance on the country charts.

A few years later, lang released the hard-edged "Absolute Torch and Twang," which won her a Grammy Award for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, and the album track "Full Moon of Love" became a Top 25 hit in the summer of 1989.

Before the release of "Ingenue," lang outed herself as a lesbian in an interview in The Advocate. The new album was adult contemporary pop that owed very little to country. Its first single, "Constant Craving," became a Top 40 hit and won the Grammy, this time for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female. The album reached platinum status in sales in the United States, Great Britain and Australia, and went double platinum in her home country of Canada.

In 1995, lang delivered "All You Can Eat," her full-fledged follow-up to "Ingenue." Lang continued to follow her pop-oriented instincts on 2000's "Invincible Summer," while embracing pop standards on 1997's "Drag" (a collection of songs about smoking) and in her duet of "What a Wonderful World" with Tony Bennett on their 2002 album.

HER CURRENT "Hymns of the 49th Parallel" pays strict attention to the work of Canadian tunesmiths, anchored by classic songs from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

With her phrasing subdued and her projection scaled back from the big sound of her early days, lang keeps her own instrument in check with her best moments still inspiring awe.

Working with Tony Bennett was the catalyst for lang to finally do the album she had been thinking about for years.

"I would listen to him talk about Louis Armstrong, and growing up in the neighborhood, and I knew I wanted to honor Canada's best writers and singers," she said. "Tony set off this desire for me to explore and elevate my awareness of Canadian songwriters."

On Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You," lang performs very differently from the original.

"I was trying to just sing it very, very, very cleanly, very simply, to keep the arrangements pure so the song was the priority and at the forefront even more than me as a singer," she said. "I didn't want to get all clever and intellectualize the arrangements and make them all my own or try to reinvent them, but just emotionally approach and deliver the song."

When lang won her Juno award she "promised to always sing for the right reasons."

What are they?

"That my motivation would be pure, that I would sing with a purity and a joy for music and that I would sing for the betterment of people's lives.

"I haven't always been managed to do that, but I've tried. I've tried."