The problem with most of the women singers currently working in Southern California is that all of them seem dominated by producers and arrangers. From Linda Ronstadt to Bonnie Raitt to Emmylou Harris and Wendy Waldman, and with the striking exception of Joni Mitchell, all are chattel to the strength and appropriateness of arrangement and production. The marvel of Valerie Carter's debut album is that she surmounts this problem so effortlessly. With three producers (including Earth, Wind & Fire's Maurice White), three arrangers and a gaggle of cronies singing and playing, she has managed to make a record bound together only by her personality and talents.

It undoubtedly helps that Carter writes some of her own material—here, in collaboration with co-producer Lowell George—but it is her voice that ensures her control. It is a more eclectic vehicle than that of any of her peers, mostly because it is more soulful—blacker, in a way—than the rest. On "Ooh Child," a remake of a Top 40 pop-soul hit, she has some of the grace of Diana Ross; on "Back to Blue Some More," she moves, with the kind of grace Phoebe Snow only seeks, through a difficult jazz-blues. And her command of the basic Southern California genre is amply displayed on "Heartache," although "Cowboy Angel" succumbs to some of the genre's more lugubrious metaphysics. With the exception of that, and Maurice White's overpowering funk arrangement on "City Lights," this is an almost perfect debut. And it may be much more relevant that Carter tames White completely on "So, So, Happy," one of this album's gems. I don't know for certain just what it is that's a stone's throw away for Valerie Carter—but my strong suspicion is that it's success. (RS 235)

DAVE MARSH