The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 75

i i 1 1 i i GrfclKGS New York's the lure for Perla Batalla Latin sing X. WHCfcPerla Batalla WHAT: Latin. WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday (with Sortes de Mexico and Sonoranda) and 7:30 p.m. Sunday (with So) Canto).

WHERE: Satalla World MusicDinner Club, 37 W. 26th St, Manhattan. (212) 576-1 155. By ED CONDRAN SPECIAL TO THE RECORD Perla Batalla knows what it takes to be successful. Her parents are musicians -her Mexican father, Jorge, a mariachi, and her Argentine mother, Barbara, a singer.

Family life is often sacrificed to extensive roadwork, as musicians with major labels are at the companies' mercy. Batalla, 40, a solo performer who has lent her voice to such disparate legends as Leonard Cohen and Iggy Pop, says she isn't willing to make the same sacrifice. She cherishes time with her 9-year-old daughter, Eva, runs her own label, Mechuda Music, and rarely tours. "I have friends who go out and do 300 dates a year," Batalla said during a call He packs the house But Chris Smither doesn't mind low profile n't It was like being in prison." Batalla left, but didn't go far. "If I did that my father would find me and probably beat me," she said.

"When I turned 16, 1 told him mat I was leaving. He told me to never come back, and I left" A schoolmate opened her home to By BRYAN SABELLA SPECIAL TO THE RECORD Chris Smither is one of those artists you may not have heard of but who your favorite artists consider an influence and inspiration. Case in point: Bonnie Raitt calls him "my Eric Clapton." Smither is a critically acclaimed folk-blues guitarist and singer- beat ruminations with a bouncy, jaunty feel, as if he has found a Zen-like peace in resignation. He released his first album, "I'm a Stranger, Too," in 1970, and three more over the course of that decade, but was largely inactive during the Eighties and has since righted his course. "I was just drunk," he said of his fallow years, "and eventually, I Batalla Alter graduating from high school two years later, Batalla won a scholarship to study at the Lee Stras-berg Theater Institute in Los Angeles.

"It was a tremendous opportunity," she said. "I certainly couldn't have afforded to go there. I learned about music, dance, and literature. I can't say enough about it" In 1988, Batalla picked up her Cohen and Pop gigs. She went on the road with Cohen, who persuaded her to write her own songs.

"I can't say enough about Leonard Cohen," Batalla said. "That man is a genius and had a from her omce Ojai, Calif. "I like being with my family too much, and since my albums are on an independent label, money is a consideration. I can't afford to send my band around the country. The cost of hotels and everything else is prohibitive." However, Batalla is usually keen on performing in New York, where she will play Saturday and Sunday at the Satafia World MusicDinner Club in Manhattan.

"You have to play New York," she said. "It's the center of everything. It's wonderful to play there." Batalla will showcase her latest album, "Dis-coteca Batalla" The crawled out of the bottle. The low times informed his art, he said, "just like all your life experiences do." Smither began developing his talent after he discovered his mother's ukulele in the attic at age 8 and was taught a rudimentary three chords by an uncle. By his teens, he was makine the folk scene in songwriter who got his start in the 1960s.

His poetic lyrics and intricate finger-picking style convey the streetwise wisdom of hard living, loss, and redemptioa Smither doesn't mind flying below the radar of popular recognition. "I kind of like it," he said, calling from home outside of WHO: Chris Smither and Louise Taylor. WHAT: Folkbluesrock. WHEN: 8:30 tonight. WHERE Outpost in the Burbs, First Congregational Church, 40 S.

Fullerton Montclair. (973)744-6560. HOW MUCH: $20. i Vt i vj rofound effect on my protc Perla Batalla: "You have to play New York." life." and around his New Orleans home, and by his junior year of college, music had pushed aside plans of becoming an anthropologist for good. Smither's formative years were marked by a nomadic family life that was apt preparation for the vocation of a traveling musician, in more ways than one.

Before he'd reached high school age, the family had lived in Miami, Ecuador, Texas, New Orleans, and Paris. "It sort of opened me up," he said. "It changed something in my perception of the world." It also served him well as a wordsmith: "By 12, 1 was fluent in French; by 17, 1 was fluent in Spanish. It affects my writing, my appreciation of language." But before you go thinking he's a serious folkie, know that Smither is as sure-handed with a nasty rock riff as he is with poetic introspection. When asked if the edgier elements of his generation's music like acid rock made an impression on him, he quickly replies, "Oh, sure! I was into it One of my best musical friends is Jorma Kaukoncn" of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna.

"People think of me as a blucsman, but it was impossible to avoid." Boston on a bnet tour break. "When I was younger, it would have been disappointing. I had visions of becoming a household name. But the thing is, when you get older, as long as you're making a good living, the respect of your peers is more important" And make a good living he does. "I do about 150 shows a year, almost all are full rooms, about 50 percent sell out I've got a big house that's paid for.

"You get to a point where it's how much do you really need?" While Smither makes sure that every space he performs in has a hard floor for his foot-stompine accompaniment, his latest effort on Higntonc Records, which he's on tour supporting, represents a bit of a departure, as several tracks include a larger backing band. 'Train Home," his first studio recording in four years and his 1 1th over all, is also a departure in that longtime friend Raitt appears on his reworking of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row," a first Reluctant to use guest stars, Smither relented "when I heard her do Dylan. I realized she heard him the same way I did." Like many a great blucsman, Smither has a way of imbuing even his most down- In 1993, Batalla went solo. The following year she released her eponymous debut on Discovery Records. In 1998, she followed with "Mestiza," her first effort on Mechuda Her next release, "Heaven and Earth: The Mestiza Voyage," came out in 2000.

"If I was another kind of person, I would have put out more albums, but I have more than a career to consider," Batalla said. She's referring to her daughter and the life with her husband, Claud Mann, the chef on TBS' "Dinner and a Movie." "We do our best to make it all work," Batalla said. "My husband has his thing, and I have mine. And then we both focus on our daughter. We might not be rich and famous, but we're happy.

I would rather live this kind of life, in which we look forward to dinner parties with good conversation and interesting people, as opposed to worrying about getting ahead in the industry." moniker is taken from the Batalla family's record store, which was owned by her father and run by her mother in Los Angeles during the Seventies. "The store had a huge impact on my life," Batalla said. "Kids take for granted what they got I got music, and I appreciate what I have now more so than then. The album is full of songs that I love. These are songs I enjoy singing and songs that I wanted to pass down to my daughter." "Discotcca Batalla" primarily features Latin standards, including "La Llorona," "Las Mananitas and "Cucurrucucu Palo-ma." "This is an album that is full of songs that honor my parents and an era." Like most teens, Batalla was often combative with her parents, particularly her father.

"He had separate rules for the daughters and the sons," Batalla said. "My brothers had freedom, and my sister and I did-.