If you just happen to be at the Old Santa Fe Trail Bookstore and Coffeehouse at, say, 8 p.m., Tuesday, March 12, you're in for a couple of sets of great music. Vicky Pratt Keating is scheduled to perform what were listed as "lithe originals" in my press release. Fortunately, I also received a copy of Blue Apples, Keating's CD from 1-800-Prime-CD. (Everyone is so clever these days. Twenty years ago, no one would have thought to give their record company a phone number for a name.)

At any rate, Blue Apples is a happy surprise of an album. Keating has a wonderful voice (I suppose we could call it lithe), but nice voices are neither rare, nor sufficient without good material (if only I could talk to Mariah Carey about this). Keating's original cuts strike the perfect balance between the love/folk ballad spliced with emotive flavor and musical risks. "Those Voices" is as good a song as Joni Mitchell ever wrote. There's also a little Suzanne Vega and a little Kate Bush wrapped up in the quality of breath and application throughout the album. She's lyrical, sometimes simply so, but always with snap. Keating is a clear, energetic musician. Don't miss her while she's here.