Patty Loveless has lasted a long time in the increasingly fashion-susceptible world of young country music, and she's done it without major changes in style or public persona. Way back in the middle 80's she nailed a couple of Steve Earle tunes ("A Little Bit in Love," and, on her very first album, "Some Blue Moons Ago"--not so well known). They'd still sound good and succeed well on young country radio today.

But when you first hear her it's not at all easy to figure out how she has worked her way into people's hearts. Linda Ronstadt was the vocal model for a whole host of today's female singers, and Loveless may be the one that follows her most closely of all. Bouncy tunes like "Chains" made for a competent 1970's MOR sound that ensconsed Loveless securely on the charts but seemed like musical fast food that would hardly last.

Start to really listen, though, and Loveless's amazing versatility compels you to pay attention. It's all emotional versatility--her vocal range is limited. But what an emotional range it is! The shades she can bring to that basic Ronstadt sound exceed those of any other female vocalist. She can do rock-and-roll Steve Earle toughness, she can do the full-blown sentiment of today's power ballads ("How Can I Help You Say Goodbye"), she can do exquisite girl-singer hurt ("Don't Toss Us Away"), she can retreat into the background for a well thought-out novelty like "I Try to Think About Elvis." She can even take on the self-consciously desperate pose of "alternative"--check out her version of Lucinda Williams' "The Night Too Long." How many country singers could have gotten away with recording THAT? And she brings to it all a self-possessed restraint and bit of steely vocal edge that comes straight out of bluegrass--which I hope she'll make a foray into before she's through.

The Funky Farmer and I went down to see her at the Michigan State Fair last August, and that show is still resounding in my head now that the temperature is flirting with absolute zero. She touched all these bases and carried the whole crowd with her, hanging on the words, every step of the way. At the break in the middle of "I Try to Think About Elvis," nearly everyone there yelled, "Come on, Patty, get it together!" It was a great communal moment, a comic exorcism of emotional overload and media overstimulation. Then (at the State Fair, remember) she did the title track from the "When the Fallen Angels Fly" CD, a great, convoluted, wounded masterpiece from the pen of that amazing free spirit of the Texas underground, Billy Joe Shaver. There's not another mainstream singer who could make it through that, much less put it across to a crowd that was running around with competing stacks of plastic beer mugs. All in all it made me think that the emotional depths of Patty Loveless may be infinite in extent.