Halley DeVestern is the type of rocker whose hybrid style invites many comparisons. Constantly linked to artists such as Janis Joplin and Natalie Merchant, she, unlike many other artists, does appreciate the connections critics and listeners make. "What you hear from the outside," she says, "is more real than what you hear yourself." We met last week in a small record shop in her hometown of Rockville Centre to discuss her work and explore her influences, rack by rack.

As we walk from section to section, DeVestern gives me a hands-on tour. With Janis looking down at her from the new Live at Winterland promotional poster, DeVestern begins talking about her greatest influence. "I grew up listening to Janis. My older sister played her all the time," she says. "Women just didn't have that kind of power at all. She had an incredible instrument. It was beyond raspy. She almost harmonized with herself."

Eventually we end up standing in front of a poster of her album, Sugar Free, a bluesy shout out of visceral rock tunes that drips with desire, rage and power. Unlike the manufactured fervor of Alanis Morrisette or the rootsy passion of Joan Osborne, DeVestern's classic sound spawns from a different kind of drive - one that takes no prisoners. It Natalie Merchant lost her pretension and got soused on Southern Comfort instead of herbal tea, she might be DeVestern.

"Success still seems like such a faraway thing for me," she says. "I feel grateful that people are playing my CD and enjoying my music. I've been struggling with low self-esteem for a long time. I try to be real in my music."

She points to Neil Young's Year of the Horse. "It's that rough sound I was trying to achieve on the CD. In the studio, I kept saying, 'Make me sound like Neil Young. Raw, pure rootsy, soulful, organic.'"

For further inspiration, the gutsy redhead in the black lace jacket looks up at a nearby CD from another no-nonsense Rockville Centre grrrl and says, "You know, ballsy...like Joan Jett." So ballsy that Jett's management pulled DeVestern off a potentially show-stealing opening spot on a Bridgeview Yacht Club gig this weekend.

TURN THE BEAT AROUND

It turns out DeVestern had a bunch of other instructions she delivered in the studio while recording Sugar Free, like, "Make it sound like the O'Jays." As we start with the R&B/Funk/Disco section, Halley laughs as she comes across a disco compilation. "At the time, I thought disco sucked," she says, "but now I appreciate a lot about it. I love the early disco bass lines and solid drumming grooves. The players were really playing. I appreciate the musicianship. Funk and R&B performers like Earth Wind and Fire, the Ohio Players, Aretha, Otis...they're fantastic."

In the country aisle, she pulls out a George Jones album. "He's lived the life," she says. "You can hear it in his voice. It hits you right in the heart." DeVestern's lived the life as well, if her music is any indication. The lyrics spew anger and determination. There are no love songs; maybe some lust songs. The album is literally about flesh and bone, and what's in between.

Still, DeVestern always seems on guard. She says she doesn't listen to music as much as she'd like, but she's well-informed, almost scholarly in some of her reflections. But, as with her music, it comes down to the gut.

As we pass through the blues section, she says, while almost caressing the classic CDs, "Now this is the real thing. It's so honest. There's no bullshit. No pretense. These guys got their guitars from the five-and-dime, and worked it to death. Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt. Nothing sappy here at all."

Which brings us to the Lilith album displayed on the wall in front of us. DeVestern auditioned for the second stage of the Lilith Tour, but didn't make it. "I'll play anywhere, and I would have loved to have gotten that gig," the singer explains. "But they're a little too sweet for me. It's not really my style...I'm not a big fan of Lilith. It reminds me of a baby shower."

TAKE THE A TRAIN

"I like jazz, but I'm not smart enough to understand it," DeVestern says while hungrily thumbing through albums by Miles Davis, Duke Ellingston, and Ella Fitzgerald. Spotting a Dizzy Gillespie disc, a memory is conjured. "Wnen I was a teenager, I used to go into the city to Fat Tuesday's to see Dizzy," she recalls. Not much of an influence, though, she remembers making out with an old boyfriend during the show more than she remembers the music.

DeVestern, whose own music ("Bring me the man who put me down, bring him close to my side, bring me the man who put me down...tied") is full of strum und drang, reveals, "I love the idea of opera. I respect opera singers. They get to the complete heights of emotion, vocally and dramatically. I strive for that ultimate emotion. I craft my lyrics to make sure they're active, and that they're going to the nth degree."

As we hit the section filled with movie scores and original Broadway cast albums, DeVestern tells me about her BFA in acting from Boston University. "It helped me learn how to perform with a band," she explains, adding that she's been "singing seriously" for the past five years, and only been writing her own material for two.

She calls Rent "typical Broadway crap" and swoons over Cabaret. "Composers like Kander and Ebb do the unexpected," she says. "They juxtapose a happy melody with frightening lyrics. Sondheim does that as well."

I remind her that it sounds a bit like her own style.

"It's something I like to do," she admits. "I hope I don't do it too much."

Although DeVestern has been influenced by many of the artists in the cramped record shop, her roots really show when we move next door to Loud Joy, an exotic instrument store. The recordings are the sum, but when she gets her hands on the instruments, the possibilities of the whole emerge. DeVestern is one musician who likes doing it more than analyzing it. Grabbing djembes, djun djuns and marimbas, like a child in a toy store, DeVestern is in her element. Here, amidst the rattle, bang and swoosh of Loud Joy, she takes out her wallet and asks if they take credit cards.