Also this issue:

Under the Radar
Jim Putnam is not an undercover Brother.
-Paul Burress

Summer Monster
The package tour -- something wicked this way comes.
-Patrick Rapa

Beat Box
-Ain Ardron-Doley

The Gig
-Nate Chinen

DJ Nights
-Sean O'Neal

July 12-18, 2002

music

Coming Up Rosey

The rising pop star wants you to get Dirty.

by Nicole Pensiero

One of the best things about being onstage, up-and-coming pop singer Rosey says, is how it helps her “shake off the shy thing.” Not that her first major tour gives her any opportunity to be shy; the 29-year-old singer is spending the summer wooing stadium-size audiences as the opener for Island Records labelmate Melissa Etheridge.

“Before our first night, I got to spend about three hours with Melissa and Meredith Brooks, who’s also on the bill, and it was pretty amazing,” Rosey says from a Connecticut hotel room. “Melissa’s so supportive. … I think she still remembers what it’s like when you’re trying to get your name out.”

Etheridge’s support -- along with Rosey having her song “Love” featured on the Bridget Jones’ Diary movie soundtrack -- has given the New England-bred singer-songwriter both a hearty dose of confidence and a major career boost. “All of a sudden, it’s like the car is juiced up with gas and flying down the highway,” Rosey says. “It’s fun and exciting, but I have to just keep my head on straight.”

Not too many years ago, Rosey herself was the potential answer to every struggling musician’s dream. As a scouting rep for A&M Records, she traveled around the East Coast in search of the Next Big Thing. Determined to find herself a record deal, Rosey turned to waiting tables by day and gigging by night in New York City. Eventually, an exec from Island/Def Jam -- to whom she handed a demo tape in between taking his order and delivering his lunch -- took notice.

Rosey’s debut album, Dirty Child, is a mix of rock, pop, funk, hip-hop and touches of psychedelia. While she’s been likened to everyone from Beth Orton to Sheryl Crow, Rosey’s favorite depiction is as the “love child of Robert Plant and Rickie Lee Jones.” “I was like, ‘Cool!’ I love them both, so to me, it was a tremendous compliment, whether or not it was meant as one.”Warming up the stadium-sized crowd for an established star is “terrifying and totally fantastic,” Rosey says. “It doesn’t matter if there are only, like, 10 people there to see me,” she says. “I’ll be playing for them and for anyone else half-paying attention.”

Rosey, with Melissa Etheridge, will play Thu., July 11, 7:30 p.m., $15-$79.50, Tweeter Center, 1 Harbour Blvd., Camden, N.J., 215-336-2000.