LALA LAND: The South Philly-born Lala sang for Al Alberts Showcase and Sigma Sound Studios before moving out to Los Angeles. : Johnnie Valentino

Of course the true story, while accurate in the details, is not quite so melodramatic. Lala grew up with the prototypical Italian South Philly family, albeit with a musical bent. Raised on a steady diet of standards, Lala found her calling while watching Judy Garland on TV with her family. Soon she was appearing regularly on the Al Alberts Showcase, "always the little girl that sang the grown-up tunes and had a big, grown-up voice." That voice paid off in her teen years, when she sang backing vocals for Sigma Sound Studios, epicenter of the Philly Sound.

At 19, Lala met her future husband, guitarist Johnnie Valentino, who educated her in jazz. The two traveled the East Coast together playing R&B and jazz. When they got married in 1984, they decided to head west and try their luck in L.A.

In 1986 came that chance television gig, for the now-forgotten Aaron Spelling miniseries Crossings, starring Cheryl Ladd with a Michel Legrand score. Far from making Lala a household name, the opportunity at best led to a few more jobs in commercials and TV, and enough steady work to move from their one-room apartment to a one-bedroom. Still, she says, the couple had to do "a lot of different things to maintain" out there.

It wasn't until relatively recently that Lala's hearing loss, which came (she believes) from a childhood bout with measles, turned severe. But she recalls that for most of her life, "I knew that I was different from other kids. I can remember as young as 5 or 6 just not hearing as well as other people. I would always fail the hearing test in school. I read lips very well and the hearing loss was not severe at that time. But it's just enough to make it a little bit more of a struggle, and to cause some stress."

About 10 years ago, she awoke one morning with a severe ringing in her ears. Despite the fact that she is now fitted with a state-of-the-art digital hearing aid, she still lives with the constant faint ringing, hissing noise of tinnitus in her left ear. It is tempting to hear a strong influence of Lala's struggles on her distinctive vocal style, which tends to slur words into pure tonality, losing the lyric in a deep, saxlike moan. Lala herself definitely hears the impact. "I feel as though I do hear differently, so therefore it affects the way I react to what I'm hearing. Speech has always been an effort for me, so I naturally lean toward wanting to sing without lyrics, because then I don't even have to think about it."

Lala channels her own problems into a new career, helping fit hearing-impaired children and adults with hearing aids. "I remember as a young girl saying, 'When I grow up, if I don't get to sing, I want to work with handicapped children.' Now I've gotten to do both, though not in exactly the way I thought that it would happen."

Her difficulties also led to Lala's decision to pay tribute to Chet Baker on her latest CD, Touch of Your Voice (Omni Tone). Despite Baker's constant struggles with drug addiction, Lala says, "When he sang I was so moved by his ability to just touch your heart and move you and be all there in the moment. And I thought that the songs that he picked were just beautiful, and I wanted to call attention to that material and to him, but yet do something totally that was me."

The resultant album is a collection of stark ballads, fit for lonely nights in a dark room. Lala laughingly admits that a friend has referred to it as "razor blade music." (In contrast, her husband's latest album, Stingy Brim, is a jaunty, humor-filled set of oddball guitar-organ-tuba funk-jazz. Guess a couple has to complement each other.) After so many years of work-for-hire, Lala's affliction drove her to find a new focus on the type of music she wanted to perform. "Nowadays jazz is everywhere. You go into Starbucks and jazz is playing, and it's background music. But what I love to do demands that people listen to what I'm doing, not just eating with music in the background. I can't do that anymore. Music is such a passion and a love, I can't do that to myself and to the music."

Sat., June 17, 8 and 10 p.m., $15, Chris' Jazz Cafe, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131, www.chrisjazzcafe.com.(s_brady@citypaper.net)