June 8, 1997, Sunday

Singer's Music Evokes Idealism
By THOMAS STAUDTER

THE idealism associated with the 1960's was evident a few weeks ago when the singer-songwriter Maryellen McCabe and the folk-rock band Phoenix Rising performed at the opening of the Riverfolk Coffeehouse in the Irvington Community Center here.

More than 125 people, including parents with small children, gathered around candlelighted tables to hear Ms. McCabe in her semi-theatrical song cycle ''Heroes and Heroines.''

The songs recall leaders who directly or indirectly have led the country and shaped its values. In a strong, insistent voice, she evoked Thomas Jefferson, Sojourner Truth, Francis Bacon, Hiawatha, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ''These are all human beings who have sacrificed their individuality for the common good,'' she said.

The music was accompanied by short introductions in which Ms. McCabe explained how the heroic archetypes fit into American history. Her 17-year-old daughter, Erinnisse, and a 21-year-old acting student, Lawrence A. Bassin, offered dramatic recitations and soliloquies to underscore the evening's theme.

''I'm striving to give an audience something that will make it feel inspired,'' said Ms. McCabe, 45, who has lived in Hastings-on-Hudson with her husband, John Michael Heuer, since 1986. ''But I'm also very interested in energy and seeing people experience greater connections in a community,'' she added. ''Performing, for me, is always a learning experience -- a chance to see what works.''

Many of the ideas presented in ''Heroes and Heroines'' grew out of research that Ms. McCabe has completed on the spiritual basis of the United States, a subject that has interested her for nearly 25 years.

After studying theater and acting at the University of California at Berkeley, Ms. McCabe, a native of New Jersey, moved in 1972 to Boulder, Colo., to join the World Family, a counterculture community led by Rennie Davis, one of the Chicago Seven defendants. The World Family combined the antiwar movement with a growing interest in Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

''We were the responsible element left over from the 60's that believed in changes that would be educational, political and spiritual,'' Ms. McCabe said.

While with the World Family, she said she became ''a deep student of ancient wisdom and esoteric teachings.'' By joining in singing and chanting, she said, she discovered how she could fully express herself.

''Singing, as a form of art, allowed me to say what I wanted to, and it also connected me to a heart place that is very spiritual,'' she said.

She moved to New York in the mid-70's to work as a theater therapist at the Queens House of Detention and gradually began to focus on her singing and songwriting, occasionally playing in bars and clubs in Lower Manhattan. By 1979, though, marriage and motherhood had taken precedence over her music career.

In 1984 she started writing the songs for ''Heroes and Heroines,'' and by 1986 she had shaped the material into a multi-media program, presenting it at colleges and high schools.

''I feel educational settings are good contexts for what I'm doing,'' she said. ''It's important to be reaching out to kids, especially apathetic ones, with a message these days.'' On April 7 she performed at the College of Mount St. Vincent's Peace Week celebration. Shows are planned later this spring at the New York Alternative High School and the Waldorf School in Garden City.

Ms. McCabe took a five-year hiatus from her own music career in 1991 when she began to oversee the Sacred in the Arts program at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, along with helping to plan the 1994 Women of Vision Leadership Conference in Washington and producing a benefit concert for the International Campaign for Tibet. ''That was, in a way, an art form, too -- producing artistic events that were also political in nature,'' Ms. McCabe said. ''I felt my mission was to raise the level of consciousness, or change it.''

Even though she enjoyed producing artistic events and political conferences, Ms. McCabe decided in 1994 to record ''Heroes and Heroines,'' renting studio time with her savings and self-producing the recording sessions, which featured members of Phoenix Rising and other prominent professional musicians. Last summer the recording was completed, and a privately pressed CD of ''Heroes and Heroines'' was released in September.

Jai Bria, a well-traveled musician who has played lead guitar in Phoenix Rising for more than two years, said: ''Maryellen is really an artist, a storyteller. She really has a contribution to make, and we all believe in what she's doing.''

Tom Charlap, the group's bassist, said that Ms. McCabe ''believes that if you hold up something good to people you may inspire them to do better in their lives.'' He added, ''That's why I'm here.''

The current lineup of Phoenix Rising includes Peter Lewy on cello, Pete Wilson on drums and, not-so-coincidentally, the catalyst of the Riverfolk Coffeehouse, Mark Jacoby on acoustic guitar. Of her band members, Ms. McCabe said: ''I'm grateful to work with them. They don't have to be working with me --they could be paid a lot more elsewhere, and I don't take that for granted.''

With long, brown hair and wearing a chamois morning jacket over a white ruffled blouse and jeans, Ms. McCabe looked like a folk-rock singer and at times her style was reminiscent of Grace Slick and Patti Smith. ''There is a destiny to help humanity,'' she sang, and later, ''Love must guide the mind on its way.''

Between the stage and tables holding urns of coffee, Mary Berke, tall and dark haired, interpreted the songs in sign language and dance movements. Children danced together by the side of the stage to the delight of Mr. Jacoby, who said he hoped the monthly gatherings would make the coffeehouse ''a place for people in the Hudson Valley to hear contemporary songwriters and independent artists in a place that's family friendly.''

After an intermission, Ms. McCabe handed out sheets of lyrics and led the audience in a sing-along. ''This is the kind of community event we need,'' said Judith Seixas, a septuagenarian from Hastings. ''It's refreshing to see a community trying to make this a good place to raise children.''

Appearing at the coffeehouse on Friday at 8 P.M. in the last show of the season is the Dirty Folk Revolution, consisting of Fred Gillen Jr. and Chris Black, with a special guest, Katherine Pritchard.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company