Philly Fillies

CAN YOU GET behind a youthful team of players with a lot of spunk and heart? How 'bout some seasoned pros making a last, grand run around the bases for hope and glory?

If answering in the affirmative, you've gotta be rooting this week for the Philadelphia Fillies. And no, that's not misspelled.

Today we're talking about a great crop of homegrown female champions of the singer and songwriter persuasion, musical major leaguers taking to the field and scoring hits (we hope), just as those other Phillies will be doing us proud in the World Series.

The biggest entry today is a long sidelined team rallying for a late-season comeback. Yeah, miracles really can happen in October.

We're also rooting for some underdogs - talented Philly-based femmes who're getting their game together with "indie" album releases - music's equivalent of the minor leagues.

RING THAT LABELLE: Many a female Philly talent has transitioned from church choir to the pop charts. But none loomed larger or reigned longer than LaBelle, the Southwest Philadelphia-spawned trio born in 1961 as Patti LaBelle & the Bluebells and best known for hits like "I Sold My Heart to the Junkman" and "Lady Marmalade."

Also a big part of their success story was LaBelle's glam-slam, over-the-top concert performing aura, which made them popular with everyone from glitter-rock fans to funksters to gay blades of the disco era.

Three decades after the release of their last album as LaBelle, namesake/front singer Patti LaBelle and her partners in rhyme Sarah Dash and Nona Hendryx are on the comeback trail with "Back To Now" (Verve, B+). And quite a respectable project it is, stocked with solid tunes and production that underscore anew their reach and diversity.

The set doesn't offer any major surprises. But would fans have wanted them to go, say, all techtronic on us?

It's a blessing just hearing that these Philadelphia Fillies still have their chops - vocal and songwriting. Can't say that for many of their contemporaries.

Guest producer Lenny Kravitz, much younger but always a fan of retro things, promotes the trio's funkiest side with the edgy (though maybe a bit too shrill) show-opener "Candelight," as well as with the Isaac Hayes-influenced protest spiritual "System" and, most successfully, with the rootsy ballad "Superlover."

The latter evokes the traditions of Gladys Knight and the Pips' biggie, "Midnight Train to Georgia."

In his sole turn at bat for these Fillies, Wyclef Jean adds a bit of reggae flavor and vocal assistance to "Rollout."

And really digging at their roots in this all-star game, LaBelle's old teammates Kenneth (Kenny) Gamble and Leon Huff come out of (near) retirement to produce (alone and together) four tracks.

They're adding to the church fervor of "The Truth Will Set You Free" and the Philly International-style power balladry of "Without You in My Life."

G&H also help LaBelle reassert their aura of social consciousness, shedding "Tears for the World." Then, with Ms. Hendryx at the helm, they hit a homer with "Dear Rosa," an homage to civil rights icon Rosa Parks that could enjoy a long life on its own.

LET THERE BE LIGHT: After two albums for a major label, Cherry Hill export Toby Lightman has gone the indie release route. Hey, join the crowd, babe.

"Let Go" (T Killa Music, B+) still celebrates her tough-girl demeanor and oh-so-sassy, "blue-eyed soul" vocals, which I thought were too grown-up for the teen audience her former label was initially targeting. Lightman also had the bad fortune to be vying for attention with similar sounding British exports K.T. Tunstall and Joss Stone.

This new project feels like Lightman's most organic and natural, with a groovy little band and call-response backup singers that evoke the Raelets, Ray Charles' sidekicks.

The opening track, "So Natural to Love," comparing her romantic comfort level to an old pair of jeans, is a down-home groove that ought to be snapped-up and worn-in by a major artist if Lightman doesn't get a hit with it herself. The finger-snappin'-cool, gospel-edged "I'm Gonna Break His Heart (To Save Mine)" is another personal fave.

And dig how the set moves from the weight of wrong-guy-at-the-right-time moaners to songs of an outreaching, inclusive, celebratory nature with "Take My Hand," "One Day" and "Love Is All Around," a campfire-style closer that should drive Jack Johnson fans wild.

The songs are available at iTunes, the Home Shopping Network and www.tobylightman.

com. Lightman headlines next Tuesday at the Tin Angel.

YULE LIKE HER: I had to scrub my vow to not play any Christmas 2008 albums before November, so I could check out what Chester's gift to jazz vocalising, Anna Wilson, had to share on "Yule Swing" (Transfer, A-).

And what a hoot it turned out to be, with original Wilson tunes and sophisticated, horn- and piano-flecked arrangements that reflect her love and mastery of classic-jazz pop.

Faves include the title track, which sounds like variations on the theme of Frank Sinatra's "Come Fly With Me"; Wilson's winning ballad gifts "Wish" and "Through Their Eyes"; the bluesy, adults-only romp "Holiday Lovin' " and the winking homage to a "Mrs. Claus" who's dressed in red and looking hot, hot, hot.

KINDRED SOULS: I'm allowing one guy into the Fillies dugout because without Aja Graydon, his wife Fatin Dantzler wouldn't have a musical and romantic foil to work off of as Kindred The Family Soul on their latest album, "The Arrival" (Hidden Beach, B).

He's the Marvin Gaye (or Nick Ashford) to her Tammi Terrell (or Valerie Simpson) on this polished, urban pop package. This is music by grown-ups for grown-ups, as they feel the "Pressure" of their relationship and the need to argue, chafe at the restrictions of the music biz on "Set Free" (a song OutKast would be pleased to do), or reach the heights of love with "No Limit," a song Fatin describes as "a modern 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough.' "

COUNTRY COMFORTS: Kate Gaffney's ready to throw her guy into the "Falls Bridge," a country-rock slip-slider that sounds like something from the pen of Okie dude J.J. Cale, not from someone who in the next line is telling us she doesn't "live on Vine Street anymore."

So does it matter that Gaffney's a Philly-billy? Not really.

Sounding at times like Natalie Merchant, she has all the twangy vocal accents and warbly instrumental bits in place, with a top-notch backup band including Jackie Greene, Andrew Lipke and Steve Kimmock. They really get to stretch on the 18-minute title tune of the album "The Coachman" (Dig Music, B). Kate also makes a smart town-and-country connection with her cover of Woody Guthrie's "Philadelphia Lawyer."

MOODY STUFF: Judging from the moody, whispering, chamber-folk sound that dominates the first CD of her new double-disc set "Elephants . . . Teeth Sinking Into Heart" (Warner Bros, B+), Rachel Yamagata must have relocated to Philly just when her favorite (and most supportive) radio station, WXPN-FM, was in the heat of Damien Rice and Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova ("Once") pennant fever.

The second disc picks up the tempo and rocks harder. It's good, too, though nothing like that first, nearly perfect, ambient heartbreaker.

ANOTHER JERSEY GIRL: As long as local TV keeps us informed about weather conditions in Monmouth County, we're gonna embrace that Jersey zone as part of our own. In that spirit, we also welcome back their/our Ashley Tisdale and, um, the rest of the cast of "High School Musical 3: Senior Year" (Walt Disney, C+), out today in album form and in theaters come Friday.

Truth is, Ashley steals the show (again) in our book. Her knock-'em-dead, egotistical, going-for-Broadway vow, "I Want It All," really is the most amusing and only theatrically minded song in the entire "musical" score this time, surrounded by pleasant but all too similar love duets by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens that didn't need any silly distraction like a plot to hang on.

PINK UNLEASHED: Other than the first single, "So What," we haven't heard a peep from Pink's album "Funhouse," due out next week.

But that chart-topping tune alone should be sufficient motivation to get fans over to VH1.com's site "The Leak," where - starting today - you can hear the whole new thing from Philadelphia's most successful and outspoken female rock export.

Catch ya there. *