By: Jon Bream (section: entertainment page: 1f)

Who would want to follow Bruce Springsteen onstage?

Natalie Merchant did, despite Springsteen's reputation as one of rock's greatest performers, when they appeared last month at the Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. "It would have been a strange experience to follow any of the people on the bill -- they were so amazing," said Merchant, who performs tonight at Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis. "Should I go on after Aretha (Franklin)? Or James Brown or Al Green? Bob Dylan? There wasn't a bad spot on the bill."

Or a good one. For Merchant, it helped that in a star-studded marathon of rock and soul's greatest hits, her song was probably the most obscure: I Know How To Do It by Hall of Fame blues-jazz singer Dinah Washington, who is not widely known either to Merchant's generation or baby-boomers. Merchant, 31, the queen of college rock, had expected to hang out with stars from her generation, such as Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow. But she felt comfortable visiting backstage with such older giants as Chuck Berry, Al Green and Lou Reed. She became so comfortable with Booker T. & the MGs, the Hall of Famers who backed her on the Washington number, that when the band played its classic Green Onions, she darted onstage and spun into one of those dervish whirls she used to do with her old band, 10,000 Maniacs.

"I just ran out and danced," Merchant said with a chuckle. "I had hung out with them (Booker T.) enough to know that I knew they wouldn't be bummed out about that. The drummer and bass player were smiling at me. My manager was really embarrassed. I wasn't behaving myself." Her manager, Jon Landau, also happens to manage Springsteen. "It was partially Jann Wenner's fault because he was pushing me out onstage, too, and Seymour Stein (was), too," Merchant recalled. "I figure if the owner of Rolling Stone and one of the presidents of my record company says it's OK, it's OK. Jon was backstage watching on a TV monitor and he almost had a heart attack."

These days, Merchant isn't afraid to take chances. She has embarked on her first solo tour, and it may not be quite what people might expect from the former lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs, an organic folk-pop ensemble. Her music is not as loud or as energetic.

"People are being very respectful and patient during the more thoughtful songs," said Merchant. "When it's quiet, it's pin-drop quiet. That's an amazing compliment to an artist to know that you can take people to a place that's that subtle and they're with you. And we play a couple of Maniacs songs and (solo) songs that are danceable, and people are leaping up and dancing, which is really great to see, too."

Bye bye reputation

To prepare for her solo career, Merchant started over, singing in clubs near her home in Woodstock, N.Y., billed as Frozen Charlotte or Plaster Nancy Head.

"Forty people would show up, and no one would know who we were or any of the songs. I rediscovered a lot of things about playing music -- how you have to win people over, just play in a convincing manner so if they don't know it they respond to it anyway. I think that's the true test of any musician, if you set aside your reputation and all you've done and you're anonymous again, it's a big challenge."

For her debut solo album, Merchant took the low-tech route. She started working with drummer Peter Yanowitz and bassist Barrie Maguire, both of whom were in the Wallflowers (Jakob Dylan's band), in an apartment space over her garage. Later, she added 22-year-old guitarist Jennifer Turner. In the recording studio, Merchant wanted the intimacy and looseness of her rehearsals, like making a record for friends.

"A lot of my other experiences in the studio were very tense because once you start spending that kind of money and you're thinking of your legacy, it becomes a little overwhelming, and the response sometime is to stiffen up and not do your best performance. One thing I wanted to avoid was thinking that it had to be perfect. . . . Our motto was 'It just has to feel right.'"

The resulting Tigerlily received mixed reviews. It's a subtle, exceptional album, a study in minimalism and melancholy that best reveals its depth and humanity in late-night solitude. The vibe is closer to Van Morrison and Cowboy Junkies than Joni Mitchell and 10,000 Maniacs.

MTV was slow to warm to the video of Carnival, Merchant's first single, because it was subtle inblack and white, she said. But VH1 made Merchant artist of the month for September and broadcast Carnival regularly. Tigerlily has sold 1 million copies and ranked in Billboard's Top 15.

The album features a song about Merchant's grandparents, Beloved Wife, in which a long-married man grieves over the loss of his wife. In real life, Merchant's grandfather died two days after her grandmother. She also pays tribute to her late friend, actor River Phoenix, in River and protests the media's handling of his death. And then there's Wonder, Merchant's new single, a first-person tale, not about herself, but a handicapped girl coping with the world. In short, Tigerlily is a meditative album about the different emotions people run through in their lives.

"A lot of pop music doesn't address those issues," Merchant said. "I think originally that was what music was intended to address -- celebrating life in all its tragedy and all its beauty and its comedy. Music was invented and created to comfort people -- to comfort them while they worked, to comfort them while they mourned, help them celebrate the rites of passage -- marriage, birth -- the passage of seasons, the beginning of the day, the end of the day. Music came from a very spiritual place. I feel it can still come from a place like that.''

Maniac sans guilt

While Merchant has been pursuing her solo career, 10,000 Maniacs have decided to carry on without her. The band she helped form in 1981 and left in 1993 (after giving two years' notice) has added two members and hit the road. Actually, one of the two is a former Maniac, John Lombardo, who brought his duet partner, Mary Ramsey, a fiddler-singer who contributed strings on the last two Maniacs albums.

"I was bit surprised that John would rejoin because John and Mary had something going," said Merchant. "I talked to Mary, and she's enjoying it."

Ramsey is the only Maniac with whom Merchant has spoken recently. The band got too big for the lead singer, she said, and she split before 10,000 Maniacs scored their biggest commercial success, MTV Unplugged, which sold 2 million copies thanks to a hit version of the Springsteen-Patti Smith song, Because the Night.