The West Berlin of the 1960s wasn’t all that different than the city’s east sector, at least in terms of local public perception. The Westerners enjoyed personal freedoms those on the other side of that infernal wall could only dream about — but the ironhanded communist repression of the time blanketed the air nonetheless, teasing their imaginations with the horrors their Eastern counterparts actually lived. No wonder Kevyn Lettau wasn’t particularly inclined to sing. The native West Berliner made up for lost time beginning at age 17, having moved to the States three years prior. She’d soon meet local jazz guitarist and icon Peter Sprague and develop a taste for R&B, jazz and Brazilian fare. Meanwhile, her Del Mar home “was an amazing place, right on the cliff; the ocean was just right there. It was just insane.” She herself would come full circle accordingly, gathering a serious fan base on the other side of the Pacific Rim and touring for eight years with no less than Sergio Mendes. Now 50, the Ocean Beach resident has released 13 CDs of her own and built a little home studio from which she assiduously teaches voice. Grammy-winning vocalist Al Jarreau calls every so often to check up on his “little sister.” Lettau will appear at Little Italy’s Anthology on Sunday, July 26, with Sprague and others in a Mendes-intensive concert; in so doing, she’ll reflect her extensive travels and, ideally, their byproducts. All that globetrotting is bound to yield a solid footing, after all — and for Lettau, that footing stems from an area of the globe in which the joy of music easily surmounts the grit of day. “The Philippines is a very poor, very Third World country,” Lettau explained, “but [it has] a wonderful blend of the Asian culture and the Latin culture. The people have an appreciation for rhythm and a wonderful attention to detail, just like in Korea and Japan, where I’ve been many times. They appreciate everything. “I hate to say this, because I really love my country — but here in America, we have become so spoiled and so jaded. We are incredibly spoiled here, and we are fed a lot of things that don’t promote values, that don’t promote an appreciation for the finer things in life. I remember reading somewhere where one of the Beatles, the first time they came to America, said, ‘We love your music more than you guys do.’” Well, maybe it’s just a case of cultural overkill. As the great Robert Plant once declared, Chuck Berry squeezed everything he could out of the pieces he wrote in rock’s infancy; a decent refinement of Berry’s style and rhythms, Plant explained, was the best his Led Zeppelin, and everybody else, could hope to achieve — and he was absolutely right. A certain lethargy naturally accompanies that kind of home-grown attitude; in microcosm, Beatle John Lennon himself fought some serious bouts of boredom in creating songs that otherwise set billions on their ears worldwide. But even as the doldrums have visited certain aspects of musical culture, Lettau takes great solace in one development that works for the art as much as against it. “Because of the incredible Internet access that we all have,” she said, “it’s also possible to find some wonderfully obscure things, if you kind of know what you’re looking for. I can go on and on about that.” Indeed, the Internet is universal proof of the world’s clandestine dance with unbridled creativity. As a participant in that festival, Lettau now knows not only what she’s singing but also why she’s singing it. That’s a far cry from a couple generations past, when a cute little German girl doggedly tried to make sense out of the dankness beyond a scruffy wall only miles away. The July 26 program begins at 7 p.m. at Anthology, 1337 India St. Tickets are $12; to purchase, call (619) 595-0300 or visit www.anthologysd.com. For information on Lettau’s voice instruction, call (619) 550-2757. For more on her career, see www.kevynlettau.com.
