British sensation Katie Melua invades the US, show by show

Katie Melua swears nothing about her life has changed much in the past few years.

Then she's reminded that her 2003 debut, "Call Off the Search," was the top album in the UK last year, with 1.5 million copies sold; that one cannot escape her face on ads in London's subway system; and that she's already toured France, Holland, Norway, and Japan, routinely packing the houses.

"I can still go out and not be bothered too much," Melua, 20, says on the phone from London, "and I think it's due to the fact that we've sold my record based on the music and not any sort of personality. I would say things have been very cool for me over here."

Selling her music in the United States, though, has been an altogether different story. Melua, who was born in Georgia (the former Soviet republic) and raised in Belfast and London, was an overnight sensation in the UK, but her album has yet to make a significant showing here. It's certainly not for lack of effort on Melua's part. Lately, she's been playing in New York at least once a month, with a residency at the Living Room and gigs at Joe's Pub, the cozy venue that has presented other hip imports such as Keren Ann. Tomorrow night she makes her second Boston appearance, at the Paradise Rock Club.

"I'd be really happy if America didn't discover my music until my third or fourth album," Melua says. "In a way, that's how it usually happens to musicians. They make their first album, no one seems to notice much, and then by the second or third one, they pay attention. And I know that success in the UK does not guarantee you success in America, as we've seen with all sorts of people," she adds, without mentioning UK superstars Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue.

Talking to Melua, you can go only so long before mentioning a certain female singer whose name begins with an "N."

"You mean Norah?" she says. Norah Jones is the artist to whom Melua is most often compared. "Right. Well, I love her album, and I think it's really original, but I do think there are differences between what we do."

For starters, "Call Off the Search" is hard to categorize. It's a pop album, but one that wildly traverses the musical map, from jazz and blues influences, to tasteful singer-songwriter fare, to twinkling piano balladry. It would seem an obvious contender for the jazz charts (much like the successful album by fellow Briton Jamie Cullum), but ruling the Top 40 seems a stretch.

Melua covers a range of material, including renditions of contemporary classics (Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" and James Shelton's "Lilac Wine") and two original compositions: "Faraway Voice" is a tribute to one of her heroes, the late songbird Eva Cassidy; the other original, "Belfast," is a nostalgic homage to her childhood in Northern Ireland. (Melua's family moved there when she was 9.)

Her vocals are pleasant and elastic, but also reed-thin, and her attempt at channeling old-school blues is akin to Marilyn Monroe sweetly chirping a Bessie Smith tune. She's seductive, but not necessarily sultry, something even Melua acknowledges.

"I wouldn't say I'm a jazz singer, because that would be a serious insult to people who really are jazz singers," she says. "I describe my music, as cliched as it sounds, as acoustic-based."

Melua has landed some unlikely admirers, including Brian May, the original guitarist for Queen. May has invited her to play alongside his newly reunited band at a Nelson Mandela AIDS charity concert next month in South Africa.

Katie Melua plays the Paradise tomorrow at 8 p.m. Call 617-931-2000 or visit www.teapartyconcerts.com.