VONDA Shepard first found fame as the resident singer in hit American TV programme Ally McBeal, but there is so much more to her than that lawyer show, she tells David Gordon.

ALTHOUGH she’s sold more than 12 million records, Vonda Shepard doesn’t have a name that is immediately recognised by people in Britain.

ask them if they remember the Ally McBeal TV series and they’ve got her – the singer at the piano in the surreal bar that the show’s star, Calista Flockhart, and her fellow lawyers would adjourn to after a day in the office.

But it’s 13 years since Ally McBeal was last on TV and in that time Vonda Shepard, who was born in New York but has spent most of her life in Los Angeles, has carried on ploughing her own furrow and drawing a loyal audience for her own original songs.

Her new album, Rookie, is her 14th and she’ll be playing at Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre on October 23 as part of a 14-date British tour to promote it.

Although Vonda made her mark in Ally McBeal through her distinctive treatments of classic songs such as Walk Away Renee and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? she has always written and performed her own songs – indeed the show’s theme song, Searchin’ My Soul, was one of hers.

So it’s no surprise that her new album is a collection of her own compositions.

“Rookie is 10 new songs, which took a long time to write,” says Vonda. “I have a need to write and express myself through music. I needed to do this and right now I’m pretty happy with it.”

The opening track, Need Your Love, is a funky, soulful song that Vonda describes as “Aretha style” but she warns, “You won’t know what the whole album is like just by one song”.

There’s been a seven-year gap since her last album of original songs and much of that is because her attention has been taken away from her music by the demands of being a parent.

“My life is a little bit different now,” she says. “I’m happily married. I have a nine-year-old son. But with this comes a different kind of stress in life.

"So I had the need to release the stuff. You will hear the desperate need to go a little crazy and cut loose on some songs!

"Then there are the quintessential Vonda piano ballads that people like to hear.

"Saturday – there’s never a sadder day – is just one of those heart wrenchers that I needed to write.” (It also works best with an American accent!)

Vonda finds songwriting a slow process and wrote all the songs for Rookie just before the recording session.

“The first couple of ideas I thought were terrible – I was a little discouraged,” she admits.

“But I got a Zoom digital recorder that helps me. Up until a year ago I was writing on a cassette and kept having to stop and wind it back. Finally, I came into the new century – and once I’d got that I got organised and the ideas started to come and I knew once I’d finished three songs I was off to the races.”

Now she’s back in songwriting mode Vonda hopes there won’t be such a long wait between albums next time.

“With my life the way it is, with basketball practice and all the things that go with home life, I have to be more compartmentalised now,” she says.

“But now I’m on a roll I think I’m going to stick with it because I’ve already got three songs that I couldn’t fit on the CD.”

Last year, Vonda’s career took another unexpected – and highly acclaimed – turn when she played the role of Martha in a New York stage production of Randy Newman’s Faust, in which he uses his own classic songs to tell the familiar story – and plays the part of the Devil!

“It was pretty special,” she recalls. “It was only a couple of performances.

"It was a highlight of my life. We rehearsed in LA for about a month then we went to New York to rehearse for 10 days.

"I love Randy Newman. He’s a bit of a national treasure – a bit of a world treasure – and to be sitting on stage singing with him was a magical experience.”

Vonda adds modestly, “I was pretty much in awe because I was out of my element. But I said, ‘Come on, Vonda, you can do this,’ – and it was great!”

So does she think of herself as an actress now? “I realise I’m capable of it,” she replies. “But I’m really a musician. I learned I could act and that I had a comedic ability, which was fun. But if I had to choose, I would choose music over acting.”

Her British tour looks likely to be a complete sell-out and the Wimborne audience will see her play as part of a trio.

“It’s guitar, bass and me on piano and they both sing so it makes a very full sound for three people,” she says.

“We do a mixture of songs. Some from my new album, then we’ll play a few of the Ally tunes and I’ve had a lot of albums out, so we’ll play a little from each one.”

I asked if she minded still being linked to Ally McBeal.

“It’s been off the air since 2002, so it’s a funny thing,” she responds.

“It was an incredible time in my life and it was a gift. It was very special but I’ve moved on.

"There’s a nostalgia value and I embrace it, but luckily most of the fans that have stayed with me want to hear the new music.”

Vonda Shepard plays the Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne on October 23. Tickets from www.tivoliwimborne.co.uk

Details of how to buy her album Rookie can be found at vondashepard.com/release/rookie/

*Vonda Shephard is at the Tivoli Theatre in Wimborne on October 23 from 7.30pm. Contact the theatre for tickets.