I have heard Marlene VerPlanck sing in smoky east side cafes and on elegant concert stages, in cluttered commercial studios, in drawing rooms and ballrooms and bar rooms. I have heard her sing in the great echoing marble entrance hall of the New York Public Library. I have heard her in New York, Vancouver and London. Also in Hickory, North Carolina. You are probably beginning to get the idea: I'll go anywhere to hear Marlene VerPlanck. Her clean, serene way with a song thrills the heart and lift's the spirit.

I first met Marlene when an old friend, Loonis McGlohon, the composer and pianist, invited her lo sing some lyrics of mine for a regional album called "North Carolina Is My Home." We needed a chorus, and couldn't afford one. Marlene provided a simple solution. She sang all the parts a few limes. The result sounded like a heavenly choir, with Marlene as all the alto, contralto and soprano angels! She is just a tiny bit of an angel. I haven't yet figured how God fit such a big voice and such a musical intelligence into such a fragile little frame. There is nothing little about the sound that comes out when she opens her mouth to sing, and nothing forced or artificial, either. No record album was ever given a better name than this one: "Pure and Natural." That's the way she is, and that's the way she sings.

Everybody in the country has heard Marlene VerPlanck sing, by the way, for her persuasive voice is heard on dozens of television commercials. ("That's what Campbell's Soups are •· Mm-mm good!") Her concert and recording career was given a substantial nudge when no less an authority than John S. Wilson, the influential New York Times critic, wrote of her. "She is showing that she may be the most accomplished interpreter of popular material performing today."

The musical pros know all about Marlene. When she sings at a New York club, they come lo sit in the dark and marvel and applaud. (Her husband, Billy VerPlanck, arranger, composer and adorer of Marlene, is always there lo lead the applause and accept compliments for his wife between sets.) What knocks out the knowledgeable are the range and clarity and artistic imagination on display up there on the stand. Or maybe they come lo see if they can ever catch Marlene in a musical mistake. If that's what they're waiting for, they have a long wail ahead of them. Her choice of songs is impeccable, and her notes are pitch-pipe pure.

But why are you laking my word for it? Set the stylus down in the first groove of "Before the Parade Passes By" and have a little purity for yourself!

-Charles Kuralt