'Craig intrigued me because he was asking me to talk about things no one else dared to ask, such as, 'Why don't you play your guitar?' Such as, 'Oh, you like Joni Mitchell? Why aren't you performing any of her material?' and 'Why aren't you talking about her influence on you?' He asked the kind of questions that an analyst usually asks. When I get a feeling from somebody - usually it happens within the first five minutes - you know whether or not it's going to work out for you and with you based on personality. 'I trust my intuition,' Wilson says when asked why she chose to work with someone who had no experience as a record producer. lang, Norah Jones, Lizz Wright, Madeleine Peyroux and Bettye LaVette. Street - who was born in Oakland and later played guitar, worked at Tower Records in Berkeley, and did production for KPFA and NPR - soon became much in demand in the record business, producing Wilson's second Blue Note album, the Grammy-winning 'New Moon Daughter,' as well as CDs by such other singers as Jimmy Scott, k.d. (She also owns a home in her hometown of Jackson, Miss.) 'All of a sudden you're thrown into a world that is not the world you intended to be in. 'It was a shock,' Wilson, 58, says by phone from the Harlem apartment in which she's lived for more than two decades. It earned Wilson her first Grammy nomination and took her from playing jazz rooms to major festivals, sometimes on bills with rock and punk bands.

The album, which Blue Note just reissued with three additional tracks, sold 700,000 copies following its release, a nearly unprecedented number for a so-called jazz recording. And Wilson got to include two of her soul favorites: Ann Peebles' 'I Can't Stand the Rain' and the Stylistics' 'Children of the Night.' In addition to four original tunes by the singer, the repertoire included Joni Mitchell's 'Black Crow,' Van Morrison's 'Tupelo Honey' and two blues by Robert Johnson. The repertoire was decidedly outside the jazz mainstream. Instead of the usual piano, bass and drums rhythm section that underpins most such recordings, Street framed Wilson's dusky contralto voice with minimal instrumentation that included guitar, pedal steel guitar, violin, accordion, bass and drums, but no piano. The resulting 'Blue Light 'Til Dawn,' released in November 1993, was quite unlike any previous jazz vocal album. After hearing a two-song demo they recorded together, the company agreed to let him handle the job. Street then suggested he produce the album for her.

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