Pop Artists Find Niche on KSCA : Radio: Adult Album Alternative format provides home for singers such as Joni Mitchell, whose concert tonight will be broadcast live.

Joni Mitchell is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the modern pop era, but for most of the past 20 years you wouldn’t know it by listening to the radio.

“There have been a lot of artists, like myself, who kind of fell through the cracks in terms of radio for some time,” Mitchell said in an interview. “Radio orphans, I guess you’d call us. You know you have an audience, but you have nowhere to display it. It’s like being an artist without a gallery.”

The ranks of these radio orphans, whose music is too eclectic to fit into one of the medium’s established formats, have swelled over the years, ranging from critical favorites such as Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt and Los Lobos to lesser-knowns such as Nanci Griffith, Peter Himmelman and Wild Colonials.

But with the advent of KSCA-FM (101.9), these broadcasting foundlings have found a new home.

“After a long time of being excommunicated from the airwaves, I feel grateful that this format exists,” Mitchell said.

The format she is speaking about is called “Triple A,” short for Adult Album Alternative, one of the fastest-growing radio formats in the country and one that KSCA adopted last July, dropping its unsuccessful easy-listening K-LITE incarnation. (Prior to that, the station had a short-lived progressive rock format known as “the Edge.”)

Mitchell has chosen to show her gratitude by performing at a KSCA-sponsored concert here tonight that the Los Angeles station will broadcast locally and feed to many of the 100 “Triple A” stations around the country.

The live performance won’t be anything new for KSCA. In addition to its broad playlist, the station has carved out a niche for itself by providing live, in-studio performances of about 80 artists to date, including Sheryl Crow, the Samples, Dillon O’Brian, Toni Childs and David Byrne, plus occasional concerts at the Wells Fargo Theater at the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum. (The former cowboy star and owner of the California Angels baseball team also owns KSCA.)

KSCA prides itself on breaking down musical barriers. Indeed, the very concept behind “Triple A” is a kind of format-less format, a throwback to the early days of free-form rock radio where one could hear a harder-edged rock tune followed by a folk song, some rhythm and blues, and then perhaps something country-tinged.

“Finally, a radio station for people who love music regardless of its labels,” a listener wrote in a letter to KSCA--one of the estimated 300,000 people, most of them thirtysomethings, who tune in during any given week. That figure is small compared to the market’s most popular stations, but it’s better than the old format was drawing and is still growing.

“We are very much open to new music by new artists that don’t necessarily fit into an accepted, commercially viable genre,” said KSCA program director Mike Morrison, who also is a morning deejay. “The mission of the station is to be a radio station for people who are truly passionate about music, who appreciate a wide variety of things and aren’t limited to any one style.”

But Morrison readily acknowledges that KSCA’s musical selections are not completely devoid of repetition. “There’s definitely a rotation,” he said. “There is structure.”

Songs on KSCA’s playlist are chosen carefully by Morrison and music director Marilee Kelly, then input into a computer for scheduling. But, lest anyone think the selections are governed by technology, or even research, Morrison hastens to explain that the computer is merely a tool that helps ensure that the right kind of songs follow one another to make for a more compelling and coherent set.

After the computer spits out a list of selections, Morrison said he and Kelly “hand-edit every single song to make sure that the segues flow properly. Every 15 minutes should have as much of what we do as possible: something new, something older, something familiar, something unfamiliar, something rootsy, something alternative-sounding, something slick, something a little more organic-sounding--a spectrum of textures and musical instruments.”

On a recent morning the artists played between 9 and 10 included Paul Simon, Gin Blossoms, Sting, Los Lobos, Julia Fordham, Boxing Gandhis, Chris Isaak and R.E.M.

KSCA has helped to jump-start the careers of several struggling musicians, such as the acoustic rock duo of Lowen and Navarro.

“One thing you realize when you actually get into the nuts and bolts of attracting an audience,” Eric Lowen said, “is that audiences have to hear the music, hear the name, see the name, read about you, hear the music again, think about it a while and then they get to know you.”

His partner, Dan Navarro, said KSCA “appeals to a lot of really thoughtful young people. People who have been in the working world a little while, out of college, maybe have a kid, see things a little differently. They reflect more, noticing the bittersweet, good and bad. . . . We feel it’s turned a big corner for us.”

Though most listeners--both inside and outside the music industry--tend to applaud the efforts being made to play a wide range of musical styles, they worry that KSCA may water down its sense of artistic adventure or become more predictable and slick.

“I think it has some diversity to it--if it doesn’t lock in,” Mitchell said. “It’s the closest thing that I and many others have to a dream station, but we are still saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be something if it could do this or that?’ ”

Mitchell’s dream station would include “some Duke Ellington, some Billie Holiday mixed with Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Leonard Cohen and occasionally the new artists that come up to those artists or come near.”

Morrison points out that KSCA cannot simply cater to a musical elite and remain commercially viable.

“If we only focus on the superfans, our audience won’t survive,” he said. “Our challenge is to try to build a base without compromising.”

Mitchell echoes the sentiments of many of the letters on file at KSCA, most of which offer suggestions of record cuts along with words of encouragement.

“I hope they keep their courage and play impulsively,” she said. “Already I can notice it’s beginning to sound ‘formatty.’ Eventually things gray out. But, still, for a commercial station, it’s doing a real good job. I’m kind of aware of the problems it has in terms of commercial pressure, so maybe you can’t ask for much more.”