OK, FOLKS. Free association time. What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the words Ally McBeal? Calista Flockhart's weight? Unisex toilets? Ticking bodyclocks? Robert Downey Jnr's latest drug bust?
Perhaps it's the dancing baby (ooga-chucka, ooga-chucka). Or could it just be that woman behind the piano? You know, what's-her-name, the blonde with the bright red lips and the big brash voice? Wanda? Vonda? Yeah, Vonda. The one who's been searchin' her so-ou-oul for quite a few seasons now, alter ego of the anorexic Ally, always ready to offer end-of-show succour in that piano bar where they all hang out. At once understated and ubiquitous. The musical superglue that holds the show together and the voice of the singleton heroine's quirks, foibles and hormonal betrayals.
'Yeah, it's true. I'm already typecast,' acknowledges Vonda Shepard with a throaty chuckle. 'I guess I'll forever be known as 'that singer from Ally McBeal'.' Still, there are worse fates that could befall an aspiring chanteuse. Such as labouring, penniless, in obscurity while your peers one by one hit the big time.
Five or six years ago, Shepard's career was on a fast track to nowhere. Warner Brothers signed her, then dropped her. Other ephemeral deals danced into the distance. She couldn't even find a manager. Depressed and disillusioned, she turned inwards, channelling several years of disappointments and dark nights of the soul into her independent album It's Good, Eve. It didn't take the charts by storm, but it was good enough to catch the ears of television wunderkind and Ally creator David E Kelley.
Shepard recalls watching the first episode with a clutch of sisters and friends in a mix of horror and awe. 'It came on and I kind of got lost in the plot and suddenly there I was on TV. It freaked me out. My hair was way too light, I had hardly any make-up and my lips were too red. I looked like an alien. But it was very exciting. I still watch it every week,' she says.
Kelley, she says, wields the same iron fist over song selection he does over the script. 'The lyrics are written into the script as part of the dialogue,' she says. 'But he's also open to ideas, and I make him compilation CDs with all my favourite songs and send them to him and occasionally he puts one in. But he has so many ideas, he doesn't need a lot of input.'