If you don't know that Deena Rubinson is a singer-songwriter, and a particularly gifted one at that, that's all right. She's still getting used to the idea herself.

"I was always a musician, but it was private," says Rubinson with laughter, "and selfish. It was my little secret."

A performer from an early age (she was a national champion synchronized swimmer in the 10 and under category), Rubinson spent her musical adolescence in the grind of New York, composing songs, clinging to the guitar, and frequenting small clubs like The Bitter End and CBGB’s. She even fronted a not-particularly-skilled cover band in Lower Manhattan. "We were pretty atrocious," Rubinson says. It wasn't until she moved to Los Angeles that the Maryland native fully turned her attention to playing her own songs.

With the release of her new CD Goodbye Cinderella, word is fast getting out about the doe-eyed, dark-haired songstress. On the strength of her disarmingly smart and provocative songs and her easy, intimate performances, audiences have been enthralled, critics have been charmed, and even the tough-on-herself Rubinson pronounces herself optimistic... for now, at least.

Rubinson feels simply that, "if a song can stand up with just a voice and a guitar, it's a good song." Her influences include singer-songwriters such as Patty Griffin ("with two words she can make me bawl"), Elvis Costello and Bonnie Raitt - musicians whom she says, "are storytellers, first and foremost."

Rubinson's own songs often have a cynical skin but always immense heart. While she's reluctant to say specifically what they're about ("the song may come from one place in me, and hit you somewhere else entirely"), nearly all of her songs detail the simple hum and surprise of human relationships--the bonds people make and the bonds they sometimes break.

Rubinson confesses surprise at herself at writing such directly heartfelt material. Indeed, in songs such as "36 Hours", "And Then There Was You", and "A Couple of Miles", hope co-exists in an uneasy peace with hard-forged reality and, at times, it's not altogether clear which gets the upper hand. Likewise, in "Blinking", an eerie foreboding is draped over the optimistic smile of a small child:

I look to the counter
Through the haze of a headache that her daddy gave me
But she’s got a smile
that’s as big as California
A laugh like music and a beating heart
And a cry that’ll fill the entire Grand Canyon

Most of all, though, what entrances Rubinson is the timeless and ineffable sound of a voice accompanied by strings, particularly guitar strings. That much, she figures, comes from her father and grandfather. As a young adult, Rubinson had the epiphany of discovering that her father and grandfather had been talented guitar players in their own right, and that the instruments accumulating dust in her parents' home were vintage (and valuable) Gibsons and D'Angelico's. No wonder music came so naturally to her - it's genetic.

Whether or not she’s accepted the fact, Rubinson is a gifted singer-songwriter - a storyteller, first and foremost. "I fought against playing my own stuff tooth and nail," says Rubinson, "but it's a funny thing. Sometimes you have to know when things are wrong in order to know when they're right."

Deena Rubinson plays regularly in Los Angeles and is working on the music for a new series, The Road to Wonder Valley.