FitzGerald's was only half full last Wednesday night, but everyone was there with a purpose. They had come to hear Carolyn Wonderland sing the blues.

She started puttering around the stage while the opening band was still breaking down, methodically arranging all the flotsam and jetsam of cables and guitar stands that would eventually make up her island home on the stage. She acts like she might be the bass player's girlfriend, shy and self-effacing, trying not to take up too much room. When she'd finally got everything just like she liked it, she sat down on a stool, guitar on her lap, peered out at the audience and quietly said, "Boo." We all started the hooting and hollering right then.

I've known a couple sleeper artists in my time like Carolyn Wonderland, who sidle through life all quiet and unassuming, then open their mouth on the stage and BAM! Out comes a hurricane. You can practically see the flames rushing from her teeth and fingers, such is the gale force of talent she lets loose.

She played so hard she lifted herself right up off her chair a couple times. She looks like she is having one hell of a good time, like the only thing that feels good to her is making her music. And the audience felt good right back at her. Carolyn Wonderland's audience loves her with an affection bordering on adoration-part worship, part fear that she'll stop singing and sneak off the stage again.

Wonderland has frequently been called a Guitar Goddess. That description fits just fine. She plays like all she does every day is sit in her basement and practice. Stevie Ray Vaughan comes to mind. She also whistles, plays the trumpet, and sings better than Janis Joplin. You heard me.

The high point of the night may have been when she did Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" on the electric mandolin. If that sounds like an odd combination, then you just don't know anything at all, and you better seek out Carolyn Wonderland this very minute, before she gets all famous and you're just part of the crowd.

Apparently Wonderland has been doing most of her playing in Texas and Oklahoma, but speculation is that may change after November, when she's going to be on the PBS concert show Austin City Limits.