DATE: Saturday, March 29, 1997              TAG: 9703290046

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARVIN LAKE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   84 lines

MELBA MOORE HAS MADE COMEBACK FROM DEPTHS

``SHE'S BACK Moore than ever.''

Well, maybe not all the way back. But you can forgive Melba Moore's management folks for the high-five boast.

When you've been down - way down in Moore's case - half-way back is cause for rooftop pronouncements.

Life for Moore, as one writer opined last year, has been ``a Cinderella story turned melodrama,'' complete with an ex-husband who she claims fleeced her out of millions, bankruptcy and a stint on welfare.

Contrast all that with her salad days: a Tony Award for her role as Luttiebelle Gussie May Jenkins in the Broadway musical ``Purlie''; co-hosting ``The Melba Moore/Clifton Davis Show'' in the summer of 1972; a CBS sitcom, ``Melba,'' in 1986. And a recording career that has produced 14 r&b/pop albums, two Grammy nominations and an estimated $15 million to $20 million in earnings.

A deeply religious woman, Moore attributes her rebounding to ``letting go and putting myself in God's hands.''

Moore, 51, now considers herself ``a work in progress. There's so much for me to do,'' she said. ``Every time I make one victory, that's only one stepping stone. Of course, I'm back but there's so much to do.''

Moore's tumble resulted from a bitter 1993 divorce from her former manager, Charles Huggins, the father of her daughter, Charli. During much of their 18-year marriage, Moore claims, Huggins worked with the couple's bookkeeper, secretly using her name to get bank loans and property. Huggins has steadfastly refused to talk to reporters.

Moore maintains that Huggins had someone sign her name so he could divorce her without her knowledge. Moore countersued for divorce, but Huggins - as Moore's legal manager - still controlled her money and business contacts. By the time Moore got control of her money, there was nothing left. She was even evicted from her apartment.

Although her legal problems linger, Moore has been busy the past couple of years getting her life - and career - back on track.

The thing she's most proud of is, she says, is the way she has re-cemented her relationship with her 19-year-old daughter, Charli, a communications major at Fiske University in Nashville. ``It's a really heroic, wonderful, stupendous thing, because I had to steal her back,'' Moore said.

The singer's first professional work after her divorce was in a three-woman play in a regional theater in Florida. Since then, there's been an autobiographical one-woman show, ``Songs My Mother Taught Me,'' a role in the traveling gospel musical ``Mama, I'm Sorry,'' a return to Broadway in ``Les Miserables'' and the starring role in ``A Swell Party: The Cole Porter Songbook'' at the Kennedy Center. Recently, she completed a month at Disney World.

A new album, ``Unconditional Love,'' is slated for a May release. It'll be Moore's first since 1991's ``Soul Exposed'' for Capital/EMI.

It'll spotlight a multi-octave voice that is at once jazzy, bluesy and spiritual - a voice one reviewer described thus: ``She can go from an almost roaring deep throaty gust down to a soft, mellow whisper in an abrupt instant.''

Musically speaking, ``Unconditional Love'' will be all over the map. ``There's definitely some gospel, there's definitely some up-tempo or dance music,'' Moore said. And some pop ballads. She'll do a duet with soul crooner David Peaston and another with newcomer Billy Cliff. Moore calls the album ``kind of a crowd-pleaser'' with all original tunes

Moore would like to get the album behind her and then do ``a real jazz album.'' But she won't promise that will happen.

``I can't always say what I'm going to do, because it's not like I have a well thought out, planned career without any bumps and knocks in it,'' she said. ``So I have to sort of take things as God puts them in place for me.''

Truth be told, Moore had hoped that the upcoming album would be a gospel one, but she decided, as a born-again Christian, that she didn't have to actually record gospel to be a living example of the Gospel.

``My sense is that everything I'm going to do now, regardless of the genre, is going to be sacred,'' she said, ``but it's not necessarily going to be religious.''

So, is she afraid she won't make it all the way back?

``No,'' she said, ``I ain't got time to be scared.''

Still, she confided, ``Sometimes I just get scared whether I hear what God is telling me in terms of direction.

``My forte is I'm an actress . . . so my centerpiece really is going to be theater. Right now, though, I have the opportunity to do music, so I'm certainly not going to close the door on that.'' ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO

Melba Moore has a new album scheduled for release in May. KEYWORDS: PROFILE

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