(a garish "Sweet Georgia Brown," a discofied "Teach Me Tonight"). Apparently, high-powered executive producer/manager Dee Anthony rediscovered this distinguished former band singer and rightfully wanted to return her to the spotlight. But he's only succeeded in making her sound vulgar. This unspeakable disaster should convince Syms to stick with the Coward/Porter/Ellington classics she sang so superbly on earlier LPs like Lovingly.

Jane Olivor, on the other hand, has always needed cheap pop trappings to puncture her pretentious, pseudo-Piaf posing. Surprisingly, she submits to them on Stay the Night, and it's amazing how much a prominently mixed acoustic guitar, overdubbed vocal harmonies and a muscular rhythm track can open up her stifling, stagy style. The sprightly "Let's Make Some Memories" elicits a lucid, human tone far removed from her characteristic cloying quaver, and even on nerdier tunes like "Honesty" and "Can't Leave You 'Cause I Love You," the mere presence of backup vocals forces her to expand her usually timid range. That her slowed-down "He's So Fine" steals directly from James Taylor's "Handy Man" is forgivable because it brings out her adorably trashy Little Peggy March voice, which also emerges and actually manages to be moving on the Manilow-like "Can't We Make It Right Again."

Olivor's problems haven't disappeared, however. Several cuts (notably "Solitaire") sound like leftovers from last year's insufferable Chasing Rainbows, and she still favors dumb songs about finding "the right garden to grow in." Though she seems a hairbreadth away from being a nicely personal, nonbrassy Streisand (e.g., the title cut), Jane Olivor's sincerity ultimately fails. But the concessions she makes toward a commercial sound on Stay the Night constitute an enormous step in the right direction.

Unlike Syms and Olivor, Helen Schneider has eschewed historical connections by choosing completely contemporary material from the outset–a smart move professionally (no comparisons to past greats) as well as commercially (Neil Sedaka having had more hits lately than, say, Harold Arlen). Also, unlike the other two, Schneider boasts a huge, bright, unstudied voice equally adept at gloriously torchy sweeps, decorative trilling and fast, friendly patter. As yet, however, she hasn't made the most of these potential claims to fame.

Schneider's reasons f