by Craig HarrisSinger and songwriter Barbara Kessler is a performer on the rise. While her light-hearted tune"Mary Tyler Moore" made her a regional favorite in New England, her more serious work has established her on a national level. A past winner of the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folks songwriter award in Texas, Kessler was named female acoustic artist of the year by the National Academy of Songwriters; her solo album Stranger to This Land, recorded during a March 1994 performance at the Kendall Cafe in Cambridge with guest appearances by Martin Sexton, Diane Ziegler, Cliff Eberhardt, Duke Levine and The Story, received a Boston Music award as Best Debut Acoustic Album of 1995. Kessler was introduced to an even wider audience with her performance on a compilation album, Groove Magazine, which was issued by Time Warner. The collection also featured songs by Linda Ronstadt, John Prine, Jeff Buckley and Matthew Sweet. Kessler's second album, Notion, was a studio effort produced by Jerry Marrotta, longtime drummer for Peter Gabriel's group. Except for a re-recording"The Date (Making Mountains Out of rhe Molehills)," which spotlights Kessler's solo playing, songs on the album featured a full band that includes King Crimson sideman Tony Levin on bass; Marc Shulman, who played with Suzanne Vega and currently plays with Patty Larkin, on guitar; Phil Antonaides and Marrotta on drums; and Duncan Watt and Harvey Jones on keyboards; Jennifer Kimball, formerly of The Story, contributed background vocal harmonies.Kessler spent much of her adolescence listening to records in her room."There were two sides of my persona," she said during a 1996 interview,"my cheerleader side and my sitting-in-my-room, listening-to-sensitive-songwriters-and-writing-poetry side." Although she played guitar in the fourth grade, Kessler temporarily gave up music while studying for a degree in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.Kessler's career outlook changed after she heard Suzanne Vega's self-titled debut album. She wrote her first song after attending a concert by folk-blues performer Rory Block. Her album roster includes 1994's Stranger to This Land [live], 1996's Notion and 2000's self-titled release.