It wasn't just another gig: In January 2009 Christine Ohlman and her band Rebel Montez were invited to play Barack Obama's inaugural ball at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, D.C. After eight years with an administration that couldn't dance, it was time to get down.

"It was so cool to be in the city that day, with all the feeling that was coming," Ohlman says. "You really could sense it. It was electric. So much optimism, we'd come out of a dark time. It was a wonderful, wonderful feeling."

Speaking of wonderful feelings, have you heard this woman sing?

Christine Ohlman knocks me out. Beneath a towering bottle-blonde beehive, this woman belts big and brassy from the soulful side of the street. Anchored in classic American music, it's Ohlman's smoky pipes that give a common thread to her musical grab bag - a bag stuffed with everything that's righteous and cool. Yet however multi-layered or faceted she sounds on her latest CD, "The Deep End," ask her and she'll tell you - it's all just rock 'n' roll.

"I'd say it's overridingly rock 'n' roll," says Ohlman. "I think it's really because I'm a rocker at heart. I have a tremendous knowledge - perhaps too much - of girl groups, people like Baby Washington, Dusty Springfield. It's all crammed into my head, but basically I'm a rocker. I also give Andy York a lot of credit for that. He's the producer of the record, he's very guitar oriented and knows a lot of different ways to come at the guitar."

Ohlman answers virtually every question asked with a preamble of throaty laughter - except one. What record lit her fuse?

"‘The Blues Project' record," she says. "Because it turned me on, as a little kid, to Paul Butterfield, and from there I started going backwards into Delta blues. I started record collecting when I was a teenager. I have a pretty good record collection now. That record, as a white suburban kid growing up in New Haven, pointed me in a lot of different directions."

"I've always been a sort of encyclopedic listener ever since I was little," she says. "I was always the one who was after my father to bring me home records, and he was always really good about it. So I just listened and listened and listened. And then finally my brother and I had a little garage band and it evolved into a band called The Scratch Band." This band included guitarist G.E. Smith, which led to Ohlman singing as featured vocalist in the Saturday Night Live Band starting in 1991.

Ohlman has also lent her voice to projects by other artists, including Eddie Kirkland, Charlie Musselwhite, Kenny Neal, Ian Hunter, Black 47, and Big Al Anderson. And she's not just singing, she's bringing the heat. Ohlman knows how to burn the blues from the inside out, going beyond the theatrics to convey genuine heartache and pain.

And though Ohlman can conjure the healing, resilient power of the blues, she believes blues emanating from a real place swings a bigger hammer. "The Deep End" is a tribute to original Rebel Montez guitarist Eric Fletcher, who died in 2005. And "Re-Hive," her album of outtakes and rarities, is dedicated to the late Doc Cavalier, her partner for 25 years. Still, the lady doesn't wallow.

"I say it's a record about love and the courage to fall into it," she says.

It's also the courage to live it night after night on the stage. "I always say I'm here tonight to set your soul on fire," she says. "And that is my absolute promise; that there will be passion from the first note. Some of the history of American popular music will reside in me that night, and I'll be more that happy to make my little mark on a part of it."

Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez

Sunday, June 13

Abilene Bar & Lounge, 153 Liberty Pole Way

7:45 & 9:45 p.m. | $20 or Club Pass | rochesterjazz.com