SINGER FINDS HER VOICE, PARTNER IN CALIFORNIA

Anastasia Amschler and John Gonzales had known each other for three years before John discovered his girlfriend could sing.

"She started singing in the car to Bonnie Raitt tapes, and she would start singing stronger and stronger until it hit me: This girl's got a voice," he says.

Both their voices can be heard on "That's You and Me," their new folk-rock CD that includes some background vocals by folk-rock legends David Crosby and Graham Nash.

Now married, the singer-songwriters will perform from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday at Hastings Books Music & Video in the Town Plaza Shopping Center. Anastasia's parents, who live near Cape Girardeau, will hear their daughter sing publicly for the first time.

Anastasia grew up in Perryville, Biehle and Cape Girardeau, graduating from Notre Dame High School in 1989. Here people called her Stacy and her public singing experience stopped with the choirs at church and school.

Her real name, her voice and her dream were her secrets.

"I always knew I wanted to sing," she says. "I was really shy, though."

After graduation, Stacy joined her brother Patrick in California, where people who saw her driver's license insisted on calling her Anastasia. She worked three jobs -- music store, deli and hamburger joint.

"I was basically trying to survive when I got out there," she says. "You cannot always go and find your dreams right away."

Even Patrick, now a professional drummer in Nashville, didn't know Anastasia wanted to be a singer.

She says she didn't think of John as a musician at the time either. He had played in bar bands through his youth and took his solo acoustic act to Nashville for awhile.

But by the time he met Anastasia he had abandoned working as a musician. He was employed at a Burbank music store and became a guitar and keyboard technician for touring acts like Gloria Estefan, Bonnie Raitt and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Once John realized Anastasia could sing, they began toying with recording at home. Then they moved from Burbank to the small town of Carpenteria, and a friend who was booking the music for the local avocado festival asked them to perform.

Acts were arrayed on different stages before as many as 3,000 people. The experience was the beginning of Anastasia & John as a musical entity. Now they are regulars at coffee houses and clubs in the region north of Los Angeles.

Last January, David Crosby invited the duo to accompany him on a short tour, their first as musicians. "It was short but it was still monumental for us," John says.

Among the stops were the House of Blues in Los Angeles, the Ventura Concert Theatre and Backstage in Seattle.

The experience of singing for an audience has been the best part of Anastasia's dream coming true.

"People come and see us, and they love our music," she said, still a bit amazed. "The last three or four shows there were people in the audience who sing along. That's a wonderful thing."

They recorded the CD last summer because people who were coming to their concerts wanted to take their music home.

Working for CS&N is still John's steady gig, but their musical career is certainly percolating, judging by the musical endorsements of Crosby and Nash and the high caliber of the session players on their CD.

Their co-producer was Paul Dieter, who was nominated for a Grammy for producing Jackson Browne's 1993 "I'm Alive."

John and Anastasia wrote all the songs on "That's You and Me." Their deceptively simple tunes express authentic feelings. Their voices summon favorable comparisons with Natalie Merchant, Stevie Nicks and Jackson Browne.

Robert and Viola Amschler also will have their other children -- Maria and Vincent from St. Louis, Gregory from Perryville, Patrick from Nashville and Angie of Cape Girardeau -- home for the holiday. Only one of them has ever seen Anastasia & John perform.

Viola Amschler is a former church organist who says she knew Anastasia could sing.

"But I didn't think she'd do anything with it," she said. "That's why I'm really surprised."

She loves the recording. "It's really something. And I'm really proud of her," she said.