Disturbed by the vaguely pedophilic marketing strategies applied to today's top female teeny-pop recording artists, one may be skeptical when presented with 14-year-old Shannon Curfman [ tickets ]'s debut CD "Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions."

In this guitar-slinging blues "woman," were those scheming A&R people at Arista simply attempting to find a Britney Spears for the rock radio format? It wouldn't be surprising, considering they'd already had some success with the Hanson of rock and heritage radio, Jonny Lang.

Curfman in fact shares much in common with Lang, besides rosy cheeks and a total lack of life experience (typically considered a prerequisite for any great blues musician). Both hail from the incongruously un-bluesy locale of Fargo, North Dakota, a community better known for its ''Ya, you betcha'' affirmations than for its ''I'm so lonesome I could cry'' moans.

Yet the differences end there. Whereas Lang's performances seem like some kind of unintentional minstrelsy, Curfman is the real deal. On ''Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions,'' she manages to bring the muddy waters and murky sounds of the Delta north to her chilly, white environs (and ''white'' is meant in every sense of the word).

The strongest tracks are the ones in which she eschews both radio-friendly, Clapton-of-late ballads and Bonnie Raitt rock candy-coated blues and allows her genuine belter to surface. Her uncannily mature, rough-edged voice and genuine guitar chops are best showcased on straight-up juke joint tracks like ''No Riders,'' a doleful little-girl-lost tale, and ''Playing With Fire,'' an homage to her guitar heroes, Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix. Rootsy yet surprisingly sophisticated, both songs were co-penned by the wee lass herself, and both hint at her staying-power potential.

Yet her longevity may require standing up to the peer pressure of the music industry (a tall order for a teenager), whose members may envision her more as a genie in a bottle of Jack Daniels than an authentic blues musician.