You’ve heard her even if you think you haven’t. Singer Jennifer Warnes, who’s at the Triple Door tonight, has bolstered several songs to Oscar-winning status: the duets “Up Where We Belong” (from An Officer and a Gentlemen, sung with Joe Cocker) and “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” (her Dirty Dancing smash with Bill Medley) as well as “It Goes Like It Goes,” the theme to Norma Rae.

She’s also had a couple of radio-friendly hits of her own—most notably the easy, breezy “Right Time of the Night” and “I Know A Heartache When I See One”—and her reputation as a singer’s singer means she’s worked with some of the biggest names in the business (it’s Warnes, k.d. lang, and Bonnie Raitt harmonizing behind Roy Orbison in that black-and-white concert that’s played on an endless loop on KCTS).

But her two biggest movie hits don’t offer the full range of her gifts—they mostly ask her to sing big, which she can do very well and with subtler shadings that would have escaped less observant singers. Try to imagine the clobbering the Officer and a Gentleman tune, for instance, would get now at the hands of some American Idol wannabe; Warnes treats the verse gently, giving it clarity before knocking across the chorus with increasing fervor. (Her understated work on the underplayed gem “It Goes Like It Goes,” meanwhile, is a moving complement to Sally Field’s performance as Norma Rae.)

Her Famous Blue Raincoat, a classic album of Leonard Cohen songs—he sings on it, too—should be in everybody’s CD collection. As she’d already promised, she did, in fact, know a heartache when saw one: She found every bruise in Cohen’s work, nursing and/or bemoaning them with deep empathy. Tunes like “A Singer Must Die” or “Song of Bernadette” go high and reach for holiness and could be ruined by anyone wanting a showcase—Bette Midler, for one, poured treacle all over her take of “Bernadette”—but Warnes doesn’t go in for special effects. She can make something big sound small, or vice versa, without heading over the top (a trait she shares with Linda Ronstadt; their voices are often mistaken for each other).

She’s a perfect performer to hear in the luxurious intimacy of the Triple Door. If you don’t have plans tonight, give her a listen.