I like to use one mic and place it about two feet away. I just move it around, compress and eq it until I am happy with the balance. I like the Soundelux 251 clone (whatever they call it) for this quite a bit, although I've done the same thing with other mics sucessfully. If you're feeling nervous about this approach, or the artist is, you can always toss up some close mics just for the hell of it, too.
Here is a quick example (I think this is the unmastered version) of this single mic technique augmented by some horns and stuff:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...7-b7b7ed9a7f26
Its the song called "Shame"