Combining a warm, expressive voice, a superb poetic imagination, and an alluring, rootsy mixture of folk, gospel, and country styles, Brooklyn-born, Cambridge-based singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst plays what she describes as "songs with pavement under their feet, dirt under their fingernails, and sometimes out of sight of land altogether." In the decade since she began performing, Kris has made her presence felt in the acoustic music scene, touring the country and winning first place at the 2001 Telluride Bluegrass Festival's prestigious Troubadour Competition and numerous Boston Music Award nominations.

Tonight she features tunes from her new CD, Strange Conversation (Signature Sounds), a joyful collection of songs based on the works of various poets. Walt Whitman, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Browning, Jalaluddin Rumi, and others provide inspiration for sunny pop anthems, torchy roadhouse waltzes, and Dixie shuffles, all of them meditations on the ability of powerful words to speak across time and distance.

New England singer and songwriter Mark Erelli opens.