Patty Griffin's songs are beautiful, intense, and challenging. A Maine native and a Boston coffeehouse sensation, Patty headed south to Austin, and her work combines Southern roots sounds and Northeastern poetry. Her elegant lyrics, bluesy alto vocals, and melodic guitar style aim directly at the deepest emotions of her listeners, and top artists on the country and acoustic side—like Emmylou Harris and even Kelly Clarkson—keep close tabs on what she's up to. Emmylou says, "I would go anywhere, any time, to hear Patty Griffin sing her extraordinary songs." Patty can rock a bit, she can sing straight gospel (and win a Best Traditional Gospel Grammy for it), she can do the sparest and most minimal kind of folk singer-songwriter performance. But what really distinguishes Patty Griffin is a body of deeply poetic songs, personal in unexpected ways, that can stand with the output of anyone else in the business. Patty's latest is called "Servant of Love," and it's rooted in the mysteries of the natural world, the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and human relationships to nature, society, and time. As the album travels through different musical terrains—folk and blues, rock and jazz, ancient sounds and modern—a spare, organic quality persists. It's profound stuff, from a songwriter who has the chops to pull it off. Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Joan Shelley, who was recently featured on NPR's "Fresh Air" and has been compared to Sandy Denny and Vashti Bunyan, opens the show.