Ravensdale, Washington native Brandi Carlile grew up on classic country music, and Patsy Cline remains her favorite singer. She made her debut at age eight on a country radio show, but she added rock and Americana flavors to her music as a teen, started writing songs, and began to think about music as a career. Diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, she had trouble in school. "They wanted to medicate me so I could concentrate in math class," she told England's Independent newspaper. "I decided to pretty much stop going. I went out busking instead." Carlile's richly textured alto voice and instantly compelling storytelling songs became a sensation in Seattle clubs, and in 2003, when she was just 22, she was spotted by Dave Matthews performing at the Sasquatch Music Festival. Two years later her debut album appeared on the Columbia label and she was named to Rolling Stone's list of 10 Artists to Watch.

Since then, Brandi Carlile has lived up to that fast start. Her second album, 2007's "The Story," was produced by roots-music legend T-Bone Burnett and earned rave reviews. Carlile's shows in Ann Arbor have been sellouts and have earned her a strong bond with southeast Michigan audiences. Now, after a world tour that took her from Norway to Portugal to Australia (on which she performed an awe-inspiring live version of Radiohead's "Creep"), she returns home with music from her much- awaited third full-length release. "This record sounds much more reckless than 'The Story,'" Carlile told Paste. "Some songs are so stripped down and intimate you should feel uncomfortable listening to them and some are so giant that Freddie Mercury wouldn't have put them on 'A Night at the Opera.'"

The new album features a guest appearance from Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, and right now Brandi Carlile is looking like the heir apparent to that classic folk-rock duo. She's hitting her stride, tearing up stages all over the world, and putting together what promises to be a superb evening of roots songwriting. Opening the evening is California acoustic soul songwriter Angel Taylor.