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IF YOU GO

Sundown in the City presents Gillian Welch and Mindy Smith

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: Market Square Mall, downtown Knoxville

HOW MUCH: Free

CALL: 523-2665

ON THE WEB: www.gillianwelch.com

By Steve Wildsmith

of The Daily Times Staff

If its insight into the life and times of Gillian Welch you seek, don"t go looking through her previous albums -- unless you happen to be related to her, that is.

No, for the good stuff, you've got to cue up her most recent album, "Soul Journey." While the lyrics maintain a level of obscurity that fans of the Appalachian folk singer-songwriter have come to expect, the songs also give a glimpse of her memories and personal thoughts.

"Everything I write is personal, but `Soul Journey' was the most frankly autobiographical," Welch said this week. "On `Revival,' for instance, my sister -- who knows me really well -- could look at the songs on there and say, `Oh, that's a really personal song,' because she would be able to unravel all of the disguises and all of the metaphors.

"She would know, because she would have, in a sense, the secret code key to see where everything comes from. I feel like with `Soul Journey,' there was no secret code. It's all right there in plain English."

Of course, not everyone versed in "plain English" will pick up on Welch's musings. Since she first released "Revival," back in 1996, the California native has been a critical darling, racking up one impressive review after another. Her fan base, however, hasn't translated to mainstream success -- but that's fine with her. And it's just fine with her fans, as well, since most are content to keep her to themselves, treasuring every plaintive vocal performance and every breathtaking story-song with cult-like zeal.

After all, very few singer-songwriters play music so clearly reverential toward the Old Time music of Appalachia -- but draw upon classical literature for lyrical inspiration as well. But that's just one source of Welch's inspiration. Asking her define what inspires her leaves her at a surprising loss for words.

"If I had that figured out, I'd be putting out two records every year rather than a record every two years," she said. "Reading is good -- if I put interesting thoughts and words into my brain, I tend to get more interesting stuff out. Right now, I'm reading Marcel Proust's `Remembrances of Things Past.'

"It's funny, because it's a book I've tried to read a couple of times before, and it never really stuck. This time, I'm really into it, and I'm actually really happy with it, because it's a book that comes up with other writers that I like. It's like I've figured out that there happens to be something there, even though I've never really been able to crack the nut before."

Welch slowly came to the attention of Americana fans on the strength of her songwriting. After all, when a luminary like Emmylou Harris covers a song, it says something about the songwriter. And Welch provided a trial run for "O Brother Where Art Thou" producer T-Bone Burnett, who produced both "Revival" and 1998's "Hell Among the Yearlings."

It was Burnett, in fact, who recruited Welch to help him put together the soundtrack for "O Brother," a record that would go on to win several Grammys and sell several million copies, thrusting roots music into the limelight in a way it had never been before.

Because Welch was also a performer on that soundtrack, new fans discovered what her devoted followers had known for several years: Stark, powerful stories set to music, the bare intensity of which conveys an almost unbearable beauty.

"By the time that everyone in the world knew about `Down From the Mountain' and `O Brother,' I'd been working on it for about three years," she said. "It did take a lot of time, but there's no denying that it's really good to get out of your own little world for a little while. The only person who worked on the project longer than me was T-Bone, and he wasn't trying to put out records of his own at the same time."

The music of "O Brother" also had an effect on Welch's 2001 album, "Time (The Revelator)," which topped many critics' year-end "Best Of" lists. It was a stark departure from "Hell Among the Yearlings," and its stripped-down, turn-of-the-century feel caught many fans by surprise.

With "Soul Journey," Welch seems to have returned to the musical evolutionary path that began with "Revival." The album features Welch primarily on guitar -- including a few electric chords on the Bob Dylan-and-The-Band cacophony of "Wrecking Ball" -- and her songs relay a quiet confidence that her previous albums lacked.

Thursday, she'll return to Knoxville, the town she remembers fondly as the first city she played after getting copies of her first album.

"When we made our first record and we got the CDs back, the first gig we played after that was at The Laurel Theatre," she said. "I always think of that -- how Knoxville was the first place I ever played a show and sold CDs at it. It's always been a really good town for us to play. We always feel like the people are listening to us there, and we always have the sense that they kind of know the same music that I know, and that's a really great feeling."

Fans at Welch's Sundown in the City show may hear a few new songs, she said -- just don't ask about the next album.

"It's so funny, because people always want to know what the next record is going to sound like, and that's absolutely the hardest thing to explain before we do it," she said. "Usually all I can say to people is that we'll be playing some of the new songs at the show, and that the first songs we usually end up writing for the new record really do typically say something about the flavor of what's coming."