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It’s not easy, being a young female singer-songwriter with a sound that’s too Americana for mainstream country and too country for Americana.

Just ask Reagan Boggs. Her previous record, “Never Looking Behind,” fell somewhere between the two genres, and Boggs took the criticism for it as best she could. It wounded the demure Southern girl from the Tri Cities area, however.

At the same time, it made her more determined than ever to get her new album — “Right Now,” which will be celebrated with a release show Saturday night at Patrick Sullivan’s in Knoxville’s Old City — just right.

“Overall, I think ‘Never Looking Behind’ is a good record, but there’s nothing lasting in terms of listening to it over and over and over,” Boggs told The Daily Times this week. “I got feedback saying it was too country, too mainstream, too this, too that. When I put it out, I was really proud of it. I thought it was really good, but there may have been too much steel guitar for die-hard Americana people, and maybe it was too country for what the genre is used to these days.

“It was tough for me to hear that. Marty Stuart has talked about this in the past — you don’t hear somebody saying, ‘This is too jazz,’ or, ‘This is too blues.’ But they’ll tell you if you’re too country or too traditional. I don’t understand it, really.”

The biggest difference between “Never Looking Behind” and “Right Now” is the self-assuredness that carries through on the new record. “Never Looking Behind” is a solid effort — covers of Son Volt’s “Tear Stained Eye” and the Johnny/June Carter Cash classic “Jackson,” recorded with Knoxville’s Scott Miller, compliment the original songs sprinkled throughout.

“Right Now,” however, has more attitude and grit. It’s songs contain subject matter that isn’t exactly pretty, but it’s an accurate reflection of the lady singing them, and the life she’s led up to now.

Growing up as the child of an alcoholic father, fights between her parents weren’t uncommon. She spent much of her childhood in Pound, Va., a mining community in Southwest Virginia, with a sense of dread and uncertainty. Music, however, was the eye in the center of the storm.

Both her parents were gifted musicians, and her father taught her to play guitar when she was 6. He took her along to the bars around the coal-mining community, sneaking her in and sitting her atop a table for the little girl to play. After last call, he would invite his drinking buddies back home, where he would awaken little Reagan and the whole family would play music for their guests until daylight.

When she was 8, she discovered the joy of performing for a crowd when she sang The Judds’ hit “Mama He’s Crazy” during a 4-H show at her elementary school. From that point forward, she knew music wasn’t just balm for her wounded young soul; it was also a way out.

At 17, she recorded her first album, “Somewhere in the Middle.” Around that time, she traveled to Nashville and showcased her abilities at the famous Bluebird Café. From that point forward, music was intertwined with everything she did. Staking out a career in computers (she works in the Information Technology department of a company in Kingsport), she pursued music on the side, fronting blues, country and rock bands over the years.

“On ‘Never Looking Behind,’ I hadn’t done a record in a while, and I went in basically with a set of songs and pretty much let Eric (Fritch of Nashville’s Eastwood Studios) do his thing,” she said. “I had feedback to give to him about a lot of things, but he pretty much chose the musicians on it and how they were going to sound. I kind of gave him an idea and let him take it where he wanted to for the most part.

“With ‘Right Now,’ I went in with the arrangements and things that I like and that I like to hear on other recordings. I had a lot more control. When we got all of the tracks done, I brought them back here and had the people I work with on the road play the parts I’m used to hearing in my head, then I sent it back to Eric and let him put it all together and finish it up. It was kind of a mix of his vision and mine, but I clearly had a lot more voice in how the final project ended up.

“I really feel like the songs going in, right off the bat, were stronger over all,” she added. “I feel like I have a pretty decent ear as to what music is good, and I feel like if it’s something I’ll listen to, other people might, too.”

She sets the bar high from the outset with the song “Ready to Run,” a story of an abusive household in which she draws upon personal experience to tell a story that hums with quiet power and an almost spooky sense of dread. It’s a story that’s poignant but not over-the-top, and it’s one she debated whether to include on the album at all.

“It’s the only time I’ve ever written anything about that life and growing up the way that I did, and I thought about leaving it off because it is kind of a very personal song,” she said. “I wondered how many people could actually relate to it, but I’ve gotten pretty good feedback. A lot of people think it’s a very good story without taking it over the top like a lot of abuse stories.”

Perhaps it’s the personal nature of “Ready to Run,” or the eye for detail she shows in songs like “Clifton Branham,” about the Appalachian outlaw, or “West End,” about a community left behind by progress. Maybe it’s her voice, as soulful as that of a fallen angel who’s taken to drinking cheap whiskey in a backwoods Southern honky-tonk. Or maybe it’s just that she’s older, wiser and more than a little used to the hard knocks of making music, regardless of the genre in which it’s categorized.

“On the last record, I got the whole thing where people thought it was too polished and too slick, and I may get that back on this one, even though I don’t feel that way,” she said. “I’m one of these people who wants things to be a certain way, and just because I’m particular about certain things doesn’t mean I’m taking raw out of it. I don’t think I’ll ever be as raw as Lucinda Williams is, just because the style of my writing and my vocals won’t ever be Americana to that level

“It is kind of discouraging from time to time, and sometimes it feels like I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. But I am what I am, and I can’t go out and be something I’m not. I’m not going to go out and be a Lucinda Williams or a Kasey Chambers. I think this is a good record, though, and I’m proud of it.”