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As a girl, she couldn't put her finger on why, exactly, her father's Billie Holiday records made her sad.

By the same token, she couldn't quite figure out why, when her grandmother played ragtime piano, she felt uplifted and celebratory.

Today, DeVoe told The Daily Times, she understands -- it was the beginning of her relationship with soul music, a style she still loves today and incorporates into her own music. It's as close to her heart as a certain autographed photo of legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong, a gift given to her by her father.

"Before I made this new CD ("Strange Sunshine," her most recent), I went back and got a collection of the essential Louis Armstrong, and I listened to his trumpet lines," DeVoe said. "Billie Holiday used to do that, and if you listen to her, you can hear how she really emulates trumpet melodies with her voice. If you take out the words and replaced them with muted trumpet sounds, you would see that the way she sings is very much like an instrument.

"I remember when Norah Jones first came out and blended soul and folk, I thought that she was doing what I had always wanted to do. I decided right then to be more brave, and to play the kind of music I should have been doing a long time ago. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think people still yearn for good melodies. You can give them slick stuff all day long, but if that's all that's out there, they'll get tired of it."

Going old-school, she added, is still the best, in her humble opinion. And she keeps one foot in the legacy of those artists while trying to pioneer her own sound.

"I love it, and I don't want to rip it off, but I think that's definitely who I am, with the singer-songwriter part of me mixed in," she said. "Back then, when they wrote lyrics it was a little more general, but it had deep meaning and wasn't so self-absorbed. I've made a few self-absorbed and angsty records, but I haven't done that the whole time with my career.

"Now, I'm trying to put my blinders on. What I'm writing may not be a poppy, hit song, but maybe it'll stand out because it's not following suit with what's going on today."

DeVoe has long been enamored with blending styles. When soul-folkie India.Arie released her CD "Acoustic Soul," DeVoe immediately seized upon the title as a descriptor of her own style. Dating back to her first record, "Does She Walk on Water," she's been turning heads and bending ears with a shock of wiry curls and a voice that sounds too big for her body. After her sophomore record ("Ta Da"), she won first-place in a contest sponsored by Billboard magazine, and she soon found her songs being used as the backdrop of such TV shows as "Dawson's Creek" and "Joan of Arcadia."

For her third record ("Fireworks and Karate Supplies"), as well as for "Strange Sunshine," she worked with British producer John Parish, best known as a frequent partner/collaborator with cabaret-rocker P.J. Harvey.

"I found him in 2003 or 2004, after I heard Tracy Chapman's 'Let It Rain' and saw his name attached to it," DeVoe said. "I think I was drawn to him because of everything she described -- how she wanted to just make something without a lot of production, just lay down bass, drums and rhythm tracks and then go back as the singer and do it until it was perfect.

"I thought John could make me stay true to a really good vision. I didn't want to use click tracks, I wanted to keep second and third takes of songs, including my vocals ... and he just really helped me stick to things. If I started to veer off, he was a very good reminder that I didn't want it to sound perfect."

Those less-than-perfect qualities, she said, are what give the songs their heart and soul -- little turns-of-phrase and vocal quirks that made her fall in love with a song in the first place. That's one reason she keeps the original demo recordings she makes at home of her original songs; they're keepsakes and reminders of her original vision, which can get lost as a song evolves through the studio process.

Clinging to her original vision is one of the things that's made DeVoe a favorite of fans. Her name isn't dropping out of every mouth or burning up the charts, but the fans she does have are diehard in their enthusiasm for her music, which radiates warmth in the way a woodburning stove drives back the winter's cold on an otherwise bleak February day. East Tennessee fans, in fact, worked to get her a show tonight (Nov. 6) in Knoxville.

"I hope it's just some great energy between me and the audience," she said. "Not taking away from a drunken dance night, but I definitely like an 'Austin City Limits' type of show where people really sit and listen, and I hope they love the songs and are really impressed with me and my band. I love it when I go see an artist, and I'm just kind of corny afterwards because all I can say is, 'That was awesome!' over and over again.

"I just hope it moves them in some way, whether it's an emotional or a humorous moment."