Texan musician Sarah Jarosz plays old school American acoustic roots music. And, observes Tim Hughes, she’s rather fond of songs about the magic of the moon

She has been described as folk, country, bluegrass and even ‘new grass’. But Sarah Jarosz prefers to keep things simple.

“My passport says I’m a musician,” says the silken-toned Texan. “I like that as I draw on lots of different styles, though it fits into both folk and Americana styles.”

Possibly the best new acoustic artist you’ve never heard of, Jarosz’s career has been a whirlwind of critical acclaim and awards. Hailed as a prodigy for her skills on banjo, guitar and mandolin, her music draws on disparate strands to emerge as a soundtrack for the new West.

Signed to Sugar Hill Records aged just 16, this product of Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music has gone to pick up a clutch of Grammy nominations.

Next Thursday, the 22-year-old Austin girl plays St John the Evangelist Church, in Iffley Road, Oxford, before hitting the Cambridge Folk Festival. She is joined by Alex Hargreaves on violin and Nathaniel Smith on cello.

“The last time I played in the UK I was solo, so am really pleased this time to have my regular musicians with me,” she says. “We’ve been working together for about four years and are really looking forward to coming to Oxford.”

The show gives her a chance to showcase her new album, Build Me Up From Bones, which has picked up two Grammy nominations and an Americana Music Association Award nomination for Best Album.

It follows up her 2009 debut Song Up in Her Head (featuring the Grammy-nominated tune Mansinneedof) and 2011’s Follow Me Down.

The new long player, which has nominations for Best Folk Album and, in its title track, Best American Roots Song, is, she says, a complete picture of her work.

“It’s the truest representation of my music at this point,” she says. “I wanted to create a rollercoaster of different sounds, emotions and feelings, and not one even line. It has rocking numbers and it also features the trio I play with. It feels true to me... unique and new.”

“I feel like I’ve grown as a person, especially in these last few years.

“I latched on to music as a child and it became my main way of expressing myself. But through college I got into other creative outlets: art, painting and poetry. It helped me to come back to music in a deeper way, to follow deeper trails and meanings and feelings.”

It’s an acoustic and electric masterpiece which veers from standard American folk into soulfully mystical territory — such as her song Mile on the Moon.

Oxford Mail:

So is there a thread holding it all together? “I never go into a record thinking I want a recurring theme throughout,” she says. “But after the fact, and I certainly didn’t plan this, there are four songs that mention the moon in some way. For me, songwriting is an ever changing nature; it’s always fresh, and the moon is sort of like that: always changing, always pulling.”

Another recurring thread is that of love – or, at least, attraction. Though not in the cliched ‘boy meets girl’ style. Sarah prefers to leave her listeners thinking. “I feel like my favourite songwriters leave enough things in the song to keep you digging,” she says. “The goal is to write songs people will make personal to themselves — even if they may be very personal to me.”

She also turns out a couple of credible covers, by making them her own. Firstly harpist Joanna Newsom’s The Book of Right-On, and Bob Dylan’s A Simple Twist of Fate, which came about as the result of a jam session with cellist Smith.

“We just kind of played that song for ourselves, not even thinking we were going to work it up, and it happened so naturally,” she recalls. “We said, ‘Man, that felt good’. Live, it’s gotten a very good response.”

The whole album has live appeal — indeed many of the songs were cut live.

“A lot of it feels like it will translate well into the trio setting,” she says. “And it’s always fun to see these songs take on their own life on the stage. You don’t have to hear it live the same way as on the record.”

How those songs sound is down to which instrument she felt like playing on the day — often more than one, switching part-way through – such as on Rearrange The Art, which sees her swap guitar for banjo for added cinematic appeal.

“I had the melody circling in my head for a long period of time, and it’s a great example of how the poetry and art worked their way into my music,” she says.

“I’ll play something, leave it alone, come back to it, and play it and play it and play it. The songs almost need to settle within me before I can play them for anybody.”

As well as Hargreaves and Smith, she singles out the contributions made by co-producer Gary Paczosa, who worked on her previous albums; and guitarist Dan Dugmore (whose credits include Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks). Dugmore’s playing shines through on tracks Mile on the Moon and Over the Edge. “It was really magical: He played what I heard in my head all along,” she says.

That it has been brought to life by a 22-year-old while finishing her studies makes it more remarkable.

“There were days where I thought, ‘I really need to get this homework assignment done, and I need to get this song written,’” she laughs. “But in the end it was great, because it prodded me to go forward.

“So here I am, at the end of school, and I’m finishing up this album, and the timing couldn’t be better. It’s like turning the page.”

Sarah Jarosz
St John the Evangelist
Thursday, July 31
Tickets: £15 from wegottickets.com (£17 door)