BETH Nielsen Chapman arrives in Pocklington today to “run through everything” with her band in preparation for her 14-date tour that begins at the town’s arts centre tomorrow.

The American singer-songwriter will be performing with her support act, Red Sky July, as well as her own regular players.

“My agent, Paul Senn, recommended Red Sky July to me as he’d worked with them. I went online and heard their music, which sort of reminded me of the Everly Brothers, if they were women,” says Beth.

“So I got in touch with them to say, ‘Why don’t you stay ‘after school’ and hang out and play with me in my set?’.

“We can have a lot of fun with the vocals – and I’m very glad I’m not going to have to torture my bass player to sing!”

Beth will be promoting her latest album, UnCovered, a collection of “premium songs” she had written but never recorded, instead seeing seven of them top American charts in the hands of other singers.

She could have called the record Recovered, except that the collection sprang up initially from Beth digging up songs for her upcoming box set, Box Of Songs. Instead, BBC Radio 2’s calm voice of Americana, Bob Harris, suggested UnCovered, as he sat on Beth’s Nashville porch.

“Once I heard that name I knew exactly what this record needed to be,” says Beth, who ended up recording in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as at her own Tree House studio in Nashville.

“I hadn’t envisaged it this way but I really wanted to work with different musicians, such as [former Fairport Convention bass player] Maartin Allcock on the wild west Wales coast.”

The progress of the sessions was broken by the death of Beth’s father. “I was over here touring, but went back to American when my father passed away. It was a very tender time for me; we were reeling as his death was unexpected, but my family said ‘Get back there and do the music’,” she says.

Beth’s Scottish sessions were made with Phil Cunningham and John McCusker, among others, while she recorded in Northern Ireland with Ruth Trimble, who is now a member of Beth’s band.

“I’ve done these workshops over the years in Ireland and in 2010 I offered a scholarship to one of them,” she says.

“The song that was by far the best was by Ruth, who was a pharmacist at Boots in Belfast and hadn’t ever really played her songs live, but I encouraged her to concentrate on her music. I made her the road manager for one of my tours and she’s never really gone back to her old life.”

Does Beth consider herself to be a songwriter or performer first and foremost? “That’s a good question, as they’re intertwined, and if I have a throat infection I find I can’t write,” she says. “But if I had to give anything up, I’ve always had more songs than I’ve had time to sing or record.

“Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Well, it’s the song that comes first.”

• Beth Nielsen Chapman plays Pocklington Arts Centre tomorrow and Harrogate Royal Hall on Thursday. Box office, Pocklington, 01759 301547; Harrogate, 01423 502116.