SCOTTISH singer-songwriter Eddi Reader is taking to the road for the final shows of her Vagabond tour, her new EP at the ready.

She plays Harrogate Royal Hall on Wednesday with her husband, Trashcan Sinatras' guitarist and singer John Douglas, Irish accordionist Alan Kelly , bass player Kevin McGuire and English guitarist and songwriter Boo Hewerdine, ahead of the November 3 release of Back The Dogs on the Reveal Records label.

"I'm putting it out because I wanted to get some extra tracks out this year after the Vagabond album, and when the opportunity came to record something, Tom from Reveal [record company founder Tom Rose] suggested, 'Why not do an EP'," says Eddi.

"I had the idea of being eclectic about the choice of songs; I don't have to be an artist who does only new songs, as I find the interpretative element of singing is so freeing. You're not completely responsible for the song but to interpret it is an absolute pleasure because other people don't hear a song how you do, so you then do your interpretation of how you hear it. People always used to expect you to do your own writing but the art of the cover is coming more to the fore, and it's all about delivery."

Only the other day, on the Irish leg of her tour, Eddi was talking to a young singer who said her nerves "always got the better of her". "I said to her, 'that's perfect for cover versions because you can stand behind a song and the song has the ability to express itself through you," she says.

On the new EP, Edi supports the Vagabond track Back The Dogs with four covers, two of them recorded in Glasgow: Super Furry Animals' Juxtaposed With U and the late Amy Winehouse's Love Is A Losing Game, sung and produced by Eddi accompanied by John Douglas.

"I hear such beautiful kindness in the Super Furry Animals, and what I notice about my task as an interpreter is the incredible empathy they have with other human beings, like Bob Dylan and Tom Waits do, and there's nothing better than the female voice to sweeten it," says Eddi, then turning her thoughts to Amy Winehouse.

"What Amy did with the time she had on this Earth was wonderful, but I do think songs deserve to be more than just their composer's version; to help a song to become a classic, you have to spread it and free it. I've often felt that songs get trapped by a composer, and I'm one of those people who likes to hear things being freed up.

"Like when Tony Bennett did For Once In My Life, when he explained why he sang it, I heard the song anew after he gave his reasons."

Eddi's EP also parades her covers of the Evans/Livingston standard Mona Lisa and Moon River, a song that has played a central part in her concerts over the past couple of years, especially at her Vagabond shows, where Eddi has extended it to take in stories of her musical childhood experiences at family parties in Glasgow tenement flats. The new version backs Eddi with a full orchestra.

"One of the reasons for doing Moon River is that the lyricist, Johnny Mercer, is a Scottish immigrant, so I see it as a Scottish folk record," she says. "I remember, when I was in a room of slightly drunk people at house parties, it taught me how to sing it unaccompanied and yet in a way you could still hear an orchestra behind you."

Eddi Reader plays Harrogate Royal Hall on Wednesday at 7.30pm. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk. Eddi's Back The Dogs EP will be released on November 3 through Reveal Records.