She was featured in BBC4’s documentary series on American folk music; her new album was reviewed in the Observer last weekend; her songs have been covered by Joan Baez and Gretchen Peters; and Nanci Griffith and Mary Gauthier are among the guest contributors to her recordings. Yet tonight Diana Jones will play in a living room to the east of York.

CHARLES HUTCHINSON puts the questions to the latest American singer-songwriter to sign up for a House Concert in York.

You’re playing a living room near York as the smallest gig on your British tour. Are you familiar with the House Concert concept, Diana?

“Yeah, though I don’t play as many of them as I used to, but I really love the feel of them because they’re so intimate and you really get the chance to communicate with people.”

How come your album is coming out in Britain first, ahead of its American release in May?

“It just seems that people in the UK have really got into my music, partially because it’s where this music originated, in England, Scotland and Ireland. The music came over here and got ‘stuck’ in the Appalachian Mountains, where once you were there and you were a poor farmer, you stayed there. So this music is in our DNA; it was how they made sense of their world, of love and loss, a bad crop or a good crop.”

How do your songs of hard times link with that past?

“When I started to study this music and go back to the Alan Lomax field recordings, listening to how people were trying to make sense of their life, I found that even if I wasn’t a touring songwriter, I’d still be writing songs because that’s how I made sense of my world.

“I guess the concerns that I have, they come from what I’m hearing in the news, like the song Soldier Girl, where I learnt girls were coming home from serving in Iraq and weren’t being supported. They were falling through the floor, reaching for drugs. I got a letter from someone in Iraq who had the song on her MP3 and thanked me for giving them a voice.”

How did that make you feel?

“It’s the best thing in the world when that happens. It’s not the reason I write songs, but it does make it poignant when you get a response.”

You must be delighted that Joan Baez has already covered one of the songs even before your album came out?

“If there was one song that I wanted to get out there, it was that one. Joan’s manager heard about my music through my booking agent and kept asking for MP3s of my songs that hadn’t been recorded yet to use on Joan’s album. At the last minute I sent that one, and he wrote back ‘That’s it’.

“I’d love the opportunity to sing it with her.”

• Diana Jones plays House Concert York tonight, sold out. Her new album, Better Times Will Come, is released this week on Proper Records.