Born and raised in County Clare, Ireland, O'Connell was immersed not in the music of the land but in opera and parlor songs.

"I'm sure that those have something to do with how I approach singing," O'Connell said in a press release. "I was aware of singing as an art form in itself." As a result, O'Connell has developed a career based on singing the works of others, though perhaps singing is a light interpretation of O'Connell's perspective on songs. Reviewers note that the musician, who recently released her 10th album, throws her whole being into the songs she sings, as an actor does a role.

"I have a mandate, and that is to bring back honor to the art of singing," she said. "Not every singer can write, just as not every writer can sing. Historically, what I do has been proven as an art form on its own. Nobody says to an opera singer, 'Why didn't you write that?' To me, being an interpreter is a tremendous art."

O'Connell's musical career started as the lead singer for the Celtic group DeDanann. An American tour in 1980 catapulted her musical career, followed a year later by the band's landmark album, "The Star-Spangled Molly."

"I really felt like such a fraud the whole time," she said. "Even though I enjoyed the gigs and all that stuff, I really didn't feel it was me that was being represented."

Soon enough, the singer left the band and eventually moved to Nashville where she released her first album and began to cultivate connections that would eventually lead to a record deal with major Nashville labels.

It was in Nashville that she fell in love with experimental roots music known in the industry as "newgrass."

"They were instrumentalists who were not bound by the history of their instruments, from a generation who grew up listening to bluegrass and the Beatles and jazz," she said. "They brought all of that along and pushed the envelope really far. There was an exciting feeling of creativity there — and a complete disregard for what anyone thought."

This interest led to collaborations with newgrass masters such as banjoist Bela Fleck and Jerry Douglas as well as a host of other musicians including Tim O'Brien, Dolly Parton and Van Morrison.

As a result of her collaborations and love of the pure form of music, regardless of genre, O'Connell has become known for the wide scope of music she performs, from country twangs to folk to Irish ballads.

"A good song is a good song," she said. "That's why I sing songs from such diverse corners of the globe and from such diverse corners of the poetic spectrum. A good song doesn't have to be a 'country' good song or a 'blues' good song. It can stand on its own. It can live in the time it's written, in the time past and the time future. That's what I aim for."

Carey James can be reached at arts@homernews.com.