Iris DeMent’s distinctly American voice will kick off the 2019-2020 season at the Buckman Performing Arts Center Sept. 15. 

A native of Paragould, Arkansas, DeMent feels a connection to Memphis even though her parents moved to California in the '60s. 

“One of my earliest memories is my mom took me on the Greyhound to Memphis when I was 5,” she said by phone Thursday while she was driving from Davenport, Illinois, to Frankfort, Kentucky, for a show.

“Years later I realized my dad had put me and my mom on a bus to welcome my older brother who had just been released from prison. That whole part of the country resonates very strongly with me. My parents were part of that Bootheel culture in a big way.” 

Love, and not always the romantic kind, is the central motif of DeMent’s work as a singer and songwriter, which she took up at 25. Throughout her seven solo albums, themes of place, compassion for the forgotten and devotion to family have made her a beloved voice in the modern American songbook. 

Readers may recognize her signature composition “Our Town,” featured in the final episode of the television comedy-drama "Northern Exposure," with the lines: "And you know the sun’s settin' fast, and just like they say, nothin’ good ever lasts. .… Go on now and say goodbye to our town."

Another 3 million viewers have listened on YouTube to “Let the Mystery Be,” her playful speculation about the afterlife: “Some say they’re goin' to a place called glory, and I ain’t saying it ain’t fact; But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory, and I don’t like the sound of that."

If all she sang about were an America that doesn’t exist anymore (“Childhood Memories,” “These Hills,” “Mama’s Opry”), that would be genre enough. 

But she has also assayed gospel standards, a volume of Russian poems set to music, and issues of social justice. “Living in the Wasteland of the Free” takes on political greed, while “There’s a Wall in Washington” recounts a bereaved father’s visit to trace his son’s name at the Vietnam Memorial. In 2017, she made a video called “We Won’t Keep Quiet.” Sensing growing intolerance toward immigrants, she wrote, “We’ll stand with our neighbors, with or without papers.” 

Several of her recordings have been in the movies. Robert Redford used her cover of “Whispering Pines” in the soundtrack of "The Horse Whisperer." Her rendition of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” was in the 2010 remake of "True Grit." But it’s her version of “Blessed Assurance” from the gospel album "Lifeline" that makes me well up every time, because our grandmother used to sing it.

“That’s why those songs were written, because you can feel the love in them, regardless of your faith or lack of it,” DeMent said. “It’s not about a dogma or a book. That’s not how I hear those songs. They’re written to throw you a lifeline.” 

DeMent was born in 1961, the youngest of 14 children of musical parents. Her father played the fiddle at Pentecostal church services, and her sisters had a gospel group, the DeMent Sisters, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. DeMent left home as a teenager, and supported herself cleaning houses and waiting tables in Kansas and briefly, in Nashville. 

She recorded her first album, "Infamous Angel," in 1992. The New York Times has called DeMent’s technique “an arrestingly rural voice that evokes Patsy Cline and even the raw side of Dolly Parton." The Buckman is just the sort of venue DeMent prefers.

“I like feeling like I can see the people,” she said. “I feel like singing and doing a live show is a relationship. I like that ‘living room’ quality.” 

The show starts at 7 p.m. 

The box office is open Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. or one hour prior to the performance. Call (901) 537-1483. Buckman is at 60 Perkins Ext. on the campus of St. Mary’s Episcopal School.