Folk gig of the week: Caroline Herring, various venues

Herring's self-penned songs are laced with drama, a sense of history and injustice mixed with down-home magic realism

A singer-songwriter from Atlanta via Mississippi, Caroline Herring is steeped in the sounds of the American South, remoulding its old world-New World song traditions into contemporary, expansive vistas matched with rousing choruses.

She was a graduate of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, released her first album in 2001, and has a powerful voice, a southern American lilt allied to a folk song-teller's clarity.

She was part of last year's Cecil Sharp Project, exploring the music he collected in England and the Appalachians, and she launches a stunning album at Cecil Sharp House this week.

The 10 self-penned songs on Camilla are laced with drama, a sense of history and injustice mixed with down-home magic realism. For the launch, she performs with Scottish fiddle player Patsy Reid, and they are joined at Shrewsbury by Jim Moray (Sun) and Kathryn Roberts (Mon).

(01743 892800; shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk) Sun & Mon; Cecil Sharp House, London NW1 (020 7485 2206; efdss.org) Wed