"Music has always been there as far back as I can remember,'' says Iris DeMent. "If I wasn't hearing it at church, it was at home. Mom always sang. Dad played fiddle. My brothers and sisters played piano and sang.''
That lifelong immersion in song has inspired two albums, Infamous Angel and My Life and a blossoming career as a singer-songwriter for the 33-year-old Arkansas native.
DeMent, who headlines a concert at the Mystic Theater Oct. 1, sings of timeless themes -- Friday night dances and small-town romances, family and forgiveness, sorrow and loss -- in a clear, strong soprano with just a bit of mountain twang and country lilt.
Her simple, heartfelt songs have gradually won her a devoted and broad-based following, even though airplay has been mostly on alternative radio. "Only the FM stations on the left hand side of the dial,'' she says.
While country radio has been slow to embrace DeMent, it doesn't bother her. "It's an advantage to me because I get a wide range of people at my shows. Classical music lovers, kids and grandparents. I'm really happy about that.''
DeMent, in a phone interview from Austin, Texas, said the attention she got after she began recording scared her a little bit at first. "When I first started singing and writing, it was pretty much for myself. Then, all of a sudden, I became aware of a whole world of people out there, paying attention to what I was doing. That made me a little nervous, but I think I'm starting to get used to it.''
She's been touring since April, when My Life was released. And after she finishes her West Coast dates in November, it's off to Europe for more performances.
Born in Paragould, Ark., she was the youngest of 14 children. But hard times forced her farming family to move to Southern California when she was three. Young Iris' love of music was encouraged by her parents and she grew up playing piano and singing in the church.
My mother and my father have been the most important people in my life," she says. ''I probably care about music the way I do because of them."
The family mostly listened to gospel music. As she grew up, she listened to Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette and Merle Haggard. Moving to Kansas City, she taught herself to play guitar, and at age 25 she started writing her own songs and performing them at open mike nights.
"It was nice to hear people say they enjoyed my music,'' she said. "It was encouraging.''
Eventually, DeMent moved to Nashville to refine her songwriting and performing skills. And while singing at the Bluebird Cafe, someone from Philo/Rounder Records heard her and signed her to record her first album. Infamous Angel was released by that label in 1992.
Moving back to Gladstone, Mo. ("on the Missouri side of Kansas City''), DeMent went on the road to support the album. She caught the attention of Warner Bros., who signed her to an exclusive contract and re-released Infamous Angel.
Her admirers included Nanci Griffith and John Prine, both of whom invited DeMent to tour with them as an opening act. On the liner notes of DeMent's first album, Prine writes that he came to the verge of tears when he first heard a tape of DeMent's song "Mama's Opry.''
But it was another song from that album, "Let the Mystery Be,'' with its catchy gospel-bluegrass melody, that attracted early attention. The song got extensive airplay on Berkeley- based KPFA-FM and other alternative stations. "Everybody is wondering what and where they all came from,'' the song begins.
In "Our Town,'' DeMent tells of a dying little town that time has passed by and a woman's anguish at having to leave. "When Love Was Young'' is a woman's lament about realizing her feeling for a man has faded like a dress hung too long on a clothesline.
My Life, released this year, contains more songs of lyrical simplicity and emotional honesty. "No Time to Cry'' describes her efforts to cope with her father's death in 1992 as her career was taking off. In "Easy's Gettin' Harder Every Day,'' she sings of a woman whose mundane life is slowly killing her spirit: "We make love and then we kiss good night / He rolls over and he's out like a light / But I ain't mad about it, we got nothing to talk about anyway."
"Childhood Memories'' evokes the magical innocence of a youngster: "Dragonflies inside of a Mason jar / Acting big behind the wheel of Daddy's car / Playin' church around the grand piano stand / You were quite a preacher and we sang so grand.''
"I write about what I know -- the things and the people who've affected me the most,'' she says. "I write about my hopes and dreams and disappointments and I just try and be as honest about it as I can be.
"I have this real desire to write songs,'' she says. "I enjoy it so much when I get an idea and I can say what I want to say. I just get excited about the idea of communicating things.''
(Iris Dement will perform Saturday, Oct. 1 at the Mystic Theater, 21 Petaluma Blvd. North. Ramblin' Jack Elliott will open the show. Doors open at 8 p.m., the show starts at 9 p.m. Tickets are $12. Phone 765- 2121.)
(Published Sept. 20, 1994)
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