On Centre: Singer-songwriters Griffin, Watkins, and Mitchell perform as trio

Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins, and Anaïs Mitchell are coming to Penn State for a celebration of American songwriting and performance. Their March 16 concert at Eisenhower Auditorium, part of the Use Your Voice Tour 2016, finds the artists sharing songs and accompanying one another.

The tour, visiting almost 40 cities, doubles as a voter-engagement drive in conjunction with the League of Women Voters.

Griffin, blessed with an astonishing voice, finds out this month if she’s won another Grammy Award. Her Servant of Love is nominated for Best Folk Album. Downtown Church, a 2010 release, earned her a Grammy for Best Traditional Gospel Album.

Watkins, who worked with Griffin as part of the Transatlantic Sessions Tour in the United Kingdom a year ago, and Mitchell rehearsed with Griffin for a few days in December.

“Anaïs and I were sitting right next to and in front of Patty as she was just opening her mouth sounding the way she sounds. It’s pretty stunning,” Watkins says. “Patty has encouraged us to let each night go the way that it will, and if we don’t want to play the song that’s on the set list, to change it up and do something else. I think that kind of expectation from us will keep each night unique and with a spirit of authenticity to that particular town, that particular evening, and wanting to stay present. We rehearsed a lot of songs from each other and just took turns showing each other choruses, and parts, and chords. There will be a lot of us supporting each other’s songs.”

The American Music Association’s 2007 Artist of the Year, Griffin is a gifted songwriter who has created music for artists as diverse as the Dixie Chicks and Bette Midler. She’s also written most of the material for her own recordings.

“She’s a very resilient songwriter,” Watkins observes. “I think we’ve seen a lot of different aspects of her humanity through her songwriting over the years — a ferocity and a vulnerability. I think you just see the general quality of life in her come through her lyrics.”

Multi-instrumentalist and singer Watkins, who first gained praise for her fiddling as a member of the Grammy-winning contemporary bluegrass band Nickel Creek, has established a solo career with acclaimed studio albums plus collaborations with John Mayer, The Decemberists, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and others. She’s a frequent guest on public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion.

Mitchell’s musical style has earned comparisons to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Gillian Welch. Winner of the Kerrville Festival’s New Folk Award and nominee for the Folk Alliance’s Best Contemporary Artist Award, Mitchell is known as a distinctive young voice in the American folk movement. Critics lauded her most recent album, 2014’s Xoa, as “genre-defining” and her “second consecutive masterpiece.”

Watkins says this tour marks the first time she’s worked with Mitchell.

“I’ve been a fan of Anaïs (A-nay-us) for a long time as well,” she says. “I missed the [2010] Hadestown album somehow. … I had to go back to it after really digging into Young Man in America, an album she put out several years ago. Songwriting is interesting because you as a listener get to grab onto a bit of the songwriter’s humanity and … peek into their perspective, how they’ve digested the things that life has thrown at them.”

Mitchell’s girlish voice contrasts with her sage words.

“I think it helps give the lyrics even more weight than you might receive at first because of the context you’re listening through … this youthful-sounding voice,” Watkins says. “And you realize that … although she’s quite young still, she’s lived life.”

For more information or tickets, visit cpa.psu.edu or phone (814) 863-0255.