When she was still in her mother’s womb, Emma Klein’s parents would play the music of Johnny Cash for her. “My mom said they played it a lot for me, and that I really enjoyed it,” Klein tells me during a recent video call.

The early exposure stuck. Now 25, Klein is a talented singer/songwriter who released her latest single, “If I Die in My Sleep,” earlier this year. Her vocals on it are honeyed but also bittersweet.

Fans of rootsy artists like John Paul White and Alison Krauss will likely enjoy “If I Die in My Sleep,” which also benefits from sparse, evocative acoustic instrumentation.

It’s the first track Klein, who’s based in Huntsville, has released in years. Previously, a 2015 acoustic EP displayed Klein’s songwriting potential on tracks like “Sewn into You.” Another track from that EP, “Waffle House,” is way heavier lyrically than the title might suggest.

“I think I had just turned 17 when I recorded that,” Klein says, “so I didn’t have a lot of life experience yet. ‘Waffle House’ talks about being in a relationship with someone and they’re going off to war. I just made that up and I don’t know how. Even today, it feels really difficult to write songs that are 100 percent based on my own experience.”

Mixing fiction and nonfiction are part of what distinguishes Klein’s artistic instincts from many young singer/songwriters, who often fall into the trap of turning diary entries into lyrics.

Right now, you can throw a rock out the window and hit three young Americana/country singers wearing cool hats and jewelry. But Klein isn’t heavily styled. She typically plays her sets wearing something she could also wear out to dinner. Her songs don’t need a cool hat to stand out.

Despite her youth, Klein’s already put in a lot of hours. Growing up active in musical theatre but somewhat sheltered from contemporary popular music, at age 13, she talked her mom into letting her buy Taylor Swift’s CD “Fearless.”

“Which I feel is very cliché and stereotypical,” Klein says, “so I almost hesitate to say that. But Taylor Swift was definitely one of my inspirations because she was the first singer/songwriter that was relatively close to my age and was writing really relatable songs. And she played guitar. And around that time I got my first guitar, and I probably wouldn’t have been motivated to start learning if I didn’t have her CD.”

She also picked up on Swift’s drive. For a few years, Klein was traveling to Nashville multiple times a week for voice and guitar lessons. When she was 15, she released a pair of sharp, Swift-echoing pop-folk singles, including “Summer Love.”

She also performed at her hometown’s signature event, Panoply Arts Festival, which is attended by tens of thousands each year. Around the time Klein was 16, she traveled to Spain to play a handful of shows. Her mom had lived in Spain for a while in her mid-20s, and her connections helped book the run.

“It was interesting,” Klein says of performing in Spain, “because everyone listened and appreciated it so much more than they do here. But part of that’s because [here in Huntsville] I’m playing at a lot of restaurants and stuff where I’m background music, and I’m used to that, and I was more at listening room venues there [in Spain]. A lot of people spoke English, so they knew what I was singing, but they really appreciated my music and that was nice.”

Klein’s father also influenced her path. A huge music fan with a collection of more than 6,000 albums on disc, he took her to a B.B. King concert early on. “My dad was really into the blues,” she recalls.

As a teenager, Klein was in an artist development program that was connected with music producers and with cool gigs, including storied New York venue The Bitter End, where she played three of her songs, including the abovementioned “Waffle House.”

But her senior year of high school, Klein says, “I felt like I was missing out on a lot of things that my friends were experiencing, and I just wanted to live life.”

Her passion faded, she stepped away from music. But after several years of going to college and then getting an office job, Klein knew she had to make a U-turn. “Sitting at a desk all day, I realized music is what I wanted to do,” she says.

About two years ago, Klein returned to music. She started performing at local venues again, like Green Bus Brewing, and a return set at Panoply Arts Festival. She also performed at Orion Amphitheater, one of Huntsville’s marquee venues, as part of the city’s Women in Music Weekend.

In 2023, Klein cut three songs at Five Points Recording Studio with engineer/producer Justin Miller. “If I Die in My Sleep” is the first of those tracks to reach streaming.

Soon, Klein plans to release the second song from her Five Points sessions, “To Whom It May Concern,” a love song to someone she’s yet to meet. Lyrically, she says, “A lot of my songs, I just kind of make up, but that one’s pretty real. It’s about the future that I don’t know.”

Within the next month or so, Klein plans to complete her triptych of new singles with the release of “Keep to Myself,” another tuneful strummer.

One of the subtle charms of Klein’s music is her rhythm guitar playing. She often tunes her guitar to alternate tunings, compared to the standard tuning most guitarists use. It’s a secret weapon of guitarists ranging from Joni Mitchell to Keith Richards.

Her go-to tuning is DADGAD, notably used by Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin’s mystic-rock epic “Kashmir,” although Klein wasn’t aware of Page’s use before our conversation. Klein isn’t trying to shred or anything. But her guitar parts are interesting because her chord shapes are different.

“I really love to play in alternate tunings,” she says. “Part of that is because I have really bad songwriters block if I just keep playing in the same tuning over and over again. So whenever I change the tuning, I suddenly get inspired.”

Tonight, Klein will realize a longtime goal. She’s performing at Jim Parker’s Songwriters Series, hosted by Jim Parker, formerly of cult-fave Los Angeles via Texas ‘60s band The Kitchen Sinq.

Eight or so times a year, Park hosts these listening-room style shows at the Von Braun Center Playhouse, a cozy room with not a bad seat in the house.

For his series, Parker brings in songwriters behind tunes recorded by heavy-hitting artists including Miranda Lambert, Bonnie Raitt, Kenny Chesney and B.B. King, to name a few. He also mixes in local artists, ranging from veterans like Mike Roberts and Alan Little, to younger artists like Tosha Hill. And now, Klein.

“I grew up going to it,” Klein says of Jim Parker’s Songwriters Series. “I’d want to leave like halfway through because I wanted to go home and write my own songs. It was very inspiration. I’d always hoped I’d get to play [the series] but I never thought I would, so I’m very grateful.”

Now 81, Parker arrived in Huntsville from Nashville. During his time in Nashville, he co-wrote country star John Anderson’s first single “I’ve Got a Feelin’ (Somebody’s Been Stealin’)” as well as rollicking 1981 hit “Chicken Truck” and the title of Anderson’s 2008 album “Bigger Hands.” In 1985, Parker, a realtor by day, moved to Huntsville, where his wife Lysa had family.

He’s watched Klein play and sing her songs since she was 13. “She’s worked real hard to get herself where she is,” Parker says. “Her voice is just beautiful, and she can write from the heart.

“If you can’t bring emotional lyrics and music to the forefront, then you’re not going to inspire anybody out there. But if you can inspire one of them, you’ve done your job. [As songwriters] we’re here to move your emotions, to make you laugh or make you cry or make you think. And I think she’s got all of that.”

Parker’s series typically draws an audience of around 250. The last installment sold-out. Tonight’s show starts at 6:30 p.m., tickets are $25 (plus applicable fees) via ticketmaster.com or the VBC Box Office, address 700 Monroe Street.

The lineup boasts Don Henry (whose songs have been recorded by acts from Ray Charles to Blake Shelton) and Aaron Barker (credits include George Strait, Willie Nelson, Tracy Lawrence, etc.).

Parker gives local rising tunesmiths like Klein spots in his series because, he says, “that’s very important to bring the young in and let them sit next to the people with Grammys and multi-platinums and hear them. And also let them hear the young people coming up, because we’re inspired by the young people as well. Because we see them with their fresh take on our old subjects and we go, ‘Oh, wow. We should do that, too.’”

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