The Wailin' Jennys Three-Part Harmones a Thing of True Beauty

The Wailin’ Jennys are a three-part harmony trio hailing from Canada whose exquisite voices and emotive songs are uplifting and tug at the heartstrings. They truly make beautiful music. The trio’s show on Saturday, March 26, at the Newton Theatre in Sussex County - (973) 940-6398 or https://skypac.org/ - is one not to be missed.

The multiple Juno Award winning (Canadian equivalent of a Grammy) group consists of Soprano Ruth Moody (vocals, guitar, accordion, banjo, bodhrán), Mezzo Nicky Mehta (vocals, guitar, drums, ukulele) and Alto Heather Masse (vocals, upright bass). Their latest album, “Fifteen,” is a collection of renditions of some of The Wailin’ Jennys favorite songs.

The vocals are ethereal from the first note on lead off track “Old Churchyard,” a rearrangement of a traditional song with a hymn-like fee. A cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers,” with violin and acoustic guitar accompaniment, brings the delicate tune to new emotional heights while Jane Siberry’s The Valley is stirring and the trio turns in a magical version of Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.” Elsewhere The Wailin’ Jenny’s take a reflective road on Emmylou Harris’ “Boulder to Birmingham,” a delicate take on Patty Griffin’s “Not Alone” and more moving performances.

We recently spoke with Nicky Mehta.

Q. How did you meet up with fellow founding member Ruth Moody?

We were going to get together and sing for one night at a small guitar shop in Winnipeg. That sold-out really quickly, we did more sold-out shows and we went from there. And now the band just turned 20.

Q. You burst onto the scene in America, Canada and internationally through multiple appearances on Garrison Keillor’s National Public Radio (NPR) program, “A Prairie Home Companion.” How did that come about?

That happened in 2006. We were invited on the show and Garrison liked what we did and over the years we were frequent guests. That was hugely helpful to us and grew our audience and broke us in the States.

Q. As “Fifteen” is a collection of renditions of other people’s songs, how did you go about deciding on what to include?

Everybody brought songs that they thought would be good for the band. For the most part because we have such a connection and similar enough sensibility in music we knew what the others would like.

Q. Can you speak about the group’s chemistry?

I think in many ways it is natural. It’s a lucky thing that our voices blend as they do. Some of the work takes refinement. We also have different tastes in music in some ways but do have similarities in what we like and communicate that effectively to each other.

Q. Tell us about the making of “Fifteen.”

We didn’t have a lot of time to record this album so we took a more stripped down approach There wasn’t any overdubbing. It was self-produced and we weren’t going for huge orchestration.

Q. Is the group working on a new album?

There’s nothing concrete of when it’s being recorded but we are working on new material.