Singer songwriter Amy LaVere took a bold step in the 1990s and began playing the upright bass as half of the popular roots duo “The Gabe & Amy Show” in Nashville, Tenn. Since then she’s created a niche for herself with three albums under her belt.

She’ll be performing at the Tipsy Teapot Dec. 5 promoting her latest album “Stranger Me,” which was released this summer.

Her third album emerged following a difficult break up with her former drummer and longtime boyfriend, Paul Taylor, and the death of her musical mentor Jim Dickinson.

Her music is a combination of classic country, gypsy jazz and southern soul. The Louisiana native was raised in the small town of Bethany and nurtured by her parents, who had a passion for traditional country music.

She moved to Memphis and began working at Sun Studio in 1999 and by early 2006, LaVere released her debut album “This World Is Not My Home,” which gain national acclaim.

In 2007, LaVere recorded her sophomore “Anchors & Anvils” album with producer Jim Dickinson. “Anchors & Anvils” went to No. 6 on the Americana Music Charts. That same year, LaVere was nominated for the Americana Music Association Awards for “Best New or Emerging Artist.”

mixer did an email interview with LaVere as she was traveling with her band in Europe

Where are you in Europe right now?

We are in Stockholm tonight. We piled into the van before sunrise in Copenhagen and drove till dark to be here. (Of course it gets dark at about 4 in the afternoon here right now.) It’s cold and clear here tonight and the venue is beautiful. Stockholm is beautiful.

What is it like touring overseas?

It’s ridiculously expensive! Forget about your normal standards of living altogether. Dirty clothes, showers you can’t figure out how to operate, interesting/terrible/unrecognizable/sometimes pretty great food and often you pay to pee at gas stations. Long drives. You are constantly changing over currencies and if you can’t find a place to convert your money you are just out of luck and living on whatever snacks you gathered from the green room the night before till you get to the next venue. You’re hungry, tired and in awe most of the time. It’s fascinating, often breathtaking and overall incredible. I hate when it’s over. Sometimes I feel like just walking off into these bizarre places and disappearing into the wonderful weirdness of it all.

“Stranger Me” has been dubbed the “break up album of the year.” How do you feel about that title?

Well, it’s something … Please forgive me for being a little fatigued of explaining my feelings about that but it’s a fair description and I’m glad it’s “the __ of the year” of anything 
I suppose.

How do you think you grew through your difficult personal period with your break up and the death of your musical mentor, Jim Dickinson?

I don’t think I can honestly answer that one yet. I’ve tried in previous interviews and at the time I said it I thought I had something figured out but I’m not sure I’m buying what I said back then now at all. It actually doesn’t seem long enough ago in the past to look back at it and have real perspective on how events such as those have altered me.

What can people expect at your show at the Tipsy Teapot Dec. 5?

I generally make a set list after we sound check. I suss out the room and consider how the band is feeling. I’m sure it will be much of the new record, bits of the three previous and a few covers that I feel inspired to do. Sometimes I’m feeling conversational with the audience and want to tell some stories, other times it’s all music and some polite thank you’s. Probably an encore? :)

My fearless, wonderful band consists of Krista Wroten-Combest on violin, keys and backing vocals, David Cousar on guitar and backing vocals, Shawn Zorn on drums and I’ll sing and play upright.

You’ve done some acting in addition to your music career. Will you continue to act? And if so, do you have any projects in the works?

I do hope to continue to act. There is a film in the final throes of post production called “Romance of Loneliness” that should be on the festival circuit next spring. In January, if I’m lucky and time allows, I have a small part on a film shooting in New Orleans and my second lead role in April with director Brian Pera whom I’ve worked with before on “Woman’s Picture.”

Do you have a role you’d like play?

Other than the above mentioned, I’ll know when I read it.

Do you feel your acting experience has contributed to your stage presence?

I think it was the other way around. Performing music live taught me to lose myself in the stories. It’s exactly like becoming a child again when you would play “pretend” and the world you create becomes real for you. It feels like that. That’s where I try to go performing. Perhaps it’s how I learned to cope with any bit of stage fright I ever had. I just figured acting would be the same thing and it turns out I was right.