INTRODUCING...Singer and songwriter Teddy Thompson, as he takes the country road on his latest album, Upfront & Down Low.

Born in 1976 to folk musician parents Richard and Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson did not listen to any music made after 1959 until he was 16.

Now living in New York, the English singer-songwriter has gone back to his past to record an album of covers of the American likes of George Jones, Ernest Tubb, Merle Haggard and Elvis Presley.

On Tuesday, he plays a rearranged gig in York. Charles Hutchinson gets the Thompson low down on Down Low and more besides.

What are you doing right now?

"I'm over from New York in London recording a new record and I'm now taking ten days out to do the tour."

Has your country covers album influenced your songwriting in the way that Almost Blue did with Elvis Costello?

"Someone made that comparison with Elvis Costello doing something similar to me, and I think the main effect Upfront & Down Low has had on me is that it's got that country bug out of me, as I've been so in love with country music ever since I was a kid.

"I always had a country flavour in my own songs, and this album has now satisfied that urge. The next album will be more poppy and less country."

What prompted a country covers record?

"There were lots of reasons. A lot of it was down to me coming off the road after a year and I didn't have enough songs to begin a record of my own, and I didn't want to anyway as I was a little burnt out and wasn't ready to sit in a room for six months, twiddling my thumbs and trying to create songs. It's always better to get out and about and write that way.

"So I had a thought that it might be a good idea to record some George Jones for fun. So I did, and it sounded really good, and I then really got into the project, looking for songs, so we carried on."

How did your record company respond?

"Initially the American guys in charge at the record company were very enthused, but a week later they called to say they didn't think it was a good idea? but as soon as it became difficult, I was even more determined to do it, so it became a like a crusade."

Your voice stands up well to George Jones and Merle Haggard...

"Lord knows I don't claim to be touching those heights, but I think one of the reasons I wanted to do this album was that so many people have a bad impression of country music, especially the Nashville way of pumping out country. Even though I'm English, I felt I could sing it better and give country back its good name."

When did you decide to add another English element to the album: string arrangements by Robert Kirby, who worked on Nick Drake's songs in the 1970s?

"I met Robert through my mum; they had met a long time ago, and he did a song for her, Fashionably Late, on her comeback album. I was there when he came round to see her, and I knew some of the Nick Drake stuff, and when I was in the studio in New York working with a great cellist, Julia Kent, I had one of those light-bulb moments where I thought, 'Wouldn't it be good to have baroque strings on a country record?', which hadn't been done before.

"So I thought of Robert, who I knew would bring something different and English to it."

How did Rufus Wainwright come to do the string arrangement for My Blue Tears, a Dolly Parton song?

"I always like to work with Rufus and I just thought it would be something a bit different for him, something challenging, as I knew he'd just started doing his own string arrangements, but country was not something he'd done before. I thought he would come up with something interesting and he did."

Why did you choose to put one of your own songs, Down Low, on the album?

"I already had that song; I'd had it for a couple of years and it had just missed out the last record. I thought about it for a while and in the end I thought, 'it fits in really well and if I don't use it now, I never will' - and I think it holds up pretty well."

  • Teddy Thompson plays Fibbers, York, on Tuesday.