Beth Nielsen Chapman doesn't see the point of categories. She just sings what she likes, as she tells Charles Hutchinson.

LOOK and look again at Beth Nielsen Chapman.

The Nashville singer-songwriter has already toured Britain this summer with her album Look. This month, she has returned for more dates, trailing another album in her wake, an a cappella collection of Latin hymns entitled Hymns.

On Tuesday, she plays the Grand Opera House in York. You can't keep away from Britain, can you, Beth?

"I prefer to call it back by popular demand! It's been such a wonderful summer for me over there with the support of Radio 2. I have such a wonderful fan base there now, so I just had to come back," she says.

"Obviously a lot of people have worked hard to make it happen for me, and what's more difficult than anything is to get anything on the radio. In America it's so difficult because it's become so corporate, but great music still finds its way. People are discovering music through the Internet more and more."

More of Hymns later, but first let's take a look at Look, a record released by Sanctuary in late May with all Beth's myriad musical influences pulled together: folk, country, rock, pop, old-school soul, even jazz.

"I've never really liked the way music gets compartmentalised, though I do understand that it helps people to find it, but I've never thought of myself as a country artist.

"That's just a product of how they like to market you, whereas I've always felt unencumbered by boundaries. I love songs written by Duke Ellington, The Beatles... I love songs by Queen. I love taking a run at songs even when they're not right for my voice," Beth says.

"I was fortunate to work with one of the great songwriters, the late Harlan Howard, and he would say 'A great song don't care who sings it'. You can make a jazz version or a country version, and I've always felt that if Linda Ronstadt can go from style to style, so can I."

Beth worked on the Look album with British producer Peter Collins, whose production credits include Rush, Nanci Griffith and the Indigo Girls.

"Look was liberating because it was very organic. If I was on my own I would do a song 15 times, but Peter would say 'Stop, you just did it right'; with him it's much closer to the earth," Beth says.

"He's also really good at judging which songs you could put together. He would say 'The common thread is your voice; if you use the same musicians for all the songs there will be continuity'...and hopefully record shops will now put me in their jazz, pop, blues and country sections."

Whatever the style of music, she cherishes the power of song, not least in the workshops she runs on creativity and working through grief. "I've found that people use songs to journey down to those places in their heart that are very difficult to get to. I use songs as a can opener, and people's hearts start to open," she says. "There's no pat way of putting grief into words but music helps and I try to encourage those in grief to use music or pick up a paintbrush."

Beth's life has been touched by happiness and sorrow, not least coming through the emotional trauma of being diagnosed with stage-two breast cancer. Her treatment was successful.

Her faith has proved important, prompting this month's release by Sanctuary of her a cappella side-project, Hymns.

"I was raised in a Catholic family and these beautiful melodies sung mostly in Latin were the 'hit parade' for myself and all those born before Vatican II.

"In the midst of recording a CD of world hymns, each in a different language, I was having trouble making up my mind which Latin hymn I would choose to include," Beth recalls.

"When I went looking for a collection of my favourite Latin hymns, I couldn't find one anywhere. All these songs disappeared in the 1950s, when services changed into English or whatever, and Latin Mass disappeared. So I decided it might be a good idea to go deep into the roots of my own spiritual beginnings as part of the journey of recording all these other hymns from around the world."

The result is Hymns. "This detour has taken me the best part of a year, and has made my mama very happy, and there's been such a demand for copies of this Latin collection that I decided to make it available ahead of the World Hymns project.

"I'm still to complete that project, which is quite challenging since most of the selections are in languages that make Latin seem like a walk in the park," says Beth.

York Minster played its own small part in the Hymns album. "The last time I was in York, I walked around the city and went into the cathedral, where there was this round room downstairs. I took a picture of the ceiling and I loved it so much that when you take the CD out of the case, you see my picture of the Minster ceiling."

Spirituality courses through Beth. "My belief has always been that humanity is like a diamond and God is the light shining through that diamond," she says. "I believe that God shines though all of humanity, and just as the sun breaks up and flies in very direction when its light hits a diamond, every voice of praise, in every spiritual language, comes from and goes back to the same source of light."

Beth Nielsen Chapman, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, 7.30pm. Tickets: £16.50 on 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 16:49 Thursday, October 14, 2004