Samantha Crain thinks it's unreasonable for anyone to immediately assume that her Choctaw blood defines her or her music, which has always been steeped in modern American folk and pop conventions. "It doesn't play a huge part in my life, but maybe that's because I wasn't involved in the Native experience growing up, either," said the 22-year-old singer-songwriter from Shawnee, Oklahoma. "It's not that I or my family are ashamed of that part of us or anything, but Choctaw culture and reservation life just didn't play a big part in my upbringing."

While some of Crain's songs contain imagery inspired by Choctaw legends and oral traditions, most are a product of her personal life experience and her exposure to great American storytellers.

Crain, who performs at 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 13, at the main stage of the Thirsty Ear Festival, possesses a bubbly conversational voice that belies her wistful, haunting musical narratives. Hailing from the state that can arguably be described as the birthplace of modern American folk music (Woody Guthrie, who gave the world his Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940, was born there), Crain's influences run the gamut from Radiohead to Guthrie himself. "Well, I am from rural Oklahoma, but it's not all covered wagons and tepees, like a lot of people think," she said. "The best way I could explain Shawnee would be like this: think of those characters in the movie Napoleon Dynamite. They're very influenced by pop culture, but the things that influence them are more than 10 years old. That's how it is, I think, with me and music."

Shawnee isn't exactly a hotbed of touring activity, she said, and local bands from Oklahoma City and Tulsa — as well as more popular touring singers who understood the small-town experience — were primary influences for Crain. "But I think that's true for a lot of musicians who grow up in smaller towns. What's first made available to your ears always has the biggest and longest-lasting impact."

Influence and inspiration go hand in hand in Crain's blossoming career as a singer-songwriter, but it would take getting away from Shawnee for her to choose music as her profession. "I started teaching myself guitar when I got into college," she said, "and after about three semesters of being in the English Lit program, I decided that I really wanted to get out of Oklahoma. I was 19, and I hadn't traveled much. I went to a really small liberal-arts college where the majority of the student body was exactly like me. We looked the same, we talked the same, and we had the same political and religious beliefs. I think I just wanted — no, I needed — to see something different."

After being accepted to a popular semester-long program at a musicians colony in Martha's Vineyard (she sang an a cappella version of Radiohead's "Creep" at the audition), Crain began to make songwriting and performing her main focus. "I had only been working with a guitar for a few months, and it was my first experience being away from home and doing the music thing," she said. "I saw Reva Williams [from the Boston folk band Gretel] perform while I was at the colony. She was working so hard to make a living playing music, and she was being really smart about the business end, too. She was my first major influence as far as making me want to get on the road and write and play music full time."

Crain's self-produced EP, The Confiscation, was rereleased in 2008 on Ramseur Records. Until recently, Crain did her own single-track recording, releasing, promotion, and booking, but she chose the small indie label for a number of reasons.

"First, it was to maintain the most creative control of the work. And after talking to label head Dolph Ramseur and knowing about the artists that he has worked with [The Avett Brothers, the Everybodyfields, and former Folkways artist Sammy Walker, to name a few], we knew he was very focused on working with artists that were career-driven, not passing fads or one-hit wonders. Dolph holds true to the 'slow and steady wins the race' philosophy, which I admire."

Ramseur Records also "provides pretty much everything an artist needs in terms of booking, distribution, and marketing," she said. "I didn't really see the point of going with a bigger label. If we had, we'd be getting the same amount of work done as far as touring and exposure, but other people would be getting more of the money we were working so hard for as a band."

Crain and her all-male ensemble, the Midnight Shivers, have been on the road nonstop, and she's still adjusting to the touring life. In previous interviews, Crain has said that if she weren't a musician she would be a traveling-circus performer, but spending so much time on the road has changed her perspective a bit. "I've been traveling around with guys long enough that I think I've figured out how to fit in a little more" she said. "But I'm not saying that's always a good thing. I have probably lost touch with quite a few feminine qualities by trying to be one of the guys. My romanticized view of touring is a little different. I wouldn't say that it's lost all its charm; it does get tiring, but that's just part of what I signed up for when I became a full-time musician."

Figuring out how to manage a tight travel schedule and still put great songs to paper has been hard. "I kind of have to learn how to write on the road now," she said. "It's something I haven't quite figured out how to do yet. I used to just write a bunch of ideas down, and after getting home from a couple of weeks of touring, I'd piece my written thoughts together and the songs would just come. Now that we're on the road almost constantly, it's still kind of a struggle to get those ideas gathered together. I need to find a new kind of discipline to get it done."

Crain and the Midnight Shivers are touring in support of Songs in the Night, their debut full-length album, which came out in April. The 11-track album finds Crain and her band exploring less-folky musical territories like indie rock, blues, and even a touch of riot grrrl. It was recorded live in just five days at Echo Mountain Recording Studio in Asheville, North Carolina, with Danny Kadar (Grizzly Bear, My Morning Jacket, The Avett Brothers) as producer.

Giving up her post at the recording and mixing boards wasn't easy, Crain admits. "Yeah, it was hard to relinquish control after self-producing so much, but at the same time, because this was our first album to record as a full ensemble, I was shooting for a collaborative effort and that live-recording feel. And I wanted to steer clear of any ego issues. I knew Danny could help us work as a team. What Danny did best, rather than just help form the individual songs, was help us stay on task and to see the bigger picture. If we had had the time or the money, and I was doing the recording and mixing, I would have obsessed over every single note and chord. It wouldn't have been pretty."

Up until now, Crain has been comfortable being labeled as a folk singer-songwriter, but the band and a new production environment helped her take her music in some interesting new directions. "I think folk was what I was originally striving for," she said. "The 'alt-folk' label never really bothered me, because at the time that The Confiscation EP was made and the way I was performing, it was really just me and an acoustic guitar. Now what we do as an ensemble is definitely not folk music. I mean, it's got its folk influences.

"All I thought a few years ago was, OK, I've been playing the guitar for like six months, and I know I really like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, and I want to tell some stories. Let's try it. But none of my songs, new or old, sound like traditional folk songs in the vein of Guthrie. Maybe a few chord progressions sound similar, but lyrically and musically the songs I write are more introspective and go for the heart. I think Guthrie tended to be more rebellious and to go for the throat. But still, I don't know a single singer-songwriter in his or her right mind that would have a problem being associated with Woody Guthrie. Do you?"