sually when a collection of hushed, blues-haunted songs crops up, the specter of authenticity hounds the performer. What grants said contemporary artist access to archaic American musical forms? Have they spent time in shacks and stills in Appalachia? Have they washed themselves in the Mississippi’s delta mud? And even if they had done all of this and more, if they showed up for a press junket clean-shaven and chipper, the same fears would rise again.

Authenticity is a difficult concept to even articulate, and a much more difficult goal to achieve. I suspect that it’s merely an artificial barrier erected to separate American icons from a newer crowd. America is, after all, a might young country, and our musical legends—at least those who were recorded—didn’t die that long ago, and thus don’t have the instant legitimacy granted by the accumulated dust of time. So we jealously guard the music of our forebearers, ensuring the integrity of their creations so that Americans can have icons of our own.

But authenticity isn’t really a concern when you’re living out of a van, as W-S Burn’s Amanda Beddard and Steve Gigante did for some time. The skeletal blues figures floating from Gigante’s guitar and Beddard’s high-wire vocals don’t strike one as an aesthetic pose, a stylish artifice fusing different, carefully chosen influences. Their music is simply the most appropriate and honest sound to capture a feeling of exile, desolation, and repeated heartbreak.

Indeed honesty is at the heart of Tightrope Walker, the third release from this Knoxville, TN duo. Beddard’s direct, confessional lyrics, and the tape-womb ambience (enhanced by the generous space afforded by Gigante’s sparse guitar work) of cheap recording equipment create an intimate space for performer and listener. On Tightrope Walker, Beddard seems completely unprotected by the recording. This album draws the listener from one bedroom to another—to an apartment-cum-studio with the shades drawn, where the obstructed afternoon peeking under the blinds glints off knick-knacks and glows with an amber hue that renders the most mundane gesture or sound eternal, beautiful and nostalgic, a soft moment cast in a brilliant fossil of late light.

The title track opens the album with a sigh, and the volume of the recording rarely rises above such murmurs of quiet, savage emotion. At times, tape hiss threatens to drown Beddard completely. But it never does. In fact, one gets the sense, that for all her vulnerability, Beddard makes a habit of overcoming challenges to her spirit.

From the start, Beddard’s vocals dominate the record. And justifiably so—her voice is remarkable, pure-toned and versatile. It conveys a wealth dignity and loneliness. For the sake of comparison, think of the operatics of Josephine Foster, only a little more soothing and seething. The lyrics on Tightrope Walker are taut and evocative, if not ace poetry, but Beddard could sing the ingredients off the back of a box of mac-n-cheese and keep my attention.

The power of her vocals is made most clear on “I Remember You,” a track with a chorus consisting of those three words, softly cooed to rich, crushing effect. Gigante’s thoughtful melody and tasteful violin swells from Marcelle Good accent the song, but it could very well have been a cappella.

Gigante plays a secondary role in W-S Burn, but his understatement is essential. Any ham-fisted gesture would crush music this fragile. Luckily Gigante is a sensitive, sympathetic guitarist. His playing is fluid and intuitive, following the nuances of Beddard’s voice with modest grace.

With all the emphasis on Beddard, she carries a considerable burden on Tightrope Walker. Whenever she wanders—which happens every so often—the space of the record feels like emptiness, the sparse acoustic melodies suddenly seem to vanish, and the song lapses into vocal meandering. This bogs down “Baby Girl,” “Mismatched Spoons,” and “Dionysus” but the album is otherwise free of duds.

By the end of the album, one begins to care a great deal for Beddard. We see a barefoot dreamer in a thrift-store dress, hitching a ride out of a dead-end hometown, and we naturally want things to work out for her. Thus the hopeful, jaunty closer, “Time to Leave the Ball,” is doubly uplifting. Beddard, Gigante, Good and the listener seated beside them all leave satisfied, ready for another brush with romantic disaster in the balmy Knoxville night.