From her current home base in a 200-year-old farmhouse in rural Vermont, Anaïs Mitchell writes songs that are as intimate as conversations and as rich in detail as short stories. The daughter of “hippie back-to-the-landers” whose father was a novelist and English professor, she remembers her family’s home (another farmhouse in the same state) containing “a library full of novels, and lots of old folk and psychedelic rock albums. The books and the records all lived in the same room, which I am sure led to me thinking of songwriting as a kind of literature, a noble poetic enterprise.” No surprise, then, that the reference points of her music may seem to come from all over the map while still interconnected: the country ballads of the Carter Family, the hard-edged cabaret of Brecht and Weill, the story-songs of Randy Newman, the vast narrative scope of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and the intricately crafted tales of her namesake, bohemian feminist Anaïs Nin, to name a few.

Hadestown began as a live performance created in collaboration with fellow Vermont artists director Ben t. Matchstick and arranger/orchestrator Michael Chorney. In their neck of the woods — TV-less by choice, far from big cities, in a land of radical politics and culture — making your own entertainment and getting your friends and neighbors to help you flesh it out, is the only way to go. After fine-tuning the show, the trio gathered a cast of two dozen, commandeered a silver-spraypainted schoolbus, and hit the road (and several blizzards) for a couple of ragtag DIY tours of New England. The next logical step? Hadestown, the album, performed by a dream-team lineup including Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon/Bon Iver, Greg Brown, and Mitchell herself, among others.

Guest vocalist Tim Gearan will play the part of Hades. Tim’s deep, drawling voice is perfect for this part. Gearan is one of the most popular figures in the Boston/Cambridge roots music scene. He has regular residencies at several of the most well-respected venues in the area and his fans are hardcore in their devotion to him. His own songwriting is captivating; his on-stage presence is incomparable and his rootsy essence makes a winning combination.

Amy Correia will repeat her role as Persephone from the New York City productions of Hadestown. Her style draws comparisons to Tom Waits and Michelle Shocked and the New York Times calls her “a singular talent.” A dynamic performer who accompanies herself on guitar, piano and baritone ukelele, Correia recently returned home from a 28-city tour of the U.S., opening for legendary frontwoman of The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde.

Singer and instrumentalist Jefferson Hamer will reprise his NYC role as Orpheus. Jefferson has spent most of the last decade touring out of Colorado and across the American West, first with the eclectic acoustic trio Single Malt Band, and then with the country-rock outfit Great American Taxi. He is currently working on an album of new adaptations of the Francis James Child ballads with Anais Mitchell. His most recent recording, a solo-acoustic 7″ vinyl record titled This Ragged World We Spanned, was released in 2011 by Brooklyn’s Media Blitz records.

Dinty Child is a member of Session Americana. He is a multi-instrumentalist and brings his incredible range of sounds to their live shows and recordings. He has also played with artists from Laurie Sargent to Chandler Travis.

• The music ranges with classic American folk forms: country gospel, ragtime, blues, and early jazz, to approximations of rock, swing, and avant-garde — all of it immediate, accessible, and inviting. . . . Mitchell doesn’t make herself the star, but is nonetheless. She is convincing as Eurydice; her lyrics are poetic, and her melodies unpretentious, yet sophisticated thanks to Chorney’s arrangements. This 57-minute work goes by in a flash. Artfully conceived, articulated, and produced, Hadestown raises Mitchell’s creative bar exponentially: there isn’t anything else remotely like it. Allmusic.com, March 2010
• . . . a superb and frequently entertaining re-envisioning of a classic tale that also happens to be a ripping good story. . . . It’s a surpassingly strange and moving work, quite unlike any music I’ve ever encountered, and further evidence that weird can be wonderful, particularly when the lyrics are as insightful and the music as beautiful as this. Paste.com, March 2010
• Anaïs sings of love among the ruins, coming of age to find yourself an outsider looking for the place you belong, finding other strangers along the way. Details . . . are offered like clues or keys to the reality all of us sense is imminent and eternal beneath the surfaces of things. Hugh Blumenfeld, Sing Out!