THERE have been several best-albums-of-the-year-so-far polls but it is striking that amidst all the Daft Punks, Kanye Wests and Vampire Weekends, there was no space for Patty Griffin's seventh studio album, American Kid.

Reviews of the album, her first collection of mostly new material in six years, have been uniformly glowing, as it contains some of the most compelling songs of her career, on a par with the strongest moments on previous albums such as Impossible Dream, Children Running Through and Living With Ghosts. Among them is the superb Highway Song, which she co-wrote with her partner, Robert Plant, to whom she touchingly refers in the CD liner notes as "my blue-eyed, giant-hearted friend". Plant sings on two other songs on American Kid; the duo's version of Highway Song on a recent edition of Later ... With Jools Holland is worth looking up on YouTube.

The album stems back to Griffin's earlier work with the former Led Zeppelin singer. The 49-year-old, who plays Perth's Southern Fried festival on Sunday, toured for a while with Plant's Band Of Joy, and the North Mississippi All Stars opened for him. The All Stars are, of course, brothers Cody (drums) and Luther (guitar) Dickinson. Over time, Patty was blown away by Luther's acoustic playing; she'd be handed guitar or mandolin roles with them on stage, and was seduced by their approach to music.

"The Dickinson brothers are from Memphis," she says. "They were a main ingredient to me, and they have a studio just south of Memphis and north of Mississippi that they offered us. We wanted them to have all their tools around them. So that was part of the reason, but I also thought it would be great to bring them in, because of their Memphis feel and background.

"Everything [so far in her career] has sort of been conceived somewhere between Nashville and Texas: I thought if we brought it to either of those places it would be more of the same, and they brought something real different to it, I think."

Also key to American Kid was multi-instrumentalist Craig Ross, who co-produced the album. "I've known Craig for 18 years and he's an artist in his own right, more of an underground kind of guy, more from This Mortal Coil and that world than from country music, but he's so versatile," Griffin says. "I knew he would know how to stop us doing takes when it was the right take, in the way that I wanted it to be less polished and have a little more grit, and more emotion to it. He's very good at those moments."

The result is an album that feels uniquely personal, occasionally profound, occasionally uplifting, and never less than compelling. It is dedicated to the memory of her father, Lawrence Joseph Griffin, "a little Irish guy", who died four years ago. She was writing songs around that time but it has taken her until now to release them. Other things intervened.

"I did the [Grammy nominated] gospel record Downtown Church, and I was a back-up singer in Band Of Joy. The timing of all of that was perfect because it came right after him passing away and I didn't feel like singing anything personal for a while."

Her father was one of those unsung people who "lived an amazing life... he grew up in Boston during the Depression, he was the son of Irish immigrants who were really poor, and he ended up in the Second World War, taking part in the Normandy invasion."

After the war, Lawrence returned home, studied on the GI Bill, and sought to become a monk as he attempted to rebuild his life and strive for an inner peace. His example left a pronounced mark on Patty.

Not everything on the album is true to life – "I make up a lot of things", she laughs, Lawrence not being the kind of man who would volunteer an excess of personal information – but you get a strong idea of what her father was like. One of the songs on the album, Please Don't Let Me Die In Florida, came about because he apparently couldn't stand the heat and humidity of that part of the US ("If you catch me dying in Daytona/Throw my bed on to a train").

Of the other tracks on American Kid, That Kind Of Lonely is about "finally letting go of your delayed adolescence" while Wild Old Dog was inspired by a dog she once came across while driving in her car. The dog had been abandoned; the memory haunted her for a long time. Get Ready Marie is an impish piece inspired by her grandparents' wedding photograph. The only non-original is Lefty Frizzell's Mom & Dad's Waltz ("his songs are so vulnerable and tender"). Irish Boy, "one of the made-up stories" about her dad, took her ages to come up with a take she was finally happy with.

Griffin grew up in Maine, one of seven children. Her mother was a "fantastic" singer and Griffin was just 12 when she decided that music was for her. Her successive albums – Living With Ghosts (1996), Flaming Red, 1000 Kisses, Impossible Dream, Children Running Through (winner of the 2007 Americana Music Association's album of the year award), and Downtown Church – have made her one of American's most highly regarded singer-songwriters. Her songs have been covered by everyone from Emmylou Harris to The Dixie Chicks, though her favourite is Solomon Burke's version of Up To The Mountain, the same song that Scotland's Susan Boyle covered a while back.

Talking of her father reminds her of a key moment in her young life, when he bought her the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album. "I was eight years old and I got to actually go to the record store – Strawberries Record Store, in Bangor, Maine, which was the next big town over [from us]," she says. "We went there together on my birthday and I got to pick out the record. I was probably really into the cover; it was quite a beautiful record. It turned out to be one of those life-changing things to have and listen to."

Lawrence, she remembers, "had really eclectic taste. I remember him listening to Freddy Fender records, and also the Man Of La Mancha Broadway musical soundtrack." She laughs. "It was kind of all over the map with him."

Does she think she shares any of his characteristics? She smiles. "We both wished our tempers were a little more subdued. We both had a hot temper, but I also got some of his good stuff - he was always looking for the heart of things."

It has been, she says, a "very long time" since she played Scotland. On Sunday at Perth Concert Hall she will be supported by Darrell Scott, star of Transatlantic Sessions, and legendary bassist Danny Thompson. It should be quite a night.

Is she looking forward to it? "Absolutely," she responds. "I mean, Scotland's great. Every time I've been here, I've had a great time. The people are warm and funny."

Patti Griffin plays Perth Concert Hall as part of Southern Fried on Sunday. Tickets (£21.50 and booking fee) from 01738-621031 and www.southernfriedfestival.co.uk. American Kid is available on New West Records.