(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 16, 1998) -- Ask Stockbridge native Cheri Knight how a Berkshire-bred musician winds up with such an authentic, Appalachian-style, roots-rock sound, and she is quick to reply with a geography lesson.

"The Appalachian Mountains run all the way from Maine to Georgia, so the Berkshires are technically Appalachians," said Knight, in a recent phone interview from a motel room in Chicago, where she was performing on her current tour, which brings her to the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton on Monday night, March 16, at 7.

In fact, Knight can trace the Appalachians along her own educational and recreational path growing up in Stockbridge in the 1970s. "The Appalachian Trail ran right through the campus of Berkshire School and ran very close to the campus of Monument Mountain," she said. "And it goes right through Butternut Basin ski area thorugh Monterey and Becket and around that area."

Knight is quick with this explanation after her new country-rock album, "The Northeast Kingdom" (E-Squared Records), has consistently been tagged with the Appalachian label in recent weeks in reviews in the New York Times, People Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and Spin. While the album has uniformly received glowing reviews, more than one critic has wondered how this Massachusetts native, who now calls the small Pioneer Valley town of Hatfield home, came to sound so authentically southern.

"There's a real northern tradition of bluegrass and old-time music that's not as well-konwn as what happens south of the Mason-Dixon line," said Knight. "I'm a northern person. I grew up hiking in the Berkshires. That was my playground, and I think it's affected me tremendously. It wasn't like I had this fantasy that I was in the Appalachians and that tied me into some musical tradition. I'm totally an outdoors person. I'm a farmer. That's all I've ever wanted to do."

Indeed, when Knight isn't in a recording studio or a nightclub -- since February she's criss-crossed the heartland, performing in places like Dayton, Ohio, Austin, Texas, Hattiesburg, Miss., Iowa City and Lexington, Ky. -- she labors happily on an organic flower farm.

"Farming I chose. Music I did not choose. Sometimes I tried to un- choose it, but that didn't really work for me," she said.

"The Northeast Kingdom" was recorded in Nashville, where it was produced by E-Squared owner and famed country-rocker Steve Earle. Country legend Emmylou Harris sings backup on two tracks, Bruce Springsteen sideman Gary Tallent lends support on bass, and former dB's member Will Rigby lays down the rhythm on drums.

The album also features guitar and mandolin accompaniment by Mark Spencer and Jimmy Ryan, Knight's former bandmates from the late-'80s, much-lamented, Boston-based, alternative-country group Blood Oranges.

The album includes 11 original songs by Knight, boasting her no- nonsense, organic vocals, rootsy country-folk arrangements recalling the Byrds and Neil Young, and dark, Celtic-influenced melodies. The strong sense of place suggested by the music is matched by an equally strong sense of emotional terrain in the lyrics, a gothic landscape where human relationships are intertwined with the rural surroundings. The song titles alone -- "If Wishes Were Horses," "Black Eyed Susie," "Dead Man's Curve" -- tell a good part of the story.

Knight remembers Stockbridge as a quiet place in which to grow up. While she attributes much of her attachment to the outdoors to hiking around the Berkshires, she also has fond memories of spending summers in Columbia County in upstate New York, where both her parents were originally from.

Knight warmly pays tribute to a few teachers who she says were supportive of her artistic inclinations early on. "Marianne Rud and John and Primm ffrench were tremendous influences on me," she said. "I had a real hard time in school, because I wasn't learning what I wanted to learn, and I was a real pain in the ass.

"But they were tremendous, really supportive of my music and art, and I still think of them. I guess it's hard for a lot of kids who are like me, who kind of don't fit in in some ways."

The ffrenches, who taught Knight art at Searles Middle School and at Monument Mountain High School, were warmed by news of Knight's accomplishments. "She was a very outstanding student and a very nice person, too," said John ffrench. "I always felt she was going to do something very interesting." Primm ffrench echoed these sentiments. "She was just a very bright little girl," she said. "Very clever at art, very creative."

Marianne Rud, who taught Knight at Stockbridge Plain School when she was still known as Cheryl, said, "She was a delight. She was always interested in music. She could be motivated to do any of her studies if you tied it in with music. She was just a bright, sparkly kid."

If you would like to purchase any of Cheri Knight CDs on-line, please click on the SoundStone logo to the right.

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on March 16, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]