Sam Amidon, whose Nonesuch Records debut, Bright Sunny South is due out May 14, is featured in the latest episode of the Guardian's Music Weekly podcast. Amidon talks with the Guardian's Maddy Costa, who admits she has "been listening to Bright Sunny South slightly obsessively for the past month.”

The Vermont-born and raised, London-based Amidon, known for his reworking of traditional melodies into a new form, includes country ballads and shape-note hymns on his new album, as well as interpretations of traditional and contemporary songs.

In the podcast, Amidon discusses the new record and the early influence of old American folk hymns and his more recent appreciation of English folk music, to which he was introduced by his wife, Beth Orton. He also muses over the nature of inspiration and melody, finding it even in unexpected places, like Mariah Carey’s “Shake It Off," which he interprets on Bright Sunny South.

"For me, folk music is not really so much connected to certain instruments. It's more just a quality a melody could have, or a quality a lyric could have. You can find that anywhere," Amidon says. "On the one hand, I can talk a lot about what folk songs mean to me, but on the other hand, I don’t sing these songs because they’re folk songs. I sing them because they’re my favorite melodies, and because they get caught in me, and because the words teach me something, or have that weird mystery to them that’s so intense."

The podcast closes with a performance from Amidon of the Bright Sunny South track "As I Roved Out."

Listen to the performance and the interview in the Music Weekly podcast at guardian.co.uk; Amidon's segment begins at just under 23 minutes in.

To reserve a copy of Bright Sunny South, head to the Nonesuch Store, where pre-orders include an instant download of two tracks from the album—Amidon's take on Tim McGraw's "My Old Friend" and the traditional tune "He's Taken My Feet"—at checkout and a download of the complete album available starting release day.