Good songs, said Gretchen Peters, deepen with your experience of life. “The bad ones, you abandon by the roadside.” Peters should know. The award-winning singer-songwriter, appearing Tuesday (September 8 ) at Don Quixote’s, has written some very good songs.

The ones most people recognize are associated with top tier country artists: “Independence Day,” Martina McBride; “The Secret of Life,” Faith Hill; “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am,” Patty Loveless; ” “If Heaven,” Andy Griggs. But there are so many more — yearning personal tunes like “Jezebel” and “When You Are Old,” the color-filled stories of “This Used to be My Town” and “Sunday Morning” — sung in Peters’ rich voice.

“They evolve on the road,” Peters said. “They evolve with each performance.”

It is only in the past three years that American audiences have been able to connect with the artist as a performer, courtesy of the folk/Americana movement. Before then, she was pigeonholed as a “country” artist in the States — a designation that failed to connect her with audiences — even while in the United Kingdom, she played to packed venues.

Then, in 2006, she worked with roots music legend Tom Russell, who suggested the folk scene. It was a natural fit, as Peters recent sweep of the Just Plain Folks awards last month shows. She won three awards for Northern Lights (Best Holiday Album), Burnt Toast & Offerings (Best Country Album) and Trio (Best Live Album) plus Songwriter of the Year.

“Really this is what I wanted to do from moment I picked up a guitar,” Peters said of touring. “I’m not the kind of person who wanted to sit in a room and then write a song.”

Born in New York, Peters grew up in Colorado where she became inspired by the regional music scene. At 19, she submitted a homemade tape to the Boulder Music Weekend music competition and won. She kept writing and singing. In the late ’80s, she moved to Nashville with her now ex-husband and daughter. Though she considered herself both a singer and a songwriter, Peters signed a publishing deal and eventually found her songs climbing the charts with other artists’ voices.

It took a long time before Peters recorded her own album, 1996′s The Secret of Life. Since then, Peters has recorded a new CD every few years. Her popularity in the U.K. is such that her record company convinced her to put out a greatest hits album, Circus Girl, released in May.

“It was bizarre….they were calling it a greatest hits album and I was saying, ‘I don’t have any hits!’” Peters said. None of her songs have topped the American charts with her as the vocalist.

A limited edition of the album includes a second disk filled with live recordings and mementoes of her career: bits of lyrics, odd songs that never made any albums, the interview she did at 19. “It’s almost like an inside journey,” she said.

It’s the real life journeys that Peters credits with keeping her grounded and in tune. Touring with partner and keyboard player Barry Walsh brings her closer to her songs and to herself. When she sings, Peters finds herself inhabiting a character through song, like acting. The songs take over.

“I find myself more moved by my own songs when playing them than I ever was when listening to the record,” she said.

Tunes that she has discovered anew through performance include “Circus Girl,” “Love and Texaco” and “Like Water into Wine.” One of the songs Peters never stopped playing through the years is “On A Bus To St. Cloud,” a hit for Trisha Yearwood.

“It’s gone through a huge evolution. It’s proven itself to have depth that I still haven’t gotten to,” she said of the song listed on her website as one of her two favorites. The other is “The Way You Move Me.”

Playing on the road has helped Peters feel like she’s finally in the right skin.

“What I said when I was 18 years old was I just want to make a living at this. I just want to find a way to make a living as a musician,” she said. “And that word, musician, was really key. I didn’t say as a songwriter or even as a singer-songwriter. I really thought of myself as a musician.”

This will be Peters’ third show at Don Quixote’s. The first two were marked by some pretty dramatic occurrences.

“We had an earthquake just before we went onstage the first time and the second time was during all those fires. We’re kind of like. ‘What have you got for us now, Santa Cruz?’” Peters laughed.

Gretchen Peters at Don Quixote’s. Folk in A also performs. 7:30 p.m. Don Quixote’s International Music Hall, 6275 Highway 9, Felton. $10. Under 21 allowed with parent. (831) 603-2294.