Michelle Shocked always brings something different to her performances and recordings. She’s done everything from campfire folk to New Orleans funk and done it with conviction. ToHeavenURide is her gospel album, recorded with a nine-piece band at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2003. Her ideas about gospel are fairly inclusive, with nods to the more spiritual vein with “Wade in the Water,” the modern electric style with “We’re Blessed.” Secular tunes such as the Band’s “The Weight” and Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” have been adapted to gospel purpose.

Shocked’s voice is reliably passionate as she plays with the melody and cadences over much of this set, and her attitude is informal as she introduces her songs with explanations about topics from Cancer Alley to Sister Rosetta Tharpe (a slow, mysterious version of Tharpe’s “Strange Things Happening Every Day” opens the disc).

Occasionally her folksiness comes off as if she is trying too hard not to try too hard, but it rarely gets in the way of the music. Some might find such folksiness cute at best and condescending and patronizing at worst, it is this folksiness that gives her music its stamp no matter what genre she explores.