Who, in her right mind, drops out of graduate school, chucks a mortgage-paying day job and empties her savings account to launch a music career at the ripe age of 26 — within weeks of writing her first song?

BettySoo, that’s who.

Oh, relax — it worked out OK in the end. Or rather, it’s working out for her, given the Austin-based singer-songwriter is eight years into said music career and shows no signs of stopping — not with half a dozen albums to her name, fistfuls of glowing reviews, and an ever-growing international grassroots fan base. With hindsight, the craziest thing about her decision was she didn’t do it sooner.

In fact, it was a fortuitous beginning to an immensely satisfying musical adventure — one that has found her playing to listening room and festival audiences from coast to coast as well as in Canada and Europe. Like many self-critical artists, BettySoo is quick to dismiss the merits of her charmingly modest debut, but subsequent releases have all been embraced by critics, peers, and folk, AAA and Americana DJs.

As a performer, BettySoo’s wry humor and natural stage presence coupled with her crystal clear, room-filling soprano invariably make the strongest first impression. But it’s the melodic beauty and emotional depth of her songs that linger. Sometimes she sweetens her lyrics with humor and tenderness, but never at the expense of unflinching honesty.

If that all sounds like a bitter pill to swallow, though, BettySoo’s music, and her whole career, in fact, serves as a reminder that beautiful things can be born out of human imperfection and adversity.“I think I tend to write a lot about brokenness,” says BettySoo, “because that’s what I believe about the world and about life. Everything’s not just OK. So a lot of my songs, whether they’re about love or death – or funny, or serious, there’s always a very human element about our imperfection, about things that are disappointing.”