During between-song banter Toronto-based songwriter Peter Katz told the small but appreciative crowd at last week’s intimate Blue Chair Café performance that he was impressed by his new acquaintance, the diminutive, Saskatoon-bred songstress Carrie Catherine. When the duo pulled up to the scary-rough biker bar in Regina that they were inexplicably booked to play, Catherine swaggered in like the place was her second home while he hung back, aghast and terrified. During her part of the show, Catherine related more detail, regaling the audience with an anecdote about trying to ignore the stripper’s pole right in front of where she was playing.

The story has a happy ending. Both artists managed to win over the leather-and-stud-and-acid-wash-denim-clad patrons with their individual brands of feel-good, nostalgic music.

"Singer/songwriter" is really more of a job title than any sort of genre descriptor these days. Catherine and Katz, who have embarked on a six-week musical journey together at the suggestion of the manager they share, are a decent illustration of that point. Though their styles of music compliment each other, they aren’t similar.

Katz’s touchstones hail from the early ’70s folk-pop movement, and it’s easy to note the influences of Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and even a dash of Neil Diamond in his songs. A gifted guitar player blessed with a gorgeous, warm voice, Katz sounds like he could have stepped out of an AM-tuned radio circa 1973. And maybe he did–he was born in the ’80s, and if you believe in reincarnation, it could be a remote possibility.

"Green-eyed soul" is what Catherine has labeled her latest collection of tunes on her recent release, Venus Envy. "It’s about lovers," she says of the album. "Finding love in domestic, everyday moments. Like elbow deep in dishes." A confident entertainer, the tiny musician commands a stage like a cabaret figure, working the room from behind an enormous guitar like a prairie version of Eartha Kitt, with a voice that seems a cross between the stylings of ’50s girl groups and vintage country chanteuses.

Their largest common factor is sincerity. Catherine and Katz are earnest in their musical storytelling, and both delight unabashedly in being onstage, sharing the work they created, recounting details of the songwriting process. That kind of honesty can earn the respect of most audiences–even the ones who would normally favour body-baring over soul-baring.