Singer Mary Chapin Carpenter performs at Van Wezel

If you think of Mary Chapin Carpenter as a country artist, you’re living in the past.

Sure, the five Grammy Awards Carpenter has won were all in country categories — four for Best Country Female Vocal Performance and one for Best Country Album — and she’s won two Academy of Country Music Awards (for Top New Country Vocalist and Top Country Vocalist) and two Country Music Association Awards (both for Female Vocalist of the Year). But those were in the early years of her quarter-century career.

Besides, Carpenter said, she has always eschewed musical categories.

“It’s been many, many years since I was a presence on country radio,” she said in a telephone interview from her Virginia home. “I have always considered myself first and foremost a singer-songwriter.

Carpenter and her five-piece band will be in Sarasota on Friday for a concert at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.

Carpenter’s sound has, of course, evolved, but it hasn’t changed dramatically since those early days when she was considered a country singer. Still, her recent music, including her latest album, “The Things That We Are Made Of,” tends to fare at least as well on folk charts as on the country charts. “The Things That We Are Made Of,” which came out in May, made it to No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart, and No. 8 on the country chart.

Sarasota fans will get to here a lot of the new album. But those that love her classic work, including “Passionate Kisses,” her breakthrough crossover hit, and such early songs as “Down at the Twist and Shout” and “Shut Up and Kiss Me” won’t be disappointed.

“We play about half new songs and half old songs,” Carpenter said. “Writing a set list has become difficult. After all these years we have quite a few songs to choose from and I want to make everybody happy. I guess that comes under the category of good problems to have.”

Opening the show is Canadian singer-songwriter Rose Cousins. She has released three albums: “We Have Made a Spark” (2012), “The Send Off” (2009) and “If You Were for Me” (2006). She has earned a Juno Award, the most prestigious award for Canadian musicians, for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year, and two Canadian Folk Music Awards for Best Contemporary Singer. In this country, “We Have Made a Spark” was named to NPR’s Top 10 Americana & Folk Albums of 2012.

Details: 8 p.m. Oct. 28, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $36-$46. 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

This story was originally published October 26, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Singer Mary Chapin Carpenter performs at Van Wezel."