For decades, Kathleen Edwards has been a cornerstone of North American roots music.

Since making her debut with 2002’s Failer, she’s spent the 21st century occupying the grey area between genres, swirling together her own mix of alt-country, folk, and heartland rock & roll.

It’s a sound that has earned its creator more a half-dozen Juno nominations, as well as Top 40 success on both sides of the Canadian/American border.

Now in her third decade as an artist, Kathleen Edwards has done more than carry the torch of songwriting heroes like Tom Petty, Neil Young, and Lucinda Williams — she’s opened the door for others, too, inspiring a new generation of artists who, like her, blur the boundaries between genre and generation.

A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Edwards was still in her early 20s when she released the critically-acclaimed Failer.

The album’s warm, woozy sound — crystallized on radio hits like “Six O’Clock News” — quickly turned her into one of the era’s alt-country heroes.

From the very start, though, Edwards’ music seemed to exist somewhere out of time, resisting categorization even as Failer received a Juno nomination for “Roots & Traditional Album of the Year.”