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In the gospel according to Michelle Shocked, music has become too segregated, with audiences separated by race and class. A genre-bender who plays everything from soul to bluegrass to punk, Shocked wants to reach listeners from all walks of life.

“I want an audience that looks like America,” Shocked says. “I don’t want an audience that just looks like Michelle Shocked.”

But Shocked’s idealistic outlook has put her at odds with the music industry. She spent much of the ‘90s battling with her former label, Mercury, over control of her recordings. At one point, she even sued the label for violating the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Shocked finally reached a deal with Mercury and having secured the rights to her records, she’s now ready to rerelease her back catalogue on her own label. She’s also planning to issue her first album of new material in three years, Deep Natural, due out in spring.

The singer is in New York this week for a series of performances as eclectic as her music. Tonight, and Friday, she’s appearing at the Village Underground, where accompanied by Hothouse Flowers guitarist, Fiachna Ó Braonáin, she’ll be playing acoustic versions of her recent gospel-inflected material.

Then on Saturday, she’ll be at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with bassist Rob Wasserman to provide the music for the modern dance piece Home by the Mark Morris Dance Group. Playing with Morris “is the most glamourous thing I’ve done in years,” Shocked says. “I just feel like a queen for a day up there.”

Shocked began her career in the mid-‘80s as a “punk-rock folksinger” who found a national audience with the 1988 hit, "Anchorage." She followed that success with Captain Swing, a big band album that featured strong songs, but confused her audience and angered Mercury.

In 1991, Shocked went further afield with her masterwork, Arkansas Traveler. She made the album in a dozen locations, recording with roots legends such as Doc Watson, Taj Mahal, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Although it was critically acclaimed, the album widened the gap between Shocked and her label, which couldn’t figure out who her market was.

Since then, Shocked has been releasing her new songs in records she sells only at shows. One was aptly name, Artists Make Lousy Slaves. She searched, in vain, for a major label that would use its clout to champion her admittedly quirky music.

And though her audience is now small, it is devoted. She has earned a reputation as an artist who can get just about any crowd, including jaded Manhattanites, to get up and dance.

“I’ve always thought of music as utility for dancing,” she says. “Every exploration I’ve done is to have my audience integrate dancing into their music experience. But in modern life, it’s hard to pull that off. We’re just a little too cynical and jaded.”

Shocked’s next mission is to turn her label into the equivalent of the United Artists film studio, a place where the creators, not the businessmen, reap the rewards of their work. As always with Shocked, it is an admirable idea, but few prophets find followers in their own time.