FAIRHOPE, Ala. — In the tragic wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, local writer Frye Gaillard and his mother, Amante Gaillard, heard for the first time the music of Kathryn Scheldt at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mobile.

“The late autumn sun (was) slanting through the windows, as she sang of hope and mercy and despair,” Gaillard would later write on the liner notes of “Getting Ready,” Scheldt’s first CD, released in 2007. “There was a power in the lyrics that seemed inseparable from the strength of her voice — a rich contralto that was different from anything I had heard.”

Gaillard said last week that his mother was so moved by the song Scheldt was singing, about the heartache caused by the hurricane and one singer-songwriter’s compassionate response to it — ”Rain down, Mercy, help us bear it/Shower us with love/Mercy, send us a dove” — that they stayed afterward to talk with her.

That conversation led to a friendship between Gaillard and Scheldt, which evolved into a singer-songwriter collaboration that will be on display tomorrow afternoon in Fairhope at the launch of the new CD, “Southern Girl,” with readings from Gaillard’s classic books on country music and the South: “Watermelon Wine” and “With Music and Justice for All.”

The “Southern Girl” CD is a collaboration, not only of Scheldt and Gaillard, who shared songwriting credits on all but two of the songs, but also with Barry Little of Nomad Music Studio in Daphne.

Little, who mixed Scheldt’s voice and local musician Tom Morley’s fiddle and violin tracks, also served as co-producer of the album along with Scheldt, Gaillard and Mike Severs, whose Franklin, Tenn., studio was the place where a number of Nashville musicians contributed the rest of the instrumentation. The finishing touches were put on the CD at Master Digital studios in Covington, La.

This collaborative effort began late last year and has required more half a dozen trips to Nashville, Scheldt said. On the CD, some of the musicians include Catherine Marx, a Nashville session musician who has played in the bands of Reba McIntire, Ronnie Milsap, Kathy Mattea and the late Conway Twitty; Kerry Marx on guitar, who spent seven years in Johnny Cash’s band and is now a member of the Grand Ole Opry house band; Mike Severs, a Nashville session musician who has played in the bands of Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and the Rascals; and Denny Walley, an R&B session musician on slide guitar, who has recorded over 20 albums with Frank Zappa and and played with Captain Beefheart.

The launch party and concert, with local favorites Morley, Fred Baldwin, Corky Hughes and Jimmy Roebuck accompanying Scheldt, starts at 4 p.m. tomorrow, Sunday, Oct. 4, at the Fairhope Unitarian Fellowship at 1150 Fairhope Ave. A barbecue buffet catered by Bimini Bob’s will follow the concert, which is free and open to the public.

For more information, call the Fellowship at 929-3207.