Lord Finds Strength After a Case of Nerves

Indie queen and Boston street busker Mary Lou Lord has been an underground figure for a few years, known for her winsome folk-pop and fervent love for the work of other little-known singer-songwriters.

As Lord played an opening set for Whiskeytown at the Troubadour on Tuesday, it was no surprise that the singer, who has just released her major-label debut, “Got No Shadow,” on Sony’s Work Group label, was jittery from the outset.

The singer and guitarist halted her first song after forgetting the words, but quickly recovered when her band joined her onstage. She eventually sank into her insecurity to deliver songs that sometimes felt backed into a corner.

Once she settled into numbers about roaming, chance encounters, fate and freezing small moments in time, her set rang of self-confidence. The only drawback was that Lord, who usually plays solo acoustic to tightknit cliques of longtime fans, was backed by a straight, professional pop-rock band that sometimes felt too airtight.

But Lord shined when she took detours. The older, punky tune “Some Jingle Jangle Morning” sounded adept yet fun, and she tailored her song “His Indie World” to Whiskeytown’s alternative-country fans by name-dropping that scene’s heroes, Gram Parsons and Old 97’s.

Clearly, she is a woman with an off-kilter sense of humor and lots of rough edges, something that you wouldn’t know from the big-time sheen of “Got No Shadow” unless you listened hard. Thankfully, no one at this show had to strain to hear the quirks in Lord’s talent.