A Puss n Boots concert is like three friends sitting around swapping licks and putting on a harmony.

That's because the three women in Puss n Boots are friends who trade licks and harmonize beautifully (think The Roches).

Puss n Boots performs 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12, Musikfest Café, ArtsQuest Center, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem.

The lineup is Catherine Popper, vocals, bass, acoustic guitar; Norah Jones, vocals, electric guitar, fiddle, and Sasha Dobson, vocals, drums, acoustic guitar, bass.

"Sash [Dobson] and Norah have known each other for 20 years. I've known them both for about 15 years," says Popper in a phone interview.

"They [Sasha and Norah] started playing together first. They wanted to learn how to play guitar more. They added me to the group."

Jones is a nine-time Grammy Award recipient. Dobson backed up Jones on guitar, percussion and vocals on her "The Fall" album tour. Popper played bass for Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.

"We would just do a few gigs a year when we were all in town [Brooklyn]. We would make up a silly name and play at a club for our friends, really.

"You do that enough times and you start sounding like a band, even without rehearsals."

Puss n Boots, which has performed together since 2008, toured clubs and played festivals this past summer, including the Newport Folk Festival in support of the debut album, "No Fools, No Fun," released on Blue Note Records.

"I feel like, especially Sasha and Norah -- those women have some of the most beautiful voices I ever heard. The trio is sort of focused on the vocals and we sort of try to push ourselves in other realms. They learned the guitar. Sasha learned the drums. And now I'm learning guitar. And the harmonies sort of tie everything together."

The 14 tracks on Puss n Boots' debut CD, "No Fools, No Fun," is a mix of covers and originals, with Popper contributing the most. Popper wrote "Sex Degrees Of Separation," "Always" and "Pines."

Of "Pines," Popper says, "I wrote that song a few years ago. I had a few friends who died of drug overdoses. That's what that song's about."

Jones wrote "Don't Know What It Means" and Dobson wrote "You'll Forget Me."

Studio session covers are "Leaving London" (Tom Paxton), "Twilight" (Robbie Robertson), "Jesus, Etc." (Jeff Tweedy), "GTO" (Jeb Loy Nichols) and "Cry, Cry, Cry" (Johnny Cash).

"I feel like the collaboration is in the arranging of the song. The project ['No Fools, No Fun'] wasn't supposed to be a commercial project. We'll bring a song into it and then arrange it."

Four covers, "Bull Rider" (Rodney Crowell), "Down By The River" (Neil Young), "Tarnished Angel" (Roger Miller) and "In A Shanty In Old Shanty Town" (Ira Schuster, Jack Little, Joe Young), were recorded in 2013 at The Bell House, Brooklyn, N.Y.

"All three of us have our hands in a number of pots. We all are working musicians. We're touring with other bands. We're recording with other bands. These tour dates [for Puss n Boots] came out of nowhere. We said, 'We can do this.'"

Popper says a Puss n Boots' concert is a work in progress:

"The kids who love to take the door knobs apart to see how they're put together. And then you have to put the door knobs together to get out of the room.

"That's how some of our performances are."

Tickets: artsquest.org, 610-332-3378.