FREEPORT – Singer/songwriter Lori McKenna, wife and mother of five from Stoughton, Mass. – who has been thrust into the limelight, thanks to superstar Faith Hill’s decision to record three of McKenna’s songs for her chart-topping “Fireflies” album – will perform Saturday, June 17, at L.L. Bean’s Discovery Park.

Hill (a wife and mother of three) heard in McKenna’s work what a steadily growing audience has been hearing since her 1998 debut, “Paper Wings & Halo” – an intimate understanding and honest expression of the realities of domestic life.

McKenna currently has a Warner Bros. release, “Bittertown,” featuring the original renditions of two songs Hill covered on Fireflies (“If You Ask” and “Stealing Kisses”), along with another featured on country star Sara Evans’ upcoming album (“Bible Song”). “Bittertown” paints a detailed picture of the oft-hidden complexities of day-to-day life in a small town.

McKenna is quick to point out that “Bittertown” isn’t necessarily a journal of her own home life.

Rather, the songs are a combination of her experiences, keen observations and a vivid imagination. “That’s how my brain works,” she says. “I can take a little piece of something that I heard somewhere and turn it into a song written in the first person.”

“I started writing songs when I was about 13, but I never imagined I would actually leave the house with them,” she adds.

McKenna began singing at open-mic nights in Boston, and the enthusiastic response led to her own shows. Surprisingly, McKenna found it perfectly natural to balance her full home life with a burgeoning musical career.

She took care of the children all day, played shows in the evening and wrote songs at the kitchen table after the children’s bedtime.

She drove from show to show in the same minivan in which she ferried around the McKenna children.

“It’s been these gradual steps,” McKenna says. “The open-mic nights turned to shows, the shows turned to making a record, and then the record did really well, so we thought we’d make another one.” “Paper Wings & Halo” was followed by 2001’s “Pieces of Me,” 2003’s “The Kitchen Tapes”- and, finally, “Bittertown.”

McKenna will perform as part of L.L. Bean’s Gateway to Summer Concert Series. Concerts begin at 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays through July 1 in Discovery Park, just behind the Gateway Building, home of L.L. Bean’s new bike and boat store on Main Street. L.L. Bean’s traditional Summer Concert Series will begin July 4, also in Discovery Park.

Concerts are free. Listeners are urged to bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on.

For more information, call 1-800-559-0747, ext. 37222.