The end of junior year in high school for many is a whirlwind of final exams, making summer plans (maybe even including a job) and complaining about a recently-taken senior yearbook picture. For a rising young bluegrass performer like Sierra Hull, it's all that and a lot more.

Just within the last two months, she's fronted her own band, played the venerable Merle Watson festival in North Carolina, shot a bit part in and played on the soundtrack of an upcoming movie and, let's see, what else? - Oh yeah, she's also enjoying the early May release on Rounder of "Secrets," her recorded debut as a full-fledged instrumental and vocal talent.

Enjoying a rare evening off two days after the end of the school year, Hull is relaxing at home in her native Byrdstown, Tenn., close along the Kentucky line some 90 miles or so to the east-northeast of Nashville (where she's become a familiar part of the Music City bluegrass scene - just check out the all-star cast backing her on "Secrets").

There's a steep price to pay, she acknowledges, for starting a professional music career so young. "It's really almost ridiculous sometimes. It's really rough. I have to really try to work extra hard a lot of times to stay up with my grades and to work on homework, and I'm usually going in early or staying late after with some of my teachers who will help me get caught up, and that sort of thing. I miss a lot of school, so when I come back I'm usually trying to do twice the work. So, sometimes it can get a little bit stressful and scary and all that, but it's just one of those things you've gotta do at this point. I want to play music, so I think it's all worth it, but it's just hard sometimes."

Young as she is, Hull is not exactly a newcomer. A mandolin prodigy, her recording debut came about in 2002 with the self-released, all-instrumental "Angel Mountain." When you're still only 16, she laughs, 6 years seems like a long, long time ago.

"I don't even remember a whole lot from when I made that album. I remember doing it, of course, but there are just certain things about it that I feel were foggy, you know, to look back on now. I don't really know, for sure, what drove me to pick the songs or whatever. I just remember my dad really helped me a lot as we tried to figure out what tunes to do. Then, to go from doing that to making the record I did now, I felt there were so many things I had changed. Not that I didn't know anything about music back then, but I knew so little, in a lot of ways I knew so little. I just knew I loved to play, and that was important to me."

"And now, throughout these years I've been able to go to a lot of festivals and listen to a lot of music, and I've learned just so much more since then and spent a lot of time studying certain things. I finally just felt ready to do it. I tried to work more on my singing and feel more comfortable with that."

"So, to have the chance to make this record was a big, big difference because I felt like I was coming into it with much stronger ideas and more of a desire to really want to make a really good album, whereas before I probably didn't even understand what it took to make a good album. I just went in there and went 'Wooo, I'm gonna play some music!' It was kind of similar with this, too. It was still fun in that effect, but I really had the chance to sit down and go, 'okay, what is it gonna take to make an album that I'll feel will express me and the things I like and have the type of sound that I want?'"

"I feel like just listening to a lot of different things, I slowly every year was getting a little bit better and getting closer to the point where I felt ready to make 'Secrets'."

Hull quickly names contemporary masters Chris Thile and Adam Steffey (a member of Alison Krauss' band for many years) as primary mandolin influences, but says that what Bill Monroe called the "ancient tones" are starting to resonate with her more and more.

"You can get inspiration everywhere, everything you listen to, really - I feel like everything I've ever had the chance to listen to or hear, all that just stirs up things inside you and influences you musically, everything you're exposed to...Chris and Adam would be the two that have really affected me the most, I would say, but...especially now that I'm older and listening to more Bill Monroe,:

"I was talking to somebody the other day and (was saying) I feel like I'm starting to play some things more traditionally because I've been listening to some of that stuff more. The older I get, the more I tend to really go back and appreciate Bill Monroe and Jesse McReynolds and be blown away by what they did and especially when I start thinking about that time period."

"Wow, for them to not have anybody much to pull any kind of influence from - I've got everybody and their brother to listen to and pull influence from, but those guys, they had nobody, so to go back and listen to that, it can be mind-blowing."

The major turning point in her development happened by chance when Nickel Creek's Thile encountered her at a festival jam and was impressed enough to sit down and play with her. Also at the festival was Krauss, to whom Thile introduced her. Hull was a featured performer on the 2004 Great High Mountain Tour, which included an all-star bluegrass lineup, including Krauss, performing songs from the soundtracks of the hit movies "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Cold Mountain."

It took a few years, but at many levels "Secrets" results from the "aftershock" of not only meeting two of her idols, but having them become mentors as well.

Krauss' influence is particularly keen all the way through. Though in no way a clone or slavish imitation, the album resonates with the same exuberance and freshness as when Krauss herself was a teenage sensation and bandleader 20 years ago. Hull agrees she's learned more than just how to play the music.

"I'm sure (Alison) doesn't even realize it, but I've learned so much from her. She's never had to really say anything to me. Just from watching her and observing her, and seeing the way she is, the way she treats others and the way she really is with her band. To me, I really respect the way she's always been towards her band, and I know all of her band would be the first ones to tell you that. You know, it's not all about her. It's about what they do as a whole, and they make all the decisions as a whole, and they come together as a band, as a team, it's not just one person saying, 'you need to do this, you need to do that.' But Alison's kind of the groundwork for it all, to hold it all together...she kind of leads the team, so to speak."

The roster of musicians playing on or writing for "Secrets" (including Ron Block, who co-produced with Hull) features nearly everyone who's ever been in Krauss' band Union Station, and Krauss herself brought some novel ideas to the table when it came time to select songs for the disc.

Exhibit A would have to be "Everybody's Somebody's Fool," a pop classic for Connie Francis way back in 1960. Hull laughs out loud as she agrees that it was a somewhat unexpected choice.

"That was definitely an 'AK' thing. That was Alison. She brought that song to me, and she kind of helped us pick a few of the songs on the album, so she's like, 'What about that old Connie Francis song?'...so Ron and I went to iTunes and bought Connie Francis' version of the song and listened to it and then slowly decided how we wanted to change it to a bluegrass song, and (Alison) kind of suggested the basic outline of it as far as how to do it, then (Ron and I) arranged it...the 'Connie' version was totally different, and I feel like we kept the basic melody of the song and just 'grassed it up a little bit."

And, like Krauss, Hull has been leading her own band for the last couple of years, dubbed Highway 111 for the Tennessee two-lane that runs from Byrdstown down to Nashville. The end of school, she says, means kicking up the touring schedule a notch or two.

"We definitely try to play more in the summer because that's when we can more because I'm out (of school) and more available and free then, but the thing is a lot of times I'll have a parent that goes with me, especially if it's a pretty good trip where we have to fly or really drive a longs ways or be out for a few days. So, usually my mom will go or sometimes my dad."

She's well aware of the late-'80s honky-tonk country band out of California called Highway 101, led by sultry and smoky lead singer Paulette Carlson, and admits it's been kind of fun to encounter the occasional confusion. "I do remember one time somebody actually thinking we were Highway 101 or misreading, so it seems like that has come up...but most of the time people get it straight. They might mess up the introduction and say 'Highway One-One-One', not quite say it right ('one-eleven'), but...I think it was actually close to home, somebody got that messed up and said 'Is Highway 101 gonna be there?'"

The aforementioned movie debut came through her part in the upcoming "Billy: The Early Years," a biopic about the Rev. Billy Graham in which she portrays the evangelist's sister Catherine Graham as a teenager. "I wasn't a huge part of it, so I didn't have to be on set a whole lot, just long enough to do my little part, and then I went and did some recording for the sound track...I'm in a few of the scenes early on, but then I guess she gradually grows up, and so does he."

Wise beyond her years, Hull counts herself fortunate to be playing music for a living before she and her classmates have even walked across the stage to grab that diploma. It's a ton of fun to be 16 and playing on a regular basis with the leading lights of the Nashville crowd, but she's especially proud to prove that when it comes to her vocal and instrumental talents, there are no longer any "Secrets."

"I feel like I was so lucky with making this album, just because there were so many songs on it - we went through a whole bunch of songs in order to pick the 13 that we did, and honestly, there's things about all of them that I just really like. I don't feel like there's a song we put on there just to take up space...I feel like every one we put on there was one I really wanted on there, and one that I enjoyed for different reasons."