Lucinda Williams has been making music for decades.

Now she's out with a new album and embarking on a 20-city tour across Europe and the U.S.

In it, she's speaking and singing to this moment, calling it a battle cry,

finding grit and grace in a world on edge.

Our senior arts correspondent recently sat down with her for our Art in Action series exploring the intersection of art and democracy as part of our canvas coverage.

Everybody knows the world's gone.

Five years ago, Lucinda Williams suffered a stroke.

She had to learn to walk again and no longer plays her guitar.

But here she is, writing songs, a new album out, and still performing.

How does she do it?

Maybe a little stubbornness, you know, that never a little stubbornness never hurt anybody.

Williams has long been known as a musical storyteller, beloved by passionate fans who followed

her for decades, and by other leading singer-songwriters for her way with words.

And the story she's telling now is the title of her new album, World's Gone Wrong.

They can see what's going down.

It's kind of a commentary on things that have been going on and just how it makes people feel and it helped me to write about it.

That's why I write songs.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I feel like the artist's role is to speak about what's going on.

William's story goes back to a peripatetic childhood, most of it in towns throughout the

South, as her father, the poet Miller Williams, moved the family from place to place for university

teaching posts.

They will not forget.

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