Ever since the release of her 1978 debut "Ramblin’ on My Mind," Louisiana-bred singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams has been ready, willing and able to call upon both her natural affinity for roots music and her familial literary tradition. She’s never settled for any sort of pigeonholing, entering the '90s with the rich, sepia-toned "Sweet Old World"—a disc that, as much as any release, helped place the Americana movement at the forefront of listeners’ minds—and cementing her own spot in the cultural lexicon with 1998’s raw, immediate masterpiece "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." Her latest album, "Blessed," has been called "a dynamic, human album, one that’s easy to fall in love with" (Los Angeles Times).