Singer/songwriter celebrates her 50th anniversary as a recording artist with , her first recording since 2001's . Since the 1990s, has worked only when she's wanted to -- a decade passed between and its predecessor, . In this century, she has lent her voice to recordings by , , and his son . and longtime collaborator ( 's bassist and music director and her own producer on and ), began working in Austin and Los Angeles in 2015. But a string of profound losses -- a niece, two sisters, a longtime manager, ex-boyfriend, her dog and -- sidetracked the sessions several times. Aside from or perhaps because of all that tragedy, offers a stellar reflection of the interpretive singer. She co-wrote only one tune here, the lilting, Americana road song "The Boys and Me" with . The rest are covers that range from country to jazz to pop, all delivered with her sensual, expressive contralto. She opens with a completely revisioned version of 's "Just Breathe." Amid a weave of strings, upright bass, acoustic and electric guitars, and poignantly played B-3 and French horn, she offers the song's melody with bittersweet knowledge and its projective lyric as if singing into a mirror for reassurance. A breezy and bluesy read of the jazz standard "Tomorrow Night" -- cut by everyone from to to the Texas Hill Country's own -- features 's strolling upright bassline atop drums ( ), percussion ( ), and 's subtly swelling Hammond as she leans hard into the tune's elegant swing. 's "So Sad" is delivered with warm, rounded edges as 's pedal steel winds around the grain in her smoky vocal to underscore each moment of loneliness and pain in the wake of a lover's departure, and those of friends who've shuffled off this mortal coil. convincingly weds jazz, cabaret, and musette in her version of "I See Your Face Before Me." appears on resonator and electric slide guitar on a swampy yet altogether cinematic take on 's "I Am the Big Easy," complete with a laid-back second-line rhythm. Two tracks later she offers "Back Where I Started," another country-esque soul number by . The tension between emotional conviction and sweetness in its lyric is a perfect match for ' unflinching honesty and vulnerability. While 's "Freedom" wasn't written for , it could have been. Backed by an all-star choir that numbers in its quintet, it relays the notion of freedom as both a state of abundance and an illustration of loss. As a result of these intimate performances, is return to the world after a prolonged period of solitude and grief. offers these songs with the same aplomb, grace, discipline, passion, and dignity that she has displayed her entire career, and imbues these songs with new shades of meaning in the process. ~ Thom Jurek