Edmonton Sun file photo

TORONTO -- Fans of alt-country goddess Lucinda Williams are in for a major treat when she releases her next studio album, judging by the strong new songs she previewed during a show at Massey Hall last night.

In fact, the 52-year-old Williams, a notorious perfectionist in the studio, told the audience she has written 24 new tunes for her upcoming disc expected next year. (Her latest record is this year's Live @ The Fillmore.)

Backed by a three-piece band -- Doug Pettibone on guitar, Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Jim Christie on drums -- Williams was so proud of the new songs that she kept going back to them, changing up her set list as the evening progressed.

"I like to feel the vibe of the audience," she said.

"This feels really special."

Eventually though, Williams restrained herself, telling the audience she realized they had "a strong emotional attachment" to some of her better-known tunes that she would eventually perform like Too Cool To Be Forgotten, Righteously, Blue, Concrete And Barbed Wire, Right On Time, Essence and Lake Charles. (That last song, Williams -- a Louisiana native -- dedicated to all of those suffering in her home state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.)

But Williams really had nothing to worry about given the half-dozen or so new tunes that did make the cut were pure gold: the melancholy How To Live, the imaginative What If, the soulful The Knowing, the classic country of Jailhouse Tears, and the old-timey mountain tune Well, Well, Well.

"I think this is the biggest reaction I've got yet for the new stuff," she said.

"Of course, I had to come all the way to Canada for that."

Opening her two-hour set with a trio of songs from her last studio effort, 2003's World Without Tears -- Ventura, Fruits Of My Labor and Those Three Days -- Williams' world-weary voice and authentic love-gone-horribly-wrong songs went down nice and easy in a simple and understated presentation.

The pace was leisurely, at best, and the musicians were strangely still for the first part of the show but seemed to break out of their self-contained shells for the rowdier second half.

No matter what she was doing, however, Williams -- with her messy hair, a little too much eye makeup, knocked kneed stance and reliance on a music stand -- was a fascinating character to watch.

Her intoxicating blend of raw, blunt emotions and tender vulnerability gave the impression that anything could happen on stage.

It did, in fact, when two failed attempts at Car Wheels On A Gravel Road finally gave way to a successful third try.

Blues opener C.C. Adcock also joined Williams and her band for two songs towards the end of the night that proved to be real jam-oriented barn-burners with the audience clapping right along: the bluesy Joy and the gospel-soaked Get Right With God.