This week’s featured artist is the great Lucinda Williams, a talented singer-songwriter who has made her mark in multiple genres, from folk to country, rock to (sort of) rap.

If I had to choose one word to sum up Williams’ work, it would be ‘honest.’ Her music is gritty and direct, void of artifice. Nothing she has done, good or bad, in a career spanning more than 30 years shows even a hint of pandering or record industry influence.

I think of her less as a celebrity performer than somebody who lives an everyday hard-luck American life and happens to sing about it. I suppose that’s a credit to her songwriting and performing talent, because no doubt she does enjoy the comforts of celebrity, at least to some degree. But her sound is the voice of the people.

Happy Woman Blues, Williams’ first album of original material (following a debut of country-blues covers) was released in 1980 and promptly ignored. It’s a simple, unassuming album that does little to foreshadow the career she had ahead of her.

Considering how much of Williams’ later material would cover heartbreak and loneliness, it’s a bit disarming to hear the delicate ballads on this album. Indeed, even the title flies in the face of Williams’ entire career to come… you can call her many things, but “happy” isn’t high on the list.

And really, that’s what makes Happy Woman Blues a special little album. In the dramatic biopic of her life, this represents the carefree and happy days before she went dark.