No introductory pleasantries are needed with Lucinda Williams. She answers the phone as if in mid-conversation.

"I'm one of those kind of people, I'll talk to someone, I don't care who it is," said Williams, her Louisiana-accented voice a perpetual sigh even when she laughs. "I have always been very compassionate, talking to the girl at school who no one else wants to be friends with. I was one of those kind of kids."

Compassion and kindness can correspond with songwriting. Williams, performing Tuesday night at the Crest Theatre, will jot down observations or snippets of conversation on cocktail napkins, for future use.

"Everybody has a story to tell, and they have a lot more meaning than we might think," said Williams, 58, speaking from her tour bus last week while on the East Coast.

One story came from a young woman selling roses outside a Los Angeles bar where Williams sometimes stops with Tom Overby, her husband and manager.

The rose seller wasn't allowed inside, so she stood outside the doorway. She recognized Williams from other neighborhood places, as someone who never just brushed her off, who often bought her blue roses.

Williams went outside to talk to the girl, who was "from Russia, or Turkey, and had some family back there she missed," Williams said.

The exchange was a seed for "Blessed," title track of Williams' 2011 album and a near-incantation in which she pays tribute to those whose quiet integrity influences society, whether it's "the girl selling roses," "the neglected child who knew how to forgive" or "the teacher who didn't have a degree."

Turning the specific into the poetically universal is a Williams trademark, along with black eyeliner and a cowboy hat.

"Ventura," off the 2003 album "World Without Tears," builds seemingly mundane lyrics about getting a can of soup off the shelf for dinner into a heart-swelling chorus: "I wanna get swallowed up"/"In an ocean of love."

Louisiana native Williams was a cult favorite in the 1980s and '90s, admired for her blend of blues, rock and folk, and for her mystery, as an artist who put out only three albums in 15 years.

Her fame spread from Nashville musicians to the broader music industry in 1994, when she won a Grammy for Mary Chapin Carpenter's cover of her song "Passionate Kisses," and to the public, in 1998, when Williams released the landmark album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road."

A showcase for Williams' range of rootsy styles, "Car Wheels" went gold and established alt-country as a thing. Rolling Stone ranks it No. 304 on its list of the 500 best albums of all time.

Williams still gets nominated for Grammys, and last month she received the Americana Music Association's songwriting lifetime achievement award. The awards show airs Nov. 19 on PBS – 11 p.m., Channel 6 (KVIE) – as part of "Austin City Limits."

Williams "defines our genre in so many ways," Americana Music Association executive director Jed Hilly said by phone from Nashville. "By that, I mean an artist who chooses to tell a story through song the best way he or she can, unlike others who may be in the business to get a radio hit. … Songwriters who follow their passion have greater longevity."

Williams found an avid fan base for her live shows after "Car Wheels" and has retained much of it through dynamic performances. Her third show at the Crest since 2008 will bring out many of the same faces as the past two, because fans know each Williams show is organic.

An in-the-moment performer, Williams will halt a song so the sound can be adjusted, or to re-do flubbed lines (she now keeps a lyric sheet on a music stand on stage).

"She is just a dedicated musician," said Richie Lawrence, a Sacramento pianist, accordion player and roots- music veteran who has seen Williams play several times. "Her bands always sound great and the players are always great. I think when people talk about her stopping a song, it points to how much she cares about her music and what it should be. She just wants it to be right."

Williams doesn't interrupt songs regularly in concert, she pointed out.

"It depends on the audience, and the kind of show," she said.

The song stoppage is "probably a little bit of a neurotic thing," Williams added.

Williams is beloved for being wide open with her emotions. But "Blessed" is less personally pained, and more worldly observant, than some earlier albums. Part of that is due to Williams' marriage of two years, which has freed her to focus on topics greater than romantic heartbreak, she said.

But love has not mollified her, or stolen her edge, or changed her fundamentally as a songwriter.

"I am certainly not happy 24 hours a day," Williams said. "I do what I do as a songwriter – that's my job and my creative outlet. I still need that. I still have to have that."

She can be in a committed relationship and still tackle worthy topics, Williams said. The idea a songwriter or painter or poet must be tormented to create is poppycock, Williams said.

"It is not a matter of how much money you have, or your love life, or anything," Williams said. "Everything is going to inform you as an artist if you are good at what you do.

"If you are a true artist, you don't stop. You go as long as you're alive."

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Crest Theatre, 1013 K St., Sacramento

Cost: $34-$49 advance, $37-$52 at the door

Information: (916) 442-7378,

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

Call The Bee's Carla Meyer, (916) 321-1118.

• Read more articles by Carla Meyer