LUCINDA Williams, the American rock, folk, blues and country singer and songwriter, will play the opening night of Pocklington's Platform Festival on July 12 at The Old Station.

The three-time Grammy Award winner from Lake Charles will be on a short tour to promote her January double album, The Ghosts Of Highway 20, a record of dark beauty and hard-living melancholia with a common thread running through its 14 songs, delivered in her languid Louisiana drawl.

All but two of the narratives revolve around the 1,500 miles of Highway 20 – also known as Interstate 20 – that runs in part from Georgia to Texas, as Williams draws on her experiences and connections to this stretch of road.

Taking the form of a road trip, the chain of songs was inspired by people, place and time, whether it be the cities where Williams has lived (Atlanta and Macon), or where she has family ties (Shreveport and Monroe), or where she has written about previously (Jackson and Vicksburg).

After 11 studio albums in a four-decade career that began with 1980's Happy Woman Blues, Williams is in her most prolific writing days at the age of 63. The Ghosts Of Highway 20 has arrived only 18 months after 2014's Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone, the record she previewed in her last North Yorkshire engagement, an up-and-down affair at the Grand Opera House in York.

That night, in June 2013, she complained about both the acoustics and the audience, whose quiet appreciation she mistook for indifference. However, this should not stop the rush for tickets for the Yorkshire return of "America's Greatest Songwriter", as Time Magazine once called her.

Pocklington Arts Centre general manager Janet Farmer, who has organised the July 12 gig, cannot wait for Williams and her wise, worldly, weathered voice to arrive in Pock. "I've been a huge admirer of Lucinda's music for many years now and have seen her perform on several occasions," she says. "It was always going to be a hard task booking somebody to match Mary Chapin Carpenter's wonderful performance at the festival last year but I think we've managed to do that with Lucinda.

"There's a wonderful link between the two artists, as Lucinda wrote Passionate Kisses, which was one of Mary first big hits and is now part of both of their set lists and a firm fans' favourite. Lucinda's latest album has received four and five-star reviews on both sides of the Atlantic and her profile is at an all-time high. It's truly an honour to have somebody of this calibre performing at the Platform Festival."

Doors will open one hour before Lucinda Williams's 8pm show. Tickets go on sale on Thursday at £32 on 01759 301547 and at pocklingtonartscentre.co.uk