As Bill Morrissey’s many fans know, his songs are dark and literate. The people who populate them may bring to mind the stories of Raymond Carver and Andre Dubus. One of the artists who redefined the folk genre in the ’80s and ’90s, Morrissey spins marvelously evocative tales from the most humble elements.

Rolling Stone assigns him a place in that “noble lineage that reaches back to Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie.” Although very much a New England writer with a northern inflection, Bill’s influences stretch deep into the Delta blues, as evidenced in his Grammy-nominated tribute album to Mississippi John Hurt. He has studied and honored his forerunners, yet his music is very much his own.

The latest addition to the Morrissey discography is “Essential Collection,” a greatest hits anthology that throws a few new songs in along with the classics (expect to hear many of these tunes). Another recent CD, “Something I Saw or Thought I Saw,” has been hailed as an artistic reawakening in middle age. His first collection of original material in over five years, these songs examine the way relationships dissolve and shed light on our human limitations. Not surprisingly, Bill wrote them in the aftermath of his second divorce. While his bitter first “divorce” album, “Standing Eight,” from the early 1990s brought him wide recognition, “Something I Saw” looks at life from a broader perspective. Bill points out that “You reevaluate a lot of things going through a serious life change. You’re forced to examine your life and relationships.”

One writer crowned Bill Morrissey the “dean of hard-bitten, new folk singer-songwriters,” and, indeed, his material is more hard-bitten than most of the stuff we get from more indulgent, self-confessional artists. It’s not just his gravely voice that sets him apart — as a purposeful craftsman, Morrissey knows how to distill years of hard living and keen observation into truths that speak to us all.

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