Iris DeMent / Sing The Delta

Iris DeMent will close out a 16-year gap since her last album of originals on October 2, when Sing the Delta is released on the acclaimed folk singer's Flariella label. 

DeMent told Billboard that she's been "waiting on this bunch of songs" for as long as fans have - since 1996's The Way I Should.

"I think one is from 1998," she says of one of the dozen songs on the album. "A handful got written this past year and a few others were laying around in pieces. Some of 'em I had but didn't sing out because I didn't know if they were any good. Some I just didn't know how to sing yet."

DeMent credits the group of players who assembled in the studio - including Al Perkins and Reese Wynans and her co-producers Bo Ramsey and Richard Bennett - for helping to put the pieces together for Sing the Delta.

1. Go On Ahead and Go Home
2. Before the Colors Fade
3. The Kingdom Has Already Come
4. The Night I Learned How Not to Pray
5. Sing the Delta
6. If That Ain't Love
7. Livin' on the Inside
8. Makin' My Way Back Home
9. Mornin' Glory
10. There's a Whole Lotta Heaven
11. Mama Was Always Tellin' Her Truth
12. Out of the Fire