After losses, this songwriter finds that the front porch is where her new music is best

Joy Williams wanted to come home.

After a retreat to California following the dissolve of the multi-Grammy winning folk duo The Civil Wars and the loss of her father to cancer, the songstress headed to a musical Neverland — specifically, the beat-driven pop of her 2015 solo album ‘Venus.”

It was a sound and destination no one, perhaps not even Williams, anticipated. Then when a record of stripped down versions of the album’s songs, cleverly titled “Venus (Acoustic),” brought her to more familiar folk-pop terrain a year later, Williams knew where she needed to be.

Williams moved back to Nashville, where she met Civil Wars co-hort John Paul White a decade earlier, enlisted Kenneth Pattengale (half of another celebrated folk-pop duo, the Milk Carton Kids) as producer and set about fashioning the kinds of songs that came naturally to her.

“The process of writing the songs was slow and steady for me,” said Williams, who performs at the Burl on Dec. 2. “I talk about it like it was farming. I would wait until the songwriters were around that I really wanted to write with. I didn’t want to burn things at both ends, so I thought I’d just go slow and steady and write in that manner.

“As I was going down this path, I really felt like it was important for me to reflect the season I’ve been living in these last few years — one of simplifying and getting down to the root and the heart of the music.”

The resulting album, “Front Porch,” isn’t due out until early 2019, but two starkly hand-crafted singles — “Canary” and “The Trouble With Waiting” — have already come to define Williams’ return to songwriting essentials.

“As I was writing, I just wanted the music to feel like we were having a conversation. I wanted whoever was listening to really feel welcome, no matter where they were from or what their story was. I told the writers I was working with that if I couldn’t play a song on the front porch, then it probably wasn’t for me.

“This was truly was the most effortless experience I’ve ever had in the studio. We laughed and worked and recorded 15 songs in five days. It just felt like the most natural thing in the world, even though I was six months pregnant and sitting on a stool the whole time.”

The relaxed recording sessions, prefaced by two months of musical woodshedding with Nashville singer-songwriter and soon-to-be “Front Porch” collaborator Anthony de Costa, who will open the Burl show as well as serve as part of her band, differed drastically from the West Coast sessions that yielded “Venus.”

“That was such a painful time,” Williams recalled. “Everything was happening at once, with my dad being sick, the Civil Wars splitting and the waves and crashes that came with all of that. There was a lot happening to where I really felt like I had to get out of town. So Nate (Yetton, her husband and manager) and I packed up and moved to Venice Beach for a couple of years. But whatever you’re wrestling with, you bring with you wherever you go. Still, I felt like I had to work through some of the shadows out on the West Coast.

“I think it’s interesting I went as far out as I could sonically from how rooted and grounded the sound of the Civil Wars was. I mean, I went to outer space. But I had to go through that process to really clear my head and my mind. Then when I put out the acoustic version of ‘Venus,’ I realized that was really where my heart stood. I was recovering in a lot of ways. This new record, after having done a lot of the hard, intangible, personal work, feels more like I’m standing on my own two feet than I ever have before. I’m not afraid to go back to a more simplified sound. I really feel like this music is where my greatest passion is. It’s where I would like to stay.”

Adding to the comfort level of Williams’ musical journey homeward is the luxury of having Yetton and their two children — 6-year-old Miles and 4-month-old daughter Poppy — as her entourage.

“We’re a traveling circus,” she said with a laugh. “It’s definitely a few shades of crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Plus, I love how Nate and I both get to show our kids what it looks like to do something that you love when you work hard for it. So we’re going to keep this troubadour family happening as long as we’re able to.”

If you go:

Joy Williams/Anthony da Costa

When: 8 p.m. Dec. 2

Where: The Burl, 375 Thompson Rd.

Tickets: $20

Online: theburlky.com, joywilliams.com.