Nanci Griffith has been a beloved figure on the country-folk-rock scene since 1978, when she released her debut disc, “There’s a Light Behind These Woods.”

Her stature in that scene and the devotion of her fans grew with such 1980s releases as “Poet at My Window,” “The Last of the True Believers,” “Love at the Five and Dime,” “Lone Star State of Mind” and “Little Love Affairs.”

Some of her more roots-minded fans were dismayed when, in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, she made several records that had more of a commercial, slick and / or country-pop sound, but she has continued to win praise for her songwriting, which is alternately literary, incisive, pithy and poignant, as she often addresses matters of the heart.

It seems hard to believe that it has now been more than 30 years since her wistful debut, when she seemed so waifish.

But, to borrow from Dickens, time and tide wait for no man, so here we are, three decades down the line, and Griffith is still delivering finely detailed work. With the state of the record industry being what it is—CD sales plummeted by about 50 percent during the 2000s—many artists aren’t as prolific as they once were. Some are eyeballing the digital landscape, trying to get a handle on the best way to deliver their music to their old fans and to win new ones.

But at least in terms of releasing records, Griffith—who comes to The Ark on Saturday for a sold-out show—has been fairly prolific during that period, She released five albums in eight years, from 2001 to 2009—although, due to a case of writer’s block, one of those was a live disc and one was almost all covers of songs written by other writers. And a couple of those saw her return to her rootsier ‘80s sound.

And now she’s at work on a new album, and her new songs seem to be coming along at a pretty good clip.

"I'm so excited about the new album. I've been writing a lot,” she recently told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “There are some things in there that are really personal, that are kind of a catharsis for me to get through. Which I haven't done in a long time. I'm usually writing as a reaction to something in someone else's life. This time around, I'm writing about reactions to my own life. And there have been lots of losses over the past couple years.

"But there's rock-and-roll in there as well."

When she wrote the songs on her latest album, “The Loving Kind” (’09), Griffith was evidently in a socially and politically conscious state of mind, as she tackled some fairly weighty topics.

The title track, for example, is a story song about Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and black woman who were jailed when they got married in 1958. Their case eventually reached the Supreme Court, where state laws against interracial marriage were struck down.

Griffith was inspired to write the song after reading Mildred Loving’s obituary in The New York Times, and said that “ it just floored me.” “In her last interview before she passed she expressed hope that their case would eventually be the open door to same-sex marriage,” said Griffith in an interview conducted for her latest record-company bio.

“The Loving Kind” also includes an earnest, gripping song inspired by the true story of a Philip Workman, who was executed for killing a policeman during a robbery attempt gone wrong, even though some evidence suggested that the cop was actually killed by bullets from the gun of another police officer.

“I started writing this song long before Philip was executed but just couldn’t finish it until that final injustice took place,” Griffith explained in the bio interview. The song examines human imperfection—and the frightening finality of the death penalty. “I am a total abolitionist on the death penalty,” said Griffith. “I just hope (the song) makes a difference.”

On “The Loving Kind,” Griffith also writes about two U.S. presidents, though of very different stripes. “Still Life” is an excoriation of George W. Bush, although the song never actually mentions Bush by name. Meanwhile, “Cotton’s All We Got” addresses another president—Lyndon Johnson, who, like Griffith, was a Texas native. The song explores LBJ’s dedication to social reform, but also ruminates on larger issues, like the environment.

And “Up Against the Rain” is a bittersweet, personal song that makes some connections to Griffith’s own life, and was inspired by a photo portrait of one of Griffith’s most beloved mentors, Townes Van Zandt (another fellow Texan), that hangs in her library. The song is essentially about never giving up.

But the disc has its share of uptempo honky-tonkers—her lively covers of Dee Moeller’s “Party Girl” and “Tequila After Midnight.” Meanwhile, another cover, of Gale Trippsmith’s “Money Changes Everything,” is a deceptively bouncy track that takes a hard look at greed, which seems even more relevant today.

Production-wise, “The Loving Kind” boasts its share of rootsy textures, with various songs featuring fiddles, pedal steel, mandolin and acoustic guitar.

But back to that case of writer’s block, which she talked about on the liner notes of “The Loving Kind.” “I spent the whole Bush administration with my pencil in the sand,” she told the Journal-Constitution.

“I couldn’t get over the direction my country was going in, and I just couldn’t get inspired. I spent most of my time touring abroad because it was just too frightening for me. Getting past that, with the election, really opened my heart and my mind, and set me free to pull my pencil out again.”

Kevin Ransom, who covers music for AnnArbor.com, has interviewed Nanci Griffith several times, dating back to 1992 for Guitar Player magazine. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.