Kevin Bronson on June 7th, 2016

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Joe Purdy is a folk singer in the grand tradition of Dylan and Guthrie, a raconteur, observer and commentator with an abiding sense of history and and newly reactivated finger on the pulse of these troubled times. On Friday, the L.A.-based native of Arkansas releases his 14th album (if we’re counting correctly) in the past 15 years, “Who Will Be Next?” It’s his first release since 2014’s affecting “Eagle Rock Fire,” and he explains the topical matter thusly: “I realized that we’re living in a time that’s both interesting and kind of insane,” he says. “This made me feel a little lazy about just writing love songs. There were things that needed to be said. Whatever difference I might or might not make, it was time for me to try.”

For the past week, Purdy has been rolling out the songs one per day on Soundcloud, and the highlights so far include “Cairo,” “Children of Privilege” and “New Year’s Eve.” The former is a meditation on the city of Cairo, Ill. (pronounced care-oh), on the southern tip of the state at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. It’s been called the most depressing city in America, one that was torn asunder by racial strife throughout its history. In spirit, “Children of Privilege” recalls Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic “Fortunate Son,” with Purdy confessing that he was “born on a dirt road” but “wanted for nothing” and, because he’s a white man, “no trouble did I see.” His plea for compassion and tolerance gets preachy … as it damn well should. In the album opener “New Year’s Eve,” the songwriter lays out his wishes for the new year, ending it with a lyric that evokes another classic, Crosby Stills & Nash’s “Teach Your Children” — here hoping “that we teach every child / so they might rise above / that power means nothing / in a world without love.”

Purdy’s timing could not be better.

||| Stream: Songs from “Who Will Be Next?”