Singer/Songwriter Joshua Ray Walker's made a name for himself with poignant, human portraits of flawed, fascinating characters. Now, on his latest album, Ain't Dead Yet, Walker's telling a more personal story - his own. "Human beings are super multi-faceted, and part of the reason I wrote about characters in the first place was because I could explore things about myself that I didn't feel comfortable exploring if I were to admit that it was really about me," Walker says. "All my songs are about parts of me, I just didn't try to stick them on another fictional character this time." Beneath the album's flippant title resides some of Walker's heaviest storytelling yet. Three years ago, when he started writing Ain't Dead Yet (his sixth studio album, to be released May 29 via Thirty Tigers/East Dallas Records), Walker hadn't yet received the cancer diagnosis that rearranged and threatened his life (he currently has a clean bill of health). But that year was still uncommonly fraught with mental, physical, and career stresses. Pulling the songs out of the can to finalize them for the album - including re-writing and re-working almost all the songs - Walker, who was then undergoing and recovering from cancer treatment, was surprised by their prescience. Throughout the album, Walker grapples with big life questions - a reluctance to pass down his flawed genes ("Blue Genes"); the importance of being content to put one foot in front of the other rather than dream big, sometimes ("Stepping Stones"); and on the loping Texas dance hall track "Some People," Walker tries his hand at a John Prine-esque consideration of human nature, cautioning against short-sighted assumptions about other peoples' situations. Ain't Dead Yet is often lyrically somber, but sonically, it's reminiscent of Walker's early albums, relying on pedal steel and fiddle as much as Walker's consummate guitar picking, sweet tenor, and high falsetto and yodel. The album was recorded before, during, and after cancer treatment (including three songs the day before the lung surgery that could have changed his voice forever) and at three Dallas, TX studios: Audio Dallas, Modern Electric, and album producer and long-time collaborator John Pedigo's home studio. It gives you perspective in a way you really can't fake until you've actually done it; in a way, it was kind of a gift," Walker says, though sometimes a new beginning also feels like a lot to live up to.