Back in January, Bruce Springsteen appeared on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio, saying “I have some projects coming up this year that I won’t tell because it’s going to be a secret then a big surprise, but I do have things to keep me busy this year that will give the fans something to bide their time with.” It looks like one of those things is a new album and it will be out “soon.”

Bruce is the 2021 recipient of the Woody Guthrie Prize, and Stereogum notes that last night he accepted the award via a livestream for Woody Guthrie Center website members, where he talked about Guthrie’s influence and performed a few songs: Woody’s “Tom Joad” and “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” as well as his own “Across the Border” and “The Ghost of Tom Joad.”

Talking about Guthrie and California, Bruce said, “California was an enormous influence on my most topical writing. The ’90s, the 2000s, and even now on a record coming out soon set largely in the West. So I got very involved in telling those Western stories through my work.”

Bruce Springsteen released solo album Western Stars in 2019, and Letter to You with The E Street Band in 2020.