Ethan Daniel Davidson is no stranger to releasing music — he’s put out 13 albums since the end of the ‘90s, after all.

But his latest, “Cordelia,” represents a bit of creative sea change for the Birmingham-based singer, songwriter, author and philanthropist.

After recording his last several albums locally — with a crew of Detroit-area musicians that includes his wife, Gretchen Gonzales Davidson, His Name is Alive’s Warren Defever and others — Davidson journeyed to Mississippi to make the seven-track “Cordelia” as well as a follow-up, “Lear,” that will be released later this summer. He recorded at Zebra Ranch Recording Studio in Coldwater, Mississippi, opened by the late Jim Dickinson, whose credits include the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, the Replacements and many more. It’s now operated by his son Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, who co-produced “Cordelia” and “Lear” with David Katznelson.

The two played on it, as well, joined by musicians who have worked with Robert Plant, Emmylou Harris and others, with Rayfield “Ray Ray” Hollomon added to provide the sacred-style pedal steel sound Davidson wanted for the album.

“Every once in a while, you want to change and get out of your comfort zone,” Davidson, 55, the adopted son of the late Detroit Pistons and Guardian Industries owner Bill Davidson, explains while walking around his home. “It had been a long time, for me, working with the same group of people. I was ready to try something new, and you kinda challenge yourself, too, working with people you haven’t met before.

“It was a little bit of self-awareness for me. I had been letting myself slide a little bit, get too comfortable — not that I think I’ve put out any crap, but I wanted to freshen it up. I thought these songs were really good, and they deserved my attention.”

The Mississippi Delta also exerted a special pull, Davidson adds.

“I think Mississippi has always been one of my musical homes,” he says. “So much of the music I’ve absorbed my whole life come from Mississippi — other places, as well, but Mississippi factors big in my musical psyche. So just being down in that environment it was like, in a way, being back home.”

Davidson and the Mississippi gang recorded 25 songs, many dating from the COVID period or before, over the course of five days in the studio. One, “Your Old Key,” is a new version of a track from his 2012 album “Silvertooth,” which marked his return to record-making after a seven-year break. “The version that’s on ‘Silvertooth’ is, like, the first time that song was ever played. It was made up in the studio, in front of the microphone,” Davidson recalls.

“When I went down to Mississippi, these guys had listened to some of my back catalog, and they wanted to record a few of those (songs), too, to see what would happen. We recorded a number of the old songs, but doing ‘Your Old Key’ again and putting a sped-up version on this album seemed to fit with what we wanted to do. The guys were like: ‘That’s a great song. It’s got great changes in it.’ I was very flattered by that. I always believed in it and thought it was a good song.”

The “Cordelia” crew also encouraged Davidson to open up and extend some of the song arrangements more — notably “Gasoline,” “a love song about a middle-aged arsonist who gets released from jail and reconnects with his old flame” — that stretches beyond the nine-minute mark.

“Just letting these guys play was something I hadn’t done in a really long time — not since the first album, I think,” notes Davidson, a Lahser High School and University of Michigan graduate who began writing music while living in Alaska during the 1990s. “I’m not a soloist. I don’t jam. But I do like to hear guys that can really do it, and do it well. I like being part of that. I’m just plugging along with my rhythm guitar behind the drummer and listening to everybody else.

“It’s something people haven’t heard from me in a long time. There’s a couple more like that on the (‘Lear’) record, too.”

The music remains a part of a broad creative universe for Davidson, who also executive produced the 2019 documentary “Call Me Bill: The William Davidson Story.” In addition to working with the William Davidson Foundation that his father founded, he’s also the board chairman for Detroit Opera and serves on the boards of the Detroit Institute of Arts and Motown Museum. And he maintains what he calls a “rabbinic side hustle” whose studies have led to a couple of books with another, inspired by the Leviticus passage about the Blasphemer, in progress.

“It’s all part of the same piece, in a way,” Davidson explains. “I regard my whole musical practice, or whatever it is, really being more about my own psychotherapy practice. It’s a way of figuring out what’s going on inside of me and healing myself. It’s about trying to understand what’s inside of me, unpack what’s inside of me.

“My attitude is if people like it, that’s great — and if people don’t like it, that’s great. (laughs) Whatever. I never cared about being some big star. It’s all just a way of expressing what’s inside me, and maybe somebody else will connect with it.”

Ethan Daniel Davidson celebrates the release of his new album, “Cordelia,” with a performance at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26 at the Detroit Public Theatre, 3960 Third Ave., Detroit. 313-974-7918 or ethandanieldavidson.com.