A new baby, a record deal with Ani DiFranco's Righetous Babe and a near-death experience -- in a few years, Ed Hamell has been through the emotional gamut.

Ed Hamell has more than just the usual reasons to celebrate the release of his new album, Tough Love. When he talks about the inspirations behind the album's songs, he refers to "the trilogy": the events of 9/11, the birth of his son last year and his horrific and nearly fatal car accident two years ago.

Hamell's current story arc began with the 2000 release of Choochtown, a fascinating, noirish concept piece populated with all of his favorite lovable and loathable lowlifes drifting in and out of a song cycle of loss and redemption. The album found a good deal of success in Europe, inspiring Hamell to do drafts of a proposed play based on the album and allowing him to do several well-received circuits in Europe.

Hamell had attracted the attention of Ani DiFranco, who signed him up as an opening act on a couple of her tours, and while en route to a show in May 2001, Hamell was hit head-on by a hit/skip driver and nearly killed.

"I woke up in the car, and realized I couldn't move my upper torso, and I had tons of blood in my lap," says Hamell. "The skin on my head had opened like a grapefruit. I really was calling it up; 'No, don't take me now. Not now, I got a lot of stuff I really want to do.' I really reneged on a lot of that blasphemy from my past."

Doctors initially told Hamell he would have to retire from the road, some going so far as to predict that Hamell might never walk again. He obviously had other ideas.

"I have the tenacity of a cockroach," says Hamell with a wry laugh. "I had 52 staples in my head and broke three vertebrae. I was in this upper body brace 24 hours a day, seven days a week for nine months. I ran it over with my wife's car when I got out of it. A couple of doctors told me I'd never walk again, but as weird as this is, that was never a possibility for me. I could move my feet and I thought, 'No way. I'll walk.' Then one doctor said, 'What is that you do?' I said, 'You know, I kinda pluck on the acoustic guitar.' My wife was with me and sort of ratted me out. 'It's like pro football. There's no plucking on the acoustic guitar.' And the doctor said, 'You're going to have to retire.' And I said, 'There's no way I'm going to retire.' "

While things looked bad for Hamell in the weeks after the accident, he never really considered any alternative than complete recovery. His music was clearly the spark.

"I'm lucky that there are so many of the processes of it that I love," says Hamell. "Some guys I feel bad for, who say, 'I like to record but I don't like to play live.' Or 'I like to play live but I don't like to record.' Or 'The writing thing is a big pain in my ass.' But I love all of it. I really do. The pre-show ritual, the post-show ritual, I love all aspects of it. I probably could have pulled a Robert Wyatt and just wrote and recorded. (But) It would have been a bitter pill to swallow."

Just weeks into Hamell's amazing recovery, he and his wife found out she was pregnant with their first child. He ultimately wrote Tough Love's closing track for his son Detroit ("Detroit's Lullaby"), named after his father's love of the city that spawned Iggy Pop and the MC5. Mere weeks after that came the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which inspired him to write Tough Love's incendiary lead-off track, "Don't Kill," a reminder from God himself about a certain important commandment.

Hamell was out of his brace just weeks before his son's birth last year, and all of the songs that had come as a result of his physical and emotional roller coaster began to spill out of him. His friend and tourmate Ani DiFranco stepped up with an offer to release his next album on her Righteous Babe label. It was already in the works before the accident, but DiFranco went so far as to help assemble a live album entitled Ed's Not Dead to keep his name in the public consciousness during his convalescence in 2001.

Although near death experiences can have profound impacts on survivors, Hamell felt as though his revelation was relatively gentle.

"In retrospect, I'm lucky in that I always did love to play so I've always savored it and it didn't really change that at all," says Hamell. "But I think I'm not so ... what's the word? I was never desperate. I guess it's like the goal isn't the big pot at the end of the rainbow. Maybe the goal is just to enjoy the ride a little bit more."