After a four-year hiatus, Suzanne Vega will return to the recording studio next week to begin work on her sixth album, the New York singer/songwriter said.

The album will include the wistful "Widow's Walk," "Soap and Water" and the haunting "Harbor Song" — tunes Vega has been playing on the European club circuit and at select U.S. dates.

Vega said she's recruited producer Rupert Hine (Tina Turner, Rush, Duncan Sheik) to work on the as-yet-untitled LP, which will be her first since splitting with producer-husband Mitchell Froom, who helmed Nine Objects of Desire (1996) and 99.9 F (1992).

The now-single mom also has a cover of the old standard "Erie Canal" on the new Dan Zanes & Friends children's album Rocket Ship Beach (Festival Five).

In 1987 Vega scored a surprise hit when her melancholy anthem of child abuse, "Luka," which sent her second album, Solitude Standing, charging up the charts. Three years later she had an unlikely club hit with that album's "Tom's Diner," after British DJs D.N.A. surreptitiously took her a cappella track and remixed it with a wash of keyboards and a skipping electronic backbeat.

Vega will play a benefit show at New York's Bottom Line club on November 18 for the Songwriter's Exchange. The group musicians, which Vega was once a member of, holds weekly songwriting meetings at folk singer Jack Hardy's Greenwich Village home. Hardy is fighting an eviction notice, and proceeds will help pay his legal fees.

• Suzanne Vega

If you happened to miss the groundbreaking Lilith Fair tour last summer, you can now sample it on a CD. Two, to be exact.

"Lilith Fair: A Celebration Of Women In Music" will be out on April 28 as a double live CD. On the album will be performances from Lisa Loeb, Paula Cole, Meredith Brooks, Shawn Colvin, The Indigo Girls, Tracy Bonham, Suzanne Vega, Victoria Williams, Emmylou Harris, and Fair founder, Sarah McLachlan, with more artists still to be announced.

Cole, Colvin, and The Indigo Girls will be back for Lilith '98, along with Missy Elliott, Erykah Badu, and Sinead O'Connor.

Lilith is casting its net wider this year. Our colleagues at MTV Radio interviewed Olivia Newton-John regarding the re-release of "Grease" on March 27. During the interview the Aussie singer said that she was approached to perform at this summer's Lilith (there is no word yet on whether Newton-John will actually play any dates). Lilith Fair starts June 19 in Portland, OR.

We'll keep you posted.

• Sarah McLachlan
• Lisa Loeb
• Paula Cole
• Meredith Brooks
• Shawn Colvin