Lucinda Williams vs. Greil Marcus

Well, you've got Paul Williams, Greg Shaw, Barry Miles, Michael Lydon, Mick Farren, Al Aronowitz, Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs and others represented here, too:

http://www.rocksbackpages.com/artist.html?ArtistID=doors

maybe amend my comment to 'a band no one has written about interestingly in a while'? i'm honestly not a doors expert but i thought it was really refreshing to read someone talking about their music, the way the different players bounced off each other, and the way songs evolved through different shows -- rather than just talking about jim morrison and his lyrics and persona.

Her father was a college professor, but she spent her childhood out by the barn eating dirt, which is why her own songs ring so true today.

He hates Gillian Welch for the same reason, right? I sometimes forget people still make this argument.

xp re: Wise Up, it was in Jerry Maguire two years earlier so the scene was tailored to the song.

J.D.'s "profoundly weird" is a good description, I think--in a good way, for me. Even though I wish he had continued to write about Top 40 hits, he follows his obsessions, and that's just the way he is.

Even if "Wise Up" preceded Magnolia--and even if Aimee Mann was married to P.T. Anderson's music director--I still have to believe that Anderson happened to find a song that fit a scene he'd conceived independently. Love it or hate it, it's a key scene in an ambitious film, one that looks to me like it had been in his head for years. I find Marcus's "Given that a whole movie was based on her wisdom, though" a real stretch.

Love that Meltzer L.A. Woman review. It's in a Rolling Stone collection of reviews that was one of the first rock books I ever bought. "...signaling the return to Del Shannon from whence the Doors' mysterioso-hood was largely derived to begin with"--perfect connection.

"openly middle class without pretending to be the revolution."

seems from the excerpts in this thread that his problem with LW is the reverse - pretending to be the revolution without being openly middle class

i know that's not uncommon in the music world (artists from middle + upper class backgrounds playing up their hardships) but i can understand why someone might find it dishonest in a particularly grating way. i've never personally responded to LW's music but i don't have any kind of dislike of her.

Annoying but thorough profile of Williams by Bill Buford is essential reading in this beef:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/06/05/2000_06_05_050_TNY_LIBRY_000020984

I think of her as pretty similar to Neil Young, at least as a songwriter and performer: intuitive, not afraid of a simple rhyme or repetition, light on the reins with her muse (Car Wheels stories aside).

Lucinda Williams, Sweet Old World and Car Wheels are all classics. After that, it gets a little rougher. Her singing verges on self-parody sometimes, like in her Elvis Costello duet There's A Story in Your Voice.

that New Yorker profile was largely responsible for her 1998 breakthrough.

I'd add Essence and World Without Tears to that list. An incredibly strong run of albums. West had a few good songs on it but the last two have been thin gruel indeed. Suspect this is b/c she found lurve.

that New Yorker profile was largely responsible for her 1998 breakthrough.

Delta Nights
by Bill Buford June 5, 2000

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/06/05/2000_06_05_050_TNY_LIBRY_000020984#ixzz20E9QOXDU

but it's from 2000
xp

"Changed the Locks" is one of the all-time greatest songs in human history so I tend to cut her a little slack

Even if "Wise Up" preceded Magnolia--and even if Aimee Mann was married to P.T. Anderson's music director--I still have to believe that Anderson happened to find a song that fit a scene he'd conceived independently. Love it or hate it, it's a key scene in an ambitious film, one that looks to me like it had been in his head for years. I find Marcus's "Given that a whole movie was based on her wisdom, though" a real stretch.

― clemenza, Tuesday, July 10, 2012 9:04 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

don't know why we're still talking about this, but PTA and Mann were friends and his screenplay took direct inspiration from her at the time unreleased songs. this was all pretty well publicized when she got nominated for an Oscar for the movie and it revived/elevated her career.

huh wow – I thought I read the thing in '98. My mistake.

the idea of a new yorker profile breaking a musician's career big is kinda sketchy to begin with

xpost Yeah, PTA totally drew from Aimee Mann. There are direct quotes from her songs in some of the dialog ("Now that I've met you would you object to never seeing each other again" etc.). The whole PTA/Aimee Mann/Fiona Apple/Jon Brion/Michael Penn scene was really incestuous for a while.

I guess I'm wrong then. But it doesn't detract from the scene at all for me--the scene is what it is, regardless of where it came from. (Marcus seems to use the Mann connection to further discredit it.)

not if Lucinda Williams' core audience consists of NPR-New YOrker types

xxpost

"Changed the Locks" was on a 1988 mixtape I had, right after a song by Blues Traveller and right before "Own Two Feet" by the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience, that's where it fit into my life

I probably said this elsewhere but I'm like 75% sure I sat next to Lucinda Williams on a plane out of Denver or somewhere back in the 90s. She looked a lot like her, was crying a little and writing a letter that started like "well, here I go - paper to pen..." read an article about her that said she was doing a lot of writing letters around that time.

I've only heard like four songs of hers and they haven't made me want to chase down more.

lucinda definitely better than that olive oyl williams woman as far as demented voices go.

put aside yr musical opinion of aimee mann or lucinda williams. greil's disdain is personal. his attitude toward anita baker is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaaY3slVuus

that said I borrowed his doors book from the library and enjoyed it more than anything he's written in years. insightful on the 60s/revivalism. made me listen to the doors w/fresh ears. also it's short

only thing by him I've read is Lipstick Traces which I think is an incredible book

the thing i remember most from that New Yorker profile was CD Wright questioning LW's right to write so many songs about Frank Stanford's suicide--basically saying "you meant nothing to him, little professor's daughter."

I have no idea who CD Wright is but wiki sez Lucinda Williams only wrote one song about Frank Stanford ("Pineola") which doesn't seem unreasonable to me if they knew each other.

pretty sure "Sweet Old World" is about him too

while we're on the subject, there's a christgau putdown of aimee mann that struck me as really gratuitous and gross, lemme see if i can find it

"Crescent City" from the eponymous album too, no?

idgaf about lucinda wms; marcus seems pretty otm but seeing the repetition of it is a little *steeples fingers* odd

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=aimee+mann

Lost in Space [SuperEgo, 2002]
I've never understood this ice queen thing myself. What's the big thrill--getting to see them bite their lip when they come? All I know is this poster girl for the DIY fallacy is still the ultimate NPR middlebrow, addressing disillusioned love songs to the biz the way Christians address illusioned ones to the Lord Jesus. For her fans, the news is that she's invested her profits in studio musicians. Takes talent to make that more boring than solo acoustic, no? C+

wtf dude

Not a C, a C PLUS.

he is by far the most supportive fan i have in the world so i can't say anything bad about the guy. and one of these days i will read one of his books. i promise. maybe the doors one. or the van morrison one. oh wait chuck. chuck is my number one fan. god bless him. then old man marcus.

but yeah the anita baker quote is dumb.

i've been burned by xgau way more often than marcus over the years. i've always like xgau as a writer but i don't trust his ear at all.

Now that I think about it, I wore out the goddamned grooves on Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Scott - the Doors one is surprisingly good. Without the ticks that can affect how he addresses his sacred cows he's a very good writer.

DIY Fallacy vs. NPR Middlebrow

generally when it comes to me and nuevo roots music, the faker the better. i enjoy gillian welch as a goth band. her live show had the exact same look -- i mean, down to the rug on the floor -- as her record cover. i can see how that would make a certain kind of person going all soylent-green-is-people but i was really into it.

What's the big thrill--getting to see them bite their lip when they come?

Jesus, xgau

lol that line is hilarious and terrible.
marcus should excuse himself from any mention of authenticity in music -- the dude has written multiple books about bob freaking dylan.

but didn't Zimmerman eat dirt down on the farm?

also: david rawlings took a turn at the mic, and he was like "i'm gonna do a song [ancient bluegrass guy] taught me the other day, hope i remember the words." it was... big rock candy mountain! so much for everybody studying their harry smith like the talmud and all that

it's funny that he loathes gillian welch so much -- "elvis presley blues" is basically a greil marcus essay in song form.

xp That was my first thought. Any Dylan stan should know to keep "authenticity" at arm's length.

She looked a lot like her, was crying a little and writing a letter that started like "well, here I go - paper to pen..."

this is as perfect as spotting Leonard Cohen in a cafe, wearing a beret and mumbling, "Well, here we are, another glass of absinthe..."

tbf xgau goes (ridiculously) below the belt for both genders

Not a Moment Too Soon [Curb, 1994]
McGraw draws his phony drawl so tight he sounds like a singing penis--one of those guys who can make his prepuce mime the Pledge of Allegiance when his boner is right. He got interested in country when he heard about farmer's daughters, and learned everything he knows about Choctaws and Chippewas from Chief Nokahoma. Still hasn't outearned his daddy, though. C+

lord, what

or this infamous one:

Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone [Startime International, 2002]

Just what we always wanted--Jonathan Fire*Eater grows up. Put some DreamWorks money into a studio, that was mature. Realized Radiohead was the greatest band in the world, brainy. Stopped playing so fast, hoo boy. And most important, switched vocalists from Nick Cave imitator to Rufus Wainwright imitator. Wainwright makes up better melodies with a dick in his mouth, and not only that, Cave has more literary ability. New York scene or (hint hint) no New York scene, DreamWorks isn't buying. C+