Lucinda Williams C/D?

Yep---as I was recently hyping some friends via email (more details upthread):

Of all the Covid-alibi placeholder covers sets I've heard, most of my faves (other than Chrissie Hynde's rainy day Dylan tapes), are in Lucinda Williams' Lu's Jukebox series:, incl Petty, Dylan, Stones, a round of 60s country, and Southern Soul--from Memphis to Muscle Shoals and More. She relishes "The Games People Play," dishin' the condition. I expected some melodrama being dragged over the gravel in "A Rainy Night In Georgia," but no, it's rueful, wide awake in the middle of the night, and what else is new--she's ready to get aboard "I Can't Stand The Rain," "Take Me To The River," and some I didn't know, like "Main Street Mission." Ode To Billy Joe" is the only dud. unwisely begging comparison. Otherwise, if you like her at all, I' think you'll like this.

I love this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVRGoDoI5_k

Coming to St. Louis---good recap of last couple years, conversation with her and husband Tom: https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/music/after-two-challenging-years-music-was-healing-for-singer-songwriter-lucinda-williams/article_b118e7e0-f4be-5ba0-b654-557470aed88f.html

I mentioned the Lu's Jukebox series as good Covid placeholders---did not know they were from Covid benefits, for musicians who couldn't tour.

recovering from a stroke progress

I’ve been doing a lot of rehab, physical fitness stuff.” For a while, she couldn’t play guitar and is only occasionally trying to play it onstage again.

Memoir out April 25:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41SOU5fTg8L._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.

In Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Williams takes readers through the events that shaped her music—from performing for family friends in her living room to singing at local high schools and colleges in Mexico City, to recording her first album with Folkway Records and headlining a sold-out show at Radio City Music Hall. She reveals the inspirations for her unforgettable lyrics, including the doomed love affairs with “poets on motorcycles” and the gothic southern landscapes of the many different towns of her youth, including Macon, Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans. Williams spent years working at health food stores and record stores during the day so she could play her music at night, and faced record companies who told her that her music was not “finished,” that it was “too country for rock and too rock for country.”

Will she talk about the reasons why she hasn't made a decent record in 20 years? Everything she's done since World Without Tears has been mediocre.

"Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone" kind of worth it for the band alone

Yeah, "Bone" rules

Phew. Seeing two Lucinda Williams threads bumped had me nervous for a second.

I wasn't that crazy about World Without Tears either (Essence had been the last one I really enjoyed in its entirety), but I thought Good Souls Better Angels was a welcome and excellent surprise.

I thought that one was good, I heard a bit of the collaboration she did with Charles Lloyd and that was solid too.

All the albums I've mentioned on this thread---and prob some more I've left out, better check---still sound good to me, some in quite different ways. She goes different places, has some fans who want maybe just one or two parts, like with Neil Young, Dylan, Miles, she contains multi-tooods.

Also, with these and other artists who are true lifers, prolific as hell, if you hear 2, 3, or more that you don't like, or just get burnt out on so many releases over the years, can give up on keeping up (happened to me with Elvis Costello way before it should have)(but I do want to hear the new collection of his Bacharach collabs).

Anyway, I'll ask the library to order her book if they haven't already.

I really like her Exile on Main Street covers. She was born to sing "Sway"

Lol sorry I always think Sway is on Exile but it's not

MY POINT STANDS

Lucinda Williams has announced a new album, Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart, due June 30 via Highway 20 Records/Thirty Tigers. It's her first new album since 2020's Good Souls Better Angels, and her first since suffering a stroke in November 2020 tha left her motor skills partially impaired -- including her ability to play the guitar. In writing the album, without her typical method, she called on her husband Tom Overby, friend and collaborator Jesse Malin, longtime road manager Travis Stephens, and more to co-write and collaborate. Additional contributions come from co-producer and engineer Ray Kennedy, and backing vocalists Jeremy Ivey, Buddy Miller, Angel Olsen, Margo Price, Tommy Stinson, and more.

Lucinda tapped Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa for backing vocals on the title track and "New York Comeback," which she released today. "New York Comeback" is classic country-infused rock, with earnest lyrics and standout harmonies. Listen to the single and check out the artwork and tracklist for Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart below.

More than halfway through her memoir. It’s a solid, easygoing work that reads like “her”, although the prose doesn’t impress me that much. Nowhere near as bleak as Rickie Lee Jones’. There are maybe 5 sentences on her first marriage, which is about what Elvis Costello devoted to

I was surprised to learn that Charles Bukowski incorporated her childhood home and father into his novel WOMEN