This is an outstanding read from June 5, 2000 re: A singer’s love affair with loss.
This is a repost from several years ago but well worth another read.
Settle down with a bottle of wine and enjoy the very lengthy article.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/06/05/delta-nights
Have not read it again in these past 14 years. What I do remeber is I had a filmmaker friend who was a drinking buddy of Lu’s at the time, and according to him, Lu was not pleased with the piece. It seems the NYer folks, as I recall he said there were two of them who came down, never left their hotel room. There was also an article around the same time in the NY Times Sunday Magazine.