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Finally! Someone admits Lu IS prolific! đ
http://www.citypages.com/2011-02-16/music/lucinda-williams-lightened-up-and-in-love/
Lucinda Williams: Lightened up and in love
Blessed album due March 1
By Rick Mason Wednesday, Feb 16 2011The queen of heartache, who not many years ago bemoaned living in a “world of loneliness and wickedness and bitterness,” now contends with a plague of worries that happiness may not become herâor at least the acclaimed songwriting that has made Lucinda Williams an icon of existential Americana.
“That’s the most inane idea and question that’s been fielded toward me since Little Honey came out and Tom and I got married,” Williams fumed over the phone from her Los Angeles home two weeks ago. “You can see from the songs on this album that there’s no danger of me not being able to write. I think people were concerned that my artistry was just gonna shut down now that I’m with someone.”
That someone is Minnesota native and former Best Buy exec Tom Overby. The couple, taking a page from country legend Hank Williams, married on stage at First Avenue in September 2009. And Williams, who turned 58 in late January, has never been happier, emerging from a succession of unsatisfactory relationships that left her embittered, but also inspired memorable songs.
It’s no accident that her new album, due March 1 on Lost Highway, is called Blessed.
She’ll introduce some of the new material during two almost instantly sold-out solo acoustic shows at the Dakota, and a third, which was subsequently added. It’ll be the first time Williams and Overby, also her manager, will be back in Minnesota since the wedding. They’ll celebrate by welcoming many of the same people who attended the nuptials, as well as taking a swing down to Overby’s hometown of Austin to see the house where he grew up.
Unadulterated bliss has rarely been Williams’s purview, and she admits even she was concerned about the effect of new-found contentment on her writing.
“I’ve been in a lot of relationships where I did shut down,” she said. “I worried about it, yeah. It was on the top of my mind.” But, “I found myself writing, coming up with new ideas. That’s when I realized Tom was the person for me. Because I’d always wanted to be in one of those relationships where you inspire each other.”
That includes coming up with what Williams calls “true love songs, like between two people who love each other, not about loss or regret.” Such as “Kiss Like Your Kiss,” a vivid evocation of romance that concludes Blessed but first appeared in the HBO vampire series True Blood and is up for a Grammy. “When I wrote ‘Kiss Like Your Kiss,’ it just kinda poured out of me. I surprised myself actually. I went, wow, I’ve written a love song for Tom.”
Freed from the compulsion to rehash fractured relationships, Williams has significantly broadened the emotional and topical scope of her songs.
“It’s actually really liberating,” she said. “It’s allowed me to stretch out and look at different things to write about. The easiest kind of song to write is (an) unrequited love ballad. That’s what I’ve been tryin’ to break out of. There’s no point for me to write a bunch of maudlin love songs anymore. That would be just ridiculous.”
In fact, Blessed ranges from the lilting, genuinely touching “Sweet Love” to the acidic dismissal “Buttercup.” “Soldier’s Song” starkly juxtaposes the hell of war with the domestic minutiae of life on the home front. “Born to Be Loved” is a kind of lullaby for the downtrodden. And “Seeing Black” is a fierce rocker inspired by songwriter Vic Chesnutt’s suicide, featuring a lacerating guitar workout from Elvis Costello.
In addition to a wider range, Williams has been on a songwriting tear in recent years, quickly amassing material for 2007’s harrowing West, the glimmers of salvation on 2008’s Little Honey, the more expansive Blessed, and yet a new batch of still unrecorded songs. After sometimes extended periods of sparse productivity, why is she suddenly so ⥠prolific?
“It’s hard to say whether it’s just this particular time in my life. Does that happen with age? Usually it doesn’t with songwriting, but maybe I’m different in that regard. I can trace it back to the death of my mother in 2004. It was so traumatic. Meeting Tom not long after that. Pretty big changes in my life. Maybe that’s it. It’s gettin’ older and wiser and better at my craft.”
Williams’s use of language and imagery reflects a literary streak inherited from her father, renowned poet Miller Williams, who recited one of his poems at Bill Clinton’s second inaugural.
“My dad was my mentor. It wasn’t an official thing, but I would sit in on his creative writing workshops and I would go to his readings. When I would write somethin’ I’d show it to him, and he would give me constructive criticism. Before I put a record out I’d send him the songs and lyrics to get his approval, I would say, through the time of [1998’s] Car Wheels.”
Father and daughter are still close, but the revelation that resounds the loudest for Williams at the moment is that misery and great songwriting are not essential companions.
“The thing that’s so inane to me is the idea that you can’t be quote unquote happy and create,” she said. “That’s just a myth.”
LUCINDA WILLIAMS performs on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, and MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22 at the DAKOTA JAZZ CLUB; 612.332.1010
Some factual errors (anniversary date, number of suicide songs), but good article and nice to see the “P” word mentioned again in a positive way.
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/116413909.html
Lucinda Williams: Happily hitched, but riding solo here
To preview her new “Blessed” CD, the Americana queen is playing three rare solo shows at the Dakota.By JON BREAM, Star Tribune
You know how it goes. You bring your new spouse to your parents’ hometown. You’re feeling happy, you want to make a good impression. And, if you’re Lucinda Williams, the avatar of Americana music, that means you get roped into playing an unplanned solo gig — with a Gibson borrowed from a local Guitar Center.
Thirty-some years into her celebrated Grammy-winning career, Williams rediscovered the joys of singing alone last fall on a visit to her professor father in Fayetteville, Ark., when she ended up playing two nights at a little joint called George’s Majestic Lounge.
“It’s unusual for me to play solo. It ended up being a real positive experience,” Williams said recently from her Los Angeles home. As a result, she’s doing a few solo gigs on her way to Toronto, where her band starts a tour March 4, “just for a change of pace,” she said. “This is an experiment. We had so much fun at that venue at Fayetteville, and there are so many other cool venues like that.”
Like the intimate Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, which will get three of her 10 solo performances.
Her sold-out engagements next week will be her smallest Twin Cities gigs since her debut in 1989 at the 7th Street Entry. She knows what she’s getting into. She saw Booker T & the MGs at the Dakota a few years ago.
Having been involved with Tom Overby, a former Best Buy executive who became her manager, for more than five years, she has spent some time in Minnesota. His parents live in Austin, Minn. The two got hitched in Minneapolis Sept. 19, 2009, during a combination wedding/concert at First Avenue.
“I love Minneapolis, but Tom can’t stand the cold,” said Williams, who recorded her 2001 album “Essence” in Minneapolis in wintertime. “Since I didn’t grow up in real cold weather like that, I guess I have a more idealistic and romantic view of the snow and everything.”
Prolific and ‘Blessed’
Her new album, “Blessed,” will be released March 1. It’s her third full-length in four years, a ⥠prolific pace compared with the seven studio albums she made in the first 24 years of her career.
“This prolific stuff started after I lost my mother in March 2004,” Williams explained. “Plus, I was in a really destructive relationship. I started writing and writing, and I met Tom. The big test after Tom and I got together was: Am I going to be able to still write like this? He passed the test. I frankly hadn’t been able to have a good relationship before in the sense that I felt productive, prolific and creative in a relationship.”
The excellent and remarkably diverse disc was produced by Don Was (Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones), whom Williams met a year ago at a Grammys tribute to Neil Young. One of his key contributions was hooking her up with superstar mixer Bob Clearmountain — the guy who puts the final polish on albums by Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and the Pretenders. “Bob remixed it,” she said, “and it just pushed everything up a notch, or two, or three.”
While Williams is known as the queen of heartache, “Blessed” has a striking range of emotions and topics. It contains some of this century’s slowest, sultriest love songs, including the smoldering, late-night “Born to Be Loved,” the hymn-like “Kiss Like Your Kiss” and the accordion-embraced “Sweet Love.”
For the first time, Williams sings about war. “Soldier’s Song” is told from the dual reality of the man fighting overseas and his wife at home with their child.
“It’s a subject matter I’ve been wanting to write about, but it’s not easy to do without pointing a finger and getting your politics all involved in that,” Williams said. “I’m better at the humanitarian aspect, writing from the person’s feelings. I’ve always wanted to write some topical songs. Steve Earle’s real good at that. It’s really hard for me. It ends up sounding too corny.”
“Seeing Black” is about suicide, the second time she has addressed the topic (1992’s “Sweet Old World” was the other).
“What sparked that was when I heard about [singer/songwriter] Vic Chesnutt’s suicide,” she said. “We didn’t know each other really well. Of course, I was stunned and saddened. This is just kind of ‘Sweet Old World Part 2,’ but it has a whole different vibe. My perspective is going to be different at [age] 58 than it was at 42.”
One of the big discoveries on “Blessed” is the guitar player whom co-producer Overby invited — Elvis Costello.
Said Williams: “Elvis e-mailed Tom and said, ‘Are you sure this e-mail went to the right place?’ Tom said that Elvis will just tear these things up. He came, and he had three or four different guitars, and I just sat in the control room and Elvis just started [playing], and my jaw dropped.”
Judging by his expressively bluesy, delightfully twangy and mournfully majestic contributions to “Blessed,” Costello could be a guitar hero in his spare time — just as Williams can be a solo performer in hers.
Jon Bream ⢠612-673-1719
Lucinda Williams Blessed ****
Wry ‘n’ lusty with sharp-shootin’ guitar riffs, the casual but brilliant opener Buttercup sees Lucinda recalling a female version of Keith Richards. Elsewhere, her 10th album has a soulful downtempo mood as it mourns absent friends and hymns newfound contentment.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/columnists/gavin-martin/2011/02/18/album-reviews-115875-22931389/
this review has more stars than lines.
Given that she made her name with songs of heartbreak and betrayal, what motivates Lucinda Williams now she’s found love? Her 10th album casts wide for inspiration. “Buttercup” bids a lover farewell with her usual disdain, but “Blessed” counts the strands of happiness. “Soldier’s Song” empathises with an army far from home, while “Seeing Black” delves into the mind of a suicidal friend (the late songwriter Vic Chesnutt). Elvis Costello is among those contributing to the guitar-heavy pieces, but it’s the gentle “Copenhagen” and the mournful “Kiss Like Your Kiss” that are the standouts, their reflective qualities intensified by Williams’s racked vocals.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/20/lucinda-williams-blessed-review?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/musicandnightlife/116703089.html
Lucinda Williams to play at Turner Hall
Lucinda Williams and her acoustic guitar will take the stage Wednesday at Turner Hall.
e-mail print By Jon M. Gilbertson, Special to the Journal Sentinel
Feb. 22, 2011 8:08 p.m. |(0) CommentsLucinda Williams has long been a queen of songs about the affairs of the heart, particularly the broken and spurned kind.
Her new album, “Blessed,” is less obsessed over those affairs and moves her talents out into the rest of the world – a widening she attributes, at least in part, to her marriage to Tom Overby, also her manager, in 2009.
“I’ve found a soul mate,” Williams said during a phone interview. “When I was younger and single, a lot was more about me and what I was going through, and that would pretty much dominate things. Now, it’s liberating as a writer: I’ve been there and done that. That has opened up a big window to broaden everything.”
Her heart isn’t entirely settled: “Blessed” opens with “Buttercup,” another barroom-ready kiss-off to another bad lover.
“There was a little bit left in my system,” Williams said.
But then there is “Copenhagen,” which paints that European city in the colors of personal loss, and “Soldier’s Song,” a 6-minute war story that Williams had been reaching toward for some time.
“It was an idea I had awhile back, but sometimes the songs just come out when they’re meant to,” she said. “I’ll have a song brewing for years until it’s just time for it to be born. It’s sort of an anti-war song, but people’s perspectives are a lot different now from what they were when we were in Vietnam.”
And, of course, the perspective Williams brings to her songwriting is not the same now as it was in 1998, when her album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” introduced her passionate songwriting and twang-curled voice to a larger audience. Every album since then has been the musical equivalent of a marker along a dusty highway.
“I don’t think in terms of a concept of a whole album,” she said. “It’s just whatever comes out, wherever I am at that stage in my life. Where I am now, at 58, is going to be a lot different from where I was at 48, 38 or 28.”
Being older and better-known has naturally given her opportunities. For example, she was invited to a Neil Young tribute concert to sing one of Young’s songs with Emmylou Harris and Patty Griffin. One of the other musicians there was Don Was, and the way he and Williams got along made her husband float the idea of bringing Was in to work on “Blessed.” He ended up coproducing the album.
“He was brilliant to work with,” Williams said. “He was very democratic, and his suggestions just turned the production quality into a huge difference. For me, this is the best-sounding record I’ve ever made.”
Still, Williams has never been uncomfortable with getting rawer and more intimate, which is one reason her current tour is just her and her acoustic guitar. She was moved to try this when she was visiting her parents in Arkansas and a local venue asked her if she’d like to come down and play one night.
“One night turned into two nights, and I could’ve done three nights,” Williams said. “It ended up being a real positive experience, so I thought it would be fun to book the smaller venues this time.
“I haven’t played just by myself in a long time. This’ll be a whole different thing.”
IF YOU GO
Who: Lucinda Williams (solo acoustic) with Dylan LeBlancWhen: 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Turner Hall Ballroom, 1032 N. 4th St.
How much: $35 at (414) 286-3663 and http://www.pabsttheater.org
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20468460,00.html
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http://thehurstreview.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/lucinda-williams-blessed/
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just found the 75th version of 2 kool here (indiana jazz festival ’99):
http://groundsforappeal.ihookitup.com/nothing-better-than-to-be-blessed-by-lucinda-musics-best-bucket-of-blues-singer-returns-with-more-tales-of-sweet-heartache/
http://www.freep.com/article/20110224/ENT04/102240341/5-questions-singer-songwriter-Lucinda-Williams
5 questions with singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams
1:53 AM, Feb. 24, 2011MARTIN BANDYKE
FREE PRESS SPECIAL
8 p.m. Wed.
The Ark
316 S. Main,
Ann Arbor
734-761-1451
$45, $52Patience was a necessity for fans of Lucinda Williams back in the early days of the singer-songwriter’s career because she tended to take her time releasing eagerly awaited albums. For the last decade, however, the gifted Americana artist has been releasing music more frequently. Her latest effort, “Blessed,” comes out Tuesday. The thematically wide-ranging disc, which contains both hard-edged and romantic reflections, was coproduced by Oak Park native Don Was of Was (Not Was) fame and includes Elvis Costello on guitar.
Williams, who married her manager, Tom Overby, onstage at a gig in 2009, plays a sold-out solo concert at the Ark in Ann Arbor on Wednesday.
QUESTION: How did you come to work with Don Was on “Blessed”?
ANSWER: I would run into him at various music events but never formally met him until I did the Neil Young MusiCares gala early last year. (MusiCares provides financial and medical assistance to musicians in need.) Neil was being given an artist of the year tribute where different musicians — including myself — were singing his songs, and Don Was was in the house band. We hit it off and started to talk a little bit.
Later on Tom (Overby) and I were talking about who we were going to work with on my new album and he came up with the idea to work with Don as a coproducer. Don jumped at the chance to do it. We had dinner with him and listened to a bunch of his work, and we all agreed we would go in and see what happened. He fit right in and it was a joy to work with him. He made me happy and secure. I haven’t had a chance to work with somebody like Don before, someone who’s worked with the Rolling Stones, somebody who’s had success as both a producer and a musician. He’s so humble and sweet and so cool, but has a vast musical background and knowledge.Q: What made him so special to work with in the studio?
A: He wants to get it right and is not to going to settle for less, and I’m the same way. The album was already mixed and mastered, but Don decided to have Bob Clearmountain remix a couple of tracks. They sounded so good when we got them back that we had Bob remix the whole album, and at Don’s suggestion, we sent it to Ted Jensen to do the mastering. It’s the best-sounding record I’ve ever done.
Q: How did you turn your home demos for “Blessed” into completed songs in the studio?
A: I did things on a device called a Zoom, which is about the size of a remote control device or an iPhone. I’d record into it and hook it up into a computer and burn the songs onto a CD for the band members. Everything was done pretty organically; the guys were all set up in a separate room, and I was in a separate vocal booth where I could see everyone. For the most part, it’s a live kind of a thing. I start playing and singing and the guys fall in and sometimes it’ll get in the groove right away and we get it after three run-throughs; some songs might take a little more effort. Don said going in that he wanted this album to be about Lucinda’s vocals. I wanted his approval, and it was good to work with someone who you knew was going to be honest.
Q: Two of the most powerful songs on “Blessed” deal with mortality. There’s “Copenhagen,” about the death of your manager Frank Callari, and “Seeing Black,” about the death of musician Vic Chesnutt.
A: I was in a writing mode, so my head was in that place where I was writing every day for a few weeks and I was just ready. I didn’t know Vic real well, but he was one of us; we’d done a few shows together, did a show together in Athens, and he wrote a song called “Lucinda Williams.” I thought he was really good and I admired him for waging the battle, with him sitting in a wheelchair onstage and being such a feisty guy.
Frank Callari was a beautiful mess, bless his heart; we weren’t totally surprised (by his death), but you’re never prepared. I’ve explored those themes before, like on the song “Sweet Old World,” so I was not quite as dramatic (lyrically). Now that I’m getting older, I’m braver and more confident about pushing the envelope a little bit.
I’ve always strived when I’m writing about someone — no matter what the issue is — to come from a place of compassion for the most part. The track “Lake Charles” (from the album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”) is about a guy who didn’t kill himself on purpose but was self-destructive — a mess, a beautiful mess.
Q: Balancing out the heavier, sadder songs on “Blessed” are some of the most tender, beautiful love songs you’re ever written: “Kiss Like Your Kiss” and “Sweet Love.” Married life is agreeing with you quite nicely.
A: The love songs, I wrote for Tom, and those were a surprise for me. They just tumbled out and I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. A lot of things are happening for me late in life, like finding the person I want to be with in life, writing love songs to my husband.
Needless to say, I was over-the-top thrilled when I realized I was involved with somebody and was also more productive as a songwriter than ever. I wouldn’t stay with Tom if couldn’t stay writing. I’ve been in relationships where I shut down creatively because I was with the wrong person; that’s the kiss of death for me. I have to be able to write. I ended up with enough songs for two albums with this one.
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/23/2674765/new-on-audio-lucinda-williams.html
New on audio | Lucinda Williamsâ âBlessedâ
By TIMOTHY FINN
The Kansas City StarLucinda Williamsâ new album is getting strong reviews for its powerful emotion. For her 10th studio album since 1979, Lucinda Williams turned to producer Don Was to bring out the grief, grit, pain and passion she expresses over the course of 12 songs.
âBlessedâ is one of several noteworthy albums due to be officially released on Tuesday. Early reviews are positive; some are glowing.
From directcurrentmusic.com: âââBlessedâ ⌠still has its share of bluesy barstool rock and twangy spunk as exemplified on lead track âButtercupâ ⌠With Williams doing her best slurred Jagger swagger vocal, the song simply, effectively packs a sonic and emotional wallop. âKiss Like Your Kiss,â meanwhile, a lovely slow-dancing waltz of a ballad featuring Elvis Costello on harmonies, is a powerful showcase for Williamsâ weary, tear-stained vocals, and the tender âSoldiers Songâ speaks powerfully of the emotional toll taken on an enlistee and his family.
âA deluxe version of âBlessedâ will include âThe Kitchen Tapes,â a collection of the original demos for the album recorded at Williamsâ kitchen table.â
Uncut magazine: âThere are a couple requiems to departed friends ⌠Set to autumnal piano and pedal steel, the wistful âCopenhagenâ pays tribute to her late manager, Frank Callari. Most plangent is the blistering âSeeing Black,â which charts the decline of old cohort Vic Chesnutt. A hulking guitar solo courtesy of none other than Elvis Costello provides extra bite ⌠a vivid, highly emotive record.â
âThe Guardianâ: âElvis Costello is among those contributing to the guitar-heavy pieces, but itâs the gentle âCopenhagenâ and the mournful âKiss Like Your Kissâ that are the standouts, their reflective qualities intensified by Williamsâ racked vocals.â
The BBC: âNothing in the production interferes with the songs. In âSoldierâs Song,â where she sings the parallel stories of a serving soldier and his wife and child at home, the same chords, in the same sequence, go round and round, allowing the lyric to develop and reach its inevitable conclusion. âSweet Loveâ does the same. No need for embellishment when whatâs being sung about is so powerful.â
âThe London Mirrorâ: âWry ânâ lusty with sharp-shootinâ guitar riffs, the casual but brilliant opener âButtercupâ sees Lucinda recalling a female version of Keith Richards. Elsewhere, her 10th album has a soulful down-tempo mood as it mourns absent friends and hymns newfound contentment.â
http://www.offbeat.com/2011/03/01/lucinda-williams-blessed-lost-highway-records/
Lucinda Williams
Blessed
(Lost Highway)
01 March 2011 â by Brian BoylesAs heard here, Lucinda Williamsâ voice seems to be losing shape, a battered piano, muddled at some places, strangely fitting at others, wearing out in its own unique way. Matched with pedal-steel guitars as on âCopenhagen,â the voice bleeds like watercolor, threatening to lose form and wear out the paper. At such points, the words matter more than ever. On this release, we get mixed signals.
Williams has always favored parallel structures. On several of these tracks (the noir blues âTo Be Lovedâ), they refuse to pay off, though the title track conjures up her great songwriterâs spiritâdirect, nostalgic, Whitmanesque. Elvis Costello offers up some fierce guitar on âSeeing Black,â and with Don Was at the helm, the album maintains the proper contour and shimmer.
âSoldiers Songâ is a stark, line-by-line contrast between life on the battlefield and life back home. War is brutish, but such simple treatment feels like short shrift for the subject and the singer. Then again, âUgly Truthâ catches that wee-hours conversation when it really doesnât matter what the person does, you simply want them to do something, cursed though you both are.
At a few points on Blessed, you want Williams to dig the knife in further and push herself past foreboding hints. Then, she closes things with âKiss Like Your Kiss,â a waltz that sums up years of work and reminds that the night has many turns left.
Vote early and vote often. đ
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2011/02/25/what-record-are-you-most-looking-forward-to-next-week-11/
Album: Lucinda Williams, Blessed (Lost Highway)
(Rated 4/ 5 )
Reviewed by Andy GillBlessed improves upon 2008’s lacklustre Little Honey simply because it boasts a better set of songs, most of which are treated to Williams’s signature style of soul-tinged country-blues, using organ and pedal-steel guitar to light her sandpaper vocal rasp.
Tracks such as “Don’t Know How You’re Living” find her exploring a Dylan-esque lyrical mode of repetitive litany, reaching a dramatic, incantatory intensity in “The Awakening”. Elsewhere, her familiar anger drives the raggedy blues-rock kiss-off “Buttercup” and the Springsteen-esque “Seeing Black”. But it’s the gentler tracks that impress the most: the slight but moving “Sweet Love”, the sultry “To Be Loved”, and “Soldier’s Song”, in which a reluctant combatant sends a final regretful message home.
How sweet it is to hear Lucinda Williams sing the praises of love on “Blessed” ( * * * *, out Tuesday on Lost Highway), a stirring collection of moods and emotions coproduced by Don Was. Williams’ 2009 marriage to her manager Tom Overby is the obvious inspiration for a song like “Kiss Like Your Kiss,” but don’t think that she’s gone all soft and mushy and lost her edge. There are gritty character studies depicting lost souls (“Buttercup,” “Ugly Truth”) and lost lives (“Copenhagen,” “Seeing Black”), all rich in detail and nuance. Also outstanding is the title track, which is filled with spiritual uplift and builds to a tremendous climax.
(Lucinda Williams will play a sold-out solo concert Wednesday at the Ark in Ann Arbor.)
Contact MARTIN BANDYKE: through martinbandyke.com
Playlist appears on Sunday and rotates among Bandyke, Free Press music critic Mark Stryker and Free Press pop music critic Brian McCollum.
http://www.knoxville.com/news/2011/feb/25/bledsoe-lucinda-williams-blessing-review/?partner=RSS
Wayne Bledsoe: Lucinda Williams’ latest a blessing to fans
By Wayne Bledsoe
Knoxville.com
Posted February 25, 2011 at 2:24 p.m.Lucinda Williams is still on a winning streak.
“Blessed,” Lucinda Williams (Lost Highway)
Lucinda Williams is the rare artist who is able to strip emotions down to their core with true artfulness. Her songs can be as intimate and sweet as confessions whispered to a lover or as immediate and tortured as the first reaction to the death of a family member – and those are both topics of some of her best songs.
While Williams’ concerts have been unpredictable over the past few decades (from brilliant to scattershot), her albums have almost universally been triumphs.
Williams’ new album, “Blessed,” continues the trend, but is maybe even more immediately lovable.
With Williams, you always know you’re not going to just get “a song” – you’re going to believe that you’re connecting with a real human being. When she gives a rotten lover the boot in the song “Buttercup,” you’re with her:
“You already sucked me dry/can’t do it any more, honey/You roughed me up and made me cry/and you wanna borrow money … Now you want somebody to be your buttercup/good luck finding your buttercup.”
Yeah, good riddance to the jerk.
When she sings “To Be Loved,” it’s a delicate chant both of support to a friend or the singer herself.
Even when Williams is writing from the perspective of an ill-fated solidier (“Soldier’s Song”) she imbues the song with so much heart that you believe it.
And the song “Seeing Black,” a searing number that questions a late friend about his suicide, is the sort of raw reaction that anyone could relate to. That tune includes Elvis Costello on a guitar solo that will make you wish he worked as a sideman more often.
The instrumentalists, overall, do a fine job of augmenting the natural drama of Williams’ songs.
In particular, “The Awakening” grows to a powerful boil with its mix of organ and guitars.
Producer Don Was has long been underappreciated for his talent of making artists sound the most like themselves and, unlike many producers, leaving few of his own fingerprints.
However, the consistent nature of Williams’ discs, regardless of producers, leaves little doubt that Williams herself is calling the shots.
Few artists hit their targets more often than Williams.
Wayne Bledsoe may be reached at 865-342-6444 or bledsoew@knoxville.com. He is also the host of “All Over the Road” midnight Saturdays to 4 a.m. Sundays on WDVX-FM.
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/137602-lucinda-williams-blessed/
Lucinda Williams: Blessed
By Thomas Britt 28 February 2011Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williamsâ discography spans ten studio albums over three decades and several musical styles. As Chris Klimek wrote a few years ago in a Washington Post concert review, âsheâs a little Hank Williams, a little John Coltrane, a little Chet Baker and a little Loretta Lynn.â Those comparisons are on point, but she is also much more than the sum of her influences. She more or less spelled out what she does best in the title of her first album of original songs, 1980âs Happy Woman Blues. Her momentum as an artist is fueled by emotional peaks and valleys, and the little moments and long years across which they unfold. Often, the ideal way to receive her work is as a document of where life has taken her in the years since we last heard from her.
Although her two most recent studio releases, West (2007) and Little Honey (2008), seemed a little less lived-in, somehow less inspired than her work of the 1990s and early part of the last decade, she returns to fine form on Blessed. Produced by Don Was, Blessed is a many-textured album. Goodbye lover-number âButtercupâ begins the album in a disarmingly familiar fashion, its electric guitars and commanding vocal delivery direct descendants of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998). Yet weâve very little time to settle into her confident assertions, because âDonât Know How Youâre Livingâ outlines the sacrifices sheâs made on behalf of the songâs unnamed âyouâ. She is vulnerable and hurt, but pledges to continue her support. In the space of two consecutive songs, Williams, Was, and the band chart out the range of a happy womanâs blues.
One key to Williamsâ approach that unites the polarity of upbeat and downbeat numbers is her use of lyrical repetition. Fundamental to the blues style, the repetition of lines across bars is sometimes merely mechanical, but Williamsâ mantras expand in meaning as her songs develop. The phrases âYou werenât born toâŚâ and âYou were born toâŚâ create the lyrical structure for âTo Be Lovedâ, finding a purpose for life somewhere in between the expressions of pain and pleasure that finish each sentence. In this song, all roads lead to love. In âKiss Like Your Kissâ, the word âneverâ comes up again and again, describing the ephemeral nature of certain pleasures, especially the colors and sensations of seasons. All of these culminate with âthereâll never be a kiss like your kissâ. Here âneverâ takes on a positive valueâan appreciation of present blessings, as they are not guaranteed to last.
âSeeing Blackâ is another song that hopes to appreciate and preserve life, but the results are less optimistic. Written to Vic Chesnutt, who committed suicide on Christmas Day 2009 (and who once wrote a song called âLucinda Williamsâ), âSeeing Blackâ is faster in pace and more electric in execution than most other songs on Blessed. The song uses a color spectrum (seeing black, red, white) to take the listener on a trip through Chesnuttâs final thoughts and feelings. Accompanying this synesthesia is a wild guitar solo by Elvis Costello. This is not the kind of tribute one might expect, but its energy expresses the anger and disappointment of the living, left behind by the departed.
The two songs that most define the album are âSoldierâs Songâ and the title track, which rest side by side in the middle of the sequence. Set to a deceptively peaceful-sounding acoustic guitar, âSoldierâs Songâ tells the story of a soldier at war and of his family back home. He questions why heâs in âthis God-forsaken placeâ where he doesnât âknow [my] enemyâs nameâ while his beloved family goes through the motions far away. Like PJ Harveyâs war-focused Let England Shake, âSoldierâs Songâ is specific and poignant but not overly polemical. Then there is âBlessedâ, the title track and conceptual springboard for the album. Although much of Williamsâ writing (such as âKiss Like Your Kissâ) draws the listenerâs attention to good things large and small, âBlessedâ focuses on the people behind blessings. Represented in her litany of people whoâve blessed her/us are the âthe neglected child who knew how to forgiveâ, âthe battered woman who didnât seek revengeâ, âthe blind man who could see for miles and milesâ, and âthe soldier who gave up his lifeâ.
On her website, Williams is offering a series of videos, âindividual testimonials of what it means to be âBLESSEDââ. These short, interview-based documentaries with Los Angeles residents are a wonderful companion to the lyrics and album artwork, all of which encourage discovering blessings in unlikely and overlooked sources. Blessed, like Williamsâ best efforts, finds the blessings within the blues.
http://blog.masslive.com/playback/2011/02/new_reviews_the_gallery_lucind.html
New Reviews: The Gallery, Lucinda Williams turn in strong new albums
Published: Monday, February 28, 2011, 6:31 AM
By Kevin O’Hare, The RepublicanLucinda Williams, âBlessedâ (Lost Highway). 3 1/2 stars.
There are several songs on Lucinda Williamsâ latest album that might blow you straight off any chair right into the wall of your room.
One of them is âSeeing Black,â a stunning tale about a friendâs suicide, complete with a raging guitar solo courtesy of none other than Elvis Costello, whose guest spots are usually reserved for vocal work.
The organic opener âButtercup,â is another major gem to add to Williamsâ overflowing canon of masterworks, a scathing flip-off to an ex that rivals some of the best songs Bob Dylanâs ever written with a similar theme.
She is after all, a latter-day Dylan, a magnificently gifted writer, whose sweet and slightly raspy Southern voice only adds to the lyrical splendor of songs here such as the title track and the darkly atmospheric âThe Awakening,â the latter which recalls Daniel Lanois running into Crazy Horse.
All that talent allows Williams to get a pass for her occasional tendency to be too repetitive, something that shows up here a tad too frequently. But considering the eloquence of what she offers on âBlessed,â thatâs a minor flaw thatâs easy to overlook.
Tracks to download: âSeeing Blackâ âButtercup.â
Rating Scale: One Star (poor) to Five Stars (a classic).
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