Columbia, MO Setlist

Here is a piece about the UM Press –

http://www.columbiatribune.com/weblogs/campus-chatter/2012/jul/25/lucinda-williams-gives-um-press-a-shout-out/

Lucinda Williams gives UM Press a shout-out

By JANESE SILVEY
Posted July 25, 2012 at 9:54 a.m.

I underestimated the Save the UM Press folks.

Or maybe I underestimated Lucinda Williams.

Regardless, I was wrong when I said it was “improbable” that Williams would mention the closure of the press during her concert in Columbia.

The award-winning singer did, indeed, give the UM Press a shout-out during her performance at Stephens Lake Park last night, multiple concert goers tell me.

According to reports, Williams talked about her father, Miller Williams, who founded the University of Arkansas Press, and said during an encore that she understands the value of a university press.

Not sure a mention from a celebrity will cause UM President Tim Wolfe to undo the decision to close the press, but it’s a further indication of just how much attention the university is getting nationally.

Not only is Williams aware of the situation and interested enough to mention it at a concert, anyone who reads the New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Publisher’s Weekly or any Missouri media outlet also is learning a lot about how MU and the UM System operates—and it’s not flattering.

As s Hank Waters noted in his editorial yesterday: “I know of no one with serious interest in the University of Missouri Press or its kin nationwide who is happy with changes in the offing for the local operation.”

Wolfe underestimated the pushback. He told the KC Star that he expected some disapproval but not the huge outcry—that now includes Lucinda William’s voice.

Thx LWj. Yee haw! 😀

Apologies if this has been posted. Preview for the Columbia, MO show.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/jul/19/lucinda-williams/

“Is it too much to demand? / I want a full house / And a rock and roll band”

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Website: http://www.stephenslakepark.com

That is just one among a number of requests Lucinda Williams posed in the signature song “Passionate Kisses,” recorded on her self-titled 1988 album. Williams will no doubt have “all of this” and more next week when she takes the stage to headline the first high-profile rock concert at Stephens Lake Park. Speaking by phone this week, Williams said she felt honored to play such a special gig. Despite all the acclaim and respect she has earned over five decades in the recording industry, she still finds all the attention a bit surreal.

“I still don’t consider myself famous,” Williams said. “When I think of somebody famous, I think of Bob Dylan.”

Williams attributes her level head to a career that was built slowly and steadily — and not on the shaky foundation of overnight success. Whatever the pace and path has been, it’s clear today that she belongs on any short list of living legends. Writing in the liner notes of that 1988 record, the poet Miller Williams wrote of his daughter’s disposition, borne out even in childhood, for doing her own thing: “She doesn’t fit neatly into any of the established categories. She’s still a genre to herself and she always will be.”

Almost 25 years after those words were penned, time has testified to their truth. The three-time Grammy winner has finely crafted a sound that unites rock, blues, folk, country and Cajun influences in a way that’s seamless, singular, raw and resonant. She was named “America’s best songwriter” by Time magazine a decade ago, yet, like a fine wine, her songwriting has only gotten better with the passing of time.

Williams said she is enjoying one of the most creatively fertile periods of her life, one that has coincided with her 2009 union to industry executive Tom Overby, a true rock ‘n’ roll marriage observed at the famed Minneapolis venue First Avenue. Williams now has “all of this and passionate kisses,” as she sang about — but she has much more than that. Some outsiders openly wondered whether the contentment Williams found in marriage would lead to musical complacency. The result has been exactly the opposite, she said, making it clear that although she has settled down, she’s not settling for anything but the best in her career.

“You read about those romantic, great relationships where one person inspires the other one. That’s what I wanted to find,” Williams said. “It took me a while; it wasn’t until I was in my 50s, but it’s definitely a different kind of thing than I’ve ever experienced before. When you have that, when you’re allowed to be yourself, then creativity can flourish.”

Rather than causing her to give up a part of herself, her marriage has fostered growth as a person and allowed her to take steps she has always wanted to take as a writer.

“It’s really freed me up to explore different subject matter … whereas before I might have been writing about the usual topics of unrequited love … miserable relationships, which is probably the easiest thing to write about,” she said.

Last year’s release, “Blessed,” reads like a road map of her lyrical and personal journey. Williams’ weathered voice has long been a container for both tough-minded resilience and tender aching, yet she explores each more fully on a record that contains meditations on mortality, unlikely pictures of redemption and expressions of vulnerability. Although those themes and colors had always been present in Williams’ work to some degree, she said the tenor of her writing really changed after her mother’s death in 2004, a loss she’s still grieving.

“I don’t think you ever really get over that,” she said.

Articulating her posture toward that loss — as well as expressing the sort of soul-searching that naturally comes with the years — has been a challenging but important step forward.

“It’s not always the easiest stuff to write about,” she said. “… It’s a lot easier to write about love gone wrong. Pretty much every Hank Williams song there is” relates to “that subject.”

One of the most deeply felt tracks on the record is “Copenhagen,” a beautiful, snow-kissed elegy about another of what Williams called “those stunning, sad losses that you try to come to terms with.” The song captures the moment in which she learned a close friend and longtime manager had died. Despite not putting the song to paper until a year after her friend’s passing, the song has an immediacy to it, including such universal but painfully specific lines as “And I’m 57 but I could be 7 years old / Cause I will never be able / to comprehend the expansiveness / of what I’ve just learned.”

Pressing more fully into the freedom she feels and the lyrical vein she has been drawn to, Williams wants to write more story songs that take place from another person’s perspective. She values the ability to “take yourself out of yourself. … That’s my challenge now. That’s what I want to start trying to work on,” she said.

If her recent output is any indication, Williams will meet that challenge, and fans will be better off for it, discovering more sides and sounds to an artist who has already revealed a wealth of beauty and worldly wisdom.

Thanks for uploading that video. My first Lu show was front row in Arvada and it was simply amazing. Loved that song and hope to be a road warrior next year !