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After Esscence, you definitely need Car Wheels, World Without Tears, and West….in no particular order. The CD entitled simply “Lucinda Williams” is also a great disc.
Of course, I have all her stuff….but I’d also look for the DVD of her performance at Austin City Limits.
Here is my ranking….
1. Lucinda Williams (Self Titled). This is her best for me and the easiest to listen to from start to finish. It has an incredible flow and is before she got a little too concerned with sounding current. She has a more natural sound on this one.
standout track: Like A Rose2. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Another exceptional record. There are a few duds on it for me though (Concrete and Barbed Wire, Joy) but most of the songs are truly amazing.
standout track: Jackson3. World Without Tears. I actually hated this one at first but now hold it in very high regard. It’s a 3/4 masterpiece. There are some severe missteps on this record (American Dream, Righteously) but the mood and emotion of this record is fantastic. I think you’ll like this one the most as it is the most similar to Essence.
standout track: Fruits of my Labor4. Sweet Old World
Although some of her best songs appear on this album it ultimately feels like filler between the ST record and Car Wheels. A lot of these songs feel like they were written and could have been included on ST.
standout track: Something About What Happens When We Talk5. West
After almost a year I’ve only fell for about 4 songs off this record. Most of it is just “eh”. I wouldn’t recommend you make this your next step.
standout track: Everything Has Changedscabrous1 (or should I say, neighbor :wink:), I’d say you should rush out and buy Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. That, to me, is the Lucinda album that’s up there with albums like Dylan’s mid-’60s output – an essential album that everyone, not just Lucinda fans, should own. After that, it’s a bit of a toss-up.
If you’re really digging Essence, World Without Tears and West might be the logical choices after that. Personally, I’d go with the self-titled album and then Sweet Old World after Car Wheels because I love that period of her career. I think you can leave out Happy Woman Blues and Ramblin’ until you have all of her more recent albums – though I do like both of those in their own right.
I hope Lucinda comes back to Madison again soon – I went to the ’06 show at the Barrymore and it was great. Back then I was living in Appleton – now that I’m down here it’d be even better if she played there again. Although any small, intimate venue would be fantastic.
Wow, tough question, just because like all great artists, Lu has different sounds and styles on a lot of her albums, so it just depends on what you like. For ME, the album you already have and love (Essence) is one of her weakest. It’s too short on melody and the songs not fully developed imo. I do like Get Right With God a lot and Steal Your Love is good, but other than that I can mostly do without that cd.
For my money, her 3 best and most consistently good are (in no particular order) World Without Tears, Car Wheels and West. If you like Essence, WWT is probably most like that one, but I think the songs are better and there’s more variety. Some people are turned off by Righteously’s upbeat almost rap-styled delivery, but I love that song. “American Dream” is droning and repetitive with downer lyrics (“Everything is wrong…..”), but is done effectively imo, so I dig it. I like pretty much that whole cd and it might be my favorite.
Car Wheels is always a safe buy. It’s her most mainstream but WITHOUT being “watered down”. It’s hard to knock that album. It took a while to grow on me, but years later, I can see why it sold so many copies and brought Lu a whole new legion of fans.
West is more like WWT: plenty of variety, so something nearly all her fans will like (and a song or two plenty will not), but I like Lu’s variety and this cd delivers in that dept. Lots of different sounds and musical styles without being (too) uneven.
I can totally do without Live at the Fillmore. The band’s too loud and Lu pushing her vocals so hard doesn’t present her voice in the best light. There’s not a single song on there that I think is better than the studio version, so unless you’re a completist, that one’s not required. I own it but barely listen to it at all. If you do want some live Lu, I’d pick up the Deluxe version of Car Wheels. It can cost a pretty penny ($28-30 or so at Best Buy), but get it used on ebay or Amazon and you won’t pay too much. It comes with a bonus live cd from 1998 and it’s solid (although is limited to mostly songs from Car Wheels).
The 1988 “Rough Trade” cd called simply “Lucinda Williams” is solid and is easily my favorite of her “older” stuff; but it’s nothing like “Essence” and as I believe this one’s currently out of print anyway, it’s likely to cost more than your standard new cd (though I believe it is about to be reissued). Definitely worth owning, but I’d pick this one up later if “Essence” is the style of Lu you like best so far.
Her first two albums, Happy Woman Blues and Ramblin’ I can also do without. They’re more straight blues than the variety of sound that Lu gives us on later albums and I don’t find many of the songs on either to be very compelling. Not “bad”, but not essential listening either. She grew by leaps and bounds from these even by 1988, and has developed her songwriting even further since then.
So I’d get:
World Without Tears
Car Wheels (Deluxe if you can swing it!)
West
Lucinda Williams (1988)If that doesn’t do ya and you want to get completist, get the first two albums (Ramblin, Happy Woman Blues) and then Live at the Fillmore.
P.S. There’s also a ton of songs she’s done that don’t appear on her albums and many of them are very good too! “Come To me Baby” on the Howlin Wolf tribute cd, “Honey Chile” on the new Fats Domino tribute is GREAT and some unreleased songs like “Gentle On My Mind” are solid too. If you’re into trading, PM or email me and I can get you a cd of several unreleased/hard-to-find songs. zlh67@austin.rr.com
Just for fun, I put the albums in the order I thought I liked them, and then pulled up iTunes to see how often I listened to each album, at least on my ipod. I’m surprised at how much I’ve been listening to Little Honey, and its only been out a few weeks. I’m surprised no one listed it here as a recomendation. I really like this new album and think it will becone one of my all time favorites. Looks like I better pull out West again, I must have liked it when it came out more than I remember now.
Lucinda Williams (55)
Sweet Old World (19)
Little Honey (21)
Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (13)
Essence (15)
World Without Tears (9)
West (24)
Happy Woman Blues (10)
RamblinFor me the trilogy of albums
Lucinda Williams
Sweet Old World
Car Wheelsranks as the best (of this artist, any artist…?)
Alluding to an earlier Bob Dylan reference I remember reading that Car Wheels is the Blonde On Blonde of the 90s.
For info I first came to Lucinda via West.
All this about favourite Lu albums is interesting stuff. My list would be as of today, although that would could and will change, is as follows –
1. Car Wheels – her most complete and consistent album I would say.
2. Lucinda Williams – simply because it has Passionate Kisses and Side of the Road bunched together.
3. WWT – first album of hers I bought after seeing Lu play Overtime on the BBC, so means a lot. Great if you are lovelorn.
4. Happy Woman Blues – might be a surprise to some but I love the simple sound of this album with its fiddle.
5. Sweet Old World – Always listen to this album when I’m blue. Cheers me up in a weird sort of way.
6. Esscence – Great chorus on title track.
7. West – Low down on list but then its more recent than above albums so maybe in time …
8. Little Honey – A bit uneven but has some good moments.
9. Ramblin – Got this recently, and have enjoyed hearing songs I didn’t know and getting a musical education from it.
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