Tim

I really can’t compare Harvest Moon with Harvest too much. Harvest was much more commercially driven. That scared Neil off of making a record like that again. The sound & instruments are similar on it though.
I only come up with Real Love, Honey Bee, & It’s A Long Way To The Top as rockers. Little Rock Star is half ballad; Jailhouse Tears is country. I do think it’s the first Lucinda Williams album in a long time (maybe ever) not to have a great song on it. All of the songs were leftover from other sessions and I think that it shows. If Wishes Were Horses is my favorite and I think it was written 20 years ago or so. The only songs that were written last year were: Honey Bee & Little Rock Star. I thought that Lucinda’s voice sounded very tired on a number of the songs; maybe due to all the touring in 2007. When I saw these songs done live this past year she was singing them much better. It still has made alot of critics top 10 & 20. I feel that it’s been overrated in that regard but I still like it.

I think that Lucinda did start doing some older songs later in the fall tour. I thought that the mix was very good. She also did alot of different songs from night to night which made it exciting. I don’t know of anyone that would want to go to a Lucinda show and see her do all old material. We have to stop living in the past. Look at Dylan, Neil Young, etc; they constantly changed and rarely did the same thing twice. I think Lucinda had it right when she said, “I already made “Car Wheels”, I don’t want to do it again.”

I think by having Buick 6 open also might be a factor, though a smaller one. She’s probably saving money doing that also, by not having an opening act traveling with them and paying them. She’s always had some real interesting opening acts (some that I’d never heard of before), that I’ve really enjoyed. I would rather have that than seeing Buick 6 every night. As far as the “newness” of her setlists, I don’t see it being that new. She usually did five or six songs a night from Little Honey, and I think that is normal from any act that has a new record out. She also did songs from the 80′ & 90’s each night. She’s also written some great songs in the last ten years; what is she supposed to do, not play them? It’s a good problem to have when you have so much great material to do in concert. Alot of acts wish they had that problem.

Thank you for that link, Tom. Lucinda’s dad is a special person.

It will be interesting to see DavidinMaine. It amazes me how poorly she draws down south where she’s from. She should do more shows up here in the northeast. She doesn’t draw well in LA either. I noticed she’s playing the Flynn Theatre in Burlington, VT on March 13. Are you going?

Bob, keep your hopes up for the Calvin theatre!