West Words

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/137338-in-a-different-place-now-an-interview-with-lucinda-williams/

“In a Different Place Now”: An Interview with Lucinda Williams
By Michael Franco 1 March 2011

She has toured with icons like Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, recorded with legends like Elvis Costello and Steve Earle, been named America’s best songwriter by Time magazine, and put together one of the most impressive bodies of albums this side of rock ‘n roll. But suggest to Lucinda Williams that it’s an honor to speak to her and she responds with baffled silence, a dismissive scoff, and then a simple, drawling “Okaaay”.

That speaking to her is, indeed, an honor is a fact that can’t be lost on her, but Williams doesn’t let on that she knows. Instead, she slides right into conversation, peppering her responses with you know‘s, (as if you two are old friends and you actually do know), clipping the end of her sentences with a southern chuckle (even her laugh drawls), and occasionally asking if you’ll hold on while she talks to her husband, manager Tom Overby (“Tom’s going out to have lunch with one of his music industry buddies … I asked him if he could go change his shirt because he has the same shirt on he had on yesterday.”).

But not only does Lucinda Williams come across as friendly, but also as incredibly happy. This is not only somewhat of a surprise, but a nice one. Read through Williams’ interviews from past years and scores of them refer to finding inspiration from horrible relationships and tortuous splits, her consistently spot-on breakup songs the result of consistently having fresh emotional wounds. Her newfound happiness, no doubt, has much to do with her recent marriage to Overby, though Williams is quick to assert that being happy will not strip her songs of her trademark grit.

“Everybody was so worried about how being married was going to affect my songwriting,” she acknowledges. “But I tell you, I wouldn’t be married to Tom. If that had been an issue, I would have figured that out already. That was a big test for me.”

And it was a test that Blessed, Williams’ new album, proves she passed with ease. While she still knows how to write songs about bad boys and broken hearts, the album also sees Williams addressing new topics—such as war—and approaching old ones with a maturity unseen on her previous releases. Though the difference between Blessed and Little Honey, her 2008 album, is evident, Williams explains that the shift was a natural artistic progression, not a conscious effort.

“I wasn’t consciously doing that. I never do that consciously. It’s just kind of whatever I’m writing at the time. I guess I was looking—not looking for different things to write about—but now that I’m married, that part of my life is in a different place now than it used to be. It’s actually allowing me to kind of open up more.”

Rather than taking offense at the suggestion that Blessed is more mature than some of her earlier albums, Williams takes the observation as a compliment, acknowledging that experience and the wisdom it brings can’t help but affect an artist’s craft.

“It’s just a different thing,” she says, referring to her songwriting now compared to that of earlier albums. “Everything is going to be different at different times in your life, you know, depending on where you are at that time. You want to feel like you’re growing as an artist. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones because I’m still very vital and creative. I definitely see the difference in my writing, between Car Wheels and now.”

A recurring theme on Blessed is death, a topic Williams has written about before, but one that colors the tone of the entire album. If there’s an overall message to be found in Blessed, it’s that everyone has to grapple with the unsettling reality of death and, as a result, find meaning in the everyday blessings of life. No, this isn’t a dark album—there are also songs about finding love and enjoying the experience of life—but this is an album shaped by the balancing forces of loss and, ultimately, compensation.

One song from the album that has garnered considerable attention is “Seeing Black”, which addresses the confusion and anger one feels in the wake of a suicide. Williams was inspired to write the song by the death of fellow songwriter Vic Chesnutt, who took his life on Christmas Eve of 2009 after struggling with being a quadriplegic for nearly three decades. But while his suicide was the catalyst for the song, Williams is adamant that she didn’t write it as a direct response.

“As soon as you attach someone’s name to something,” she notes, “it becomes about them. But it’s not really about him per se. It’s just … when I found out he took his life, it was real sudden. And I’ve explored that theme before in ‘Pineola’ and ‘Sweet Old World’. This was just kind of an exercise in that. But I was very emotional about it. I didn’t know Vic very well, but any time you hear about, you know—he’s one of us, a songwriter and singer and we were mutual admirers of each other’s work. I talked to him a few times and, of course, he wrote a song called ‘Lucinda Williams’.”

Even as she discusses the song, Williams struggles to convey the emotions brought on by Chesnutt’s suicide. “It was just so sad and everything,” she says, before trailing off into contemplation. “You’re always a little bit sort of angry … not angry, that’s not really the right word.” Not finding the right word, Williams again drifts off into silence, perfectly making her point in doing so.

Williams recently experienced the death of another person she held in high regard, both as a person and a professional. On her birthday, January 26, country legend Charlie Louvin succumbed to his battle with pancreatic cancer. Recalling the times she spent with Louvin on the road and on stage, Williams can’t help but gush with admiration.

“Charlie was just full of vim and vigor. He was a tough guy, a tough little guy, you know? There was this one time when we played in Kansas City. It was on an outdoor stage and it was real windy and he had his set list on the stage and it kept blowing away. And he finally got flustered, grabbed his pocketknife out of his pocket and—boom!—just stuck his pocketknife down to hold his set list on the stage.”

Williams remembers another side of Louvin, though, one shaped by the 1965 death of his brother and musical collaborator, Ira Louvin.

“Sometimes he [was full of] sadness,” Williams recalls, “because he lost his brother so many years ago. When we were sitting on the bus after the show that night, he said, ‘When we were driving up here on our way to Kansas City, we passed the very mile marker where Ira had been killed in a car crash.’ He knew the exact spot. He sat there and told us this and there was such sadness in his face. You know, somebody his age … He was like walking history.”

No surprise then that, wedged between the dueling forces of love and death, Williams decided to write a song about war, something she has been hesitant to do on previous albums. The challenge in writing a song that addresses war, she explains, is in exploring the topic without sounding preachy, polemical, or political. Enduring protest songs are the ones that focus on the actual human impact of war and not on an overtly controversial message. In that regard, they aren’t really meant to protest at all, but depict: if the artist can convey the reality, the listener can’t help but react.

“Those kind of songs are really hard to do,” she concedes. “Phil Ochs was able to do it, [and] of course Bob Dylan. But there were also those more gentle ones, like the Pete Seeger song ‘Where Have all the Flowers Gone’. I mean, that’s a great song. And it was considered a protest song at the time and it’s ‘Where have all the flowers gone / Long time passing’. So that’s something that I’ve wanted to explore for a long time. I wasn’t thinking of it that I wanted it to be a protest song, but I was certainly trying to make a statement about the horrors of war. But I wanted to take it and put it in a more personal, family, human aspect.”

In the past, Williams has been depicted in the press as a control freak, an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist who fixates on details so much that she’ll take the better part of a decade to make an album, nix people she has enlisted to assist in the making of an album, or both. For example, the recording of her breakout album, 1998’s Car Wheels On a Gravel Road, was marked by scrapped sessions, strained friendships, and replaced producers—all, allegedly, because Williams wanted to get the album unreasonably right.

If that portrayal of Williams was correct then, it certainly is not now. As she speaks about her approach to songwriting, it’s clear that she is much more intuitive than meticulous, letting her muse lead the way when—and if—it visits. Perhaps, through the experience of repeated success, she has learned that she can trust her own instincts; perhaps she has simply learned to relax. Either way, Williams seems like an artist in tune with her own creative instincts, not one at war with them.

“Sometimes it’s like writing in a journal or something,” she says, referring to the process of birthing a song. “It’s stream-of-consciousness, almost. I just put some thoughts out there. It usually begins with just a line I come up with or something like that. Or sometimes I’ll write a couple of verses or something, just some thoughts, like when I’m getting ready to go to bed or maybe when I very first wake up and I’m laying there thinking. And I get up, go grab a pen, and just whatever it is, put it down on paper right away so I don’t forget the idea … I don’t sit down and apply myself every single day, all day. That just kind of comes when I have the time.”

Williams’ relaxed approach towards writing and recording is due, in part, to having found the perfect creative foil in her husband. Overby is a record industry veteran, used to paying attention to the small details that often escape wild-eyed artists. Knowing that her husband will take care of such details, Williams is free of their burden—and free to keep her focus on the music.

“My approach to writing and recording and everything is very organic. Tom worked at a record company for a long time doing marketing, so he’s very conceptual. So we make a good team. For instance, when we go to put the songs in order, the sequence, I just don’t want to do that, but Tom’s really good at putting it all together. And sometimes I’ll go, ‘That’s a crazy idea!’ Like it was his idea for me to do that cover of [AC/DC’s] ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’. I went, ‘Are you kidding? I don’t even like that song!’ I didn’t even know it, you know? He said, ‘Well, we just need another rock song on the record.’ And I’m going, ‘Who cares? Let’s just put the record out. It doesn’t matter.’ He’ll look at that. He’ll look at the whole picture and see how the record is balanced with all of the songs.”

After having spent so many years on the fringe of the music establishment, Williams now finds herself in the odd position of being a role model for aspiring artists. Her career serves as an example of how to do things the right way—ironic considering that Williams is a success despite the music industry rather than because of it. Asked about being such a role model, she has no secrets to share other than to keep the focus on the music, fame, and fortune be damned.

“I started so long ago as a solo singer-songwriter with just my voice and songs and that was my strength. I always knew in the back of my mind, ‘Well, if I lose this one record deal, my whole world isn’t going to fall apart and something else is going to happen. I’m just going to keep going.’ Part of it is just the patience factor—you know, hanging in there. And the era I came up in was about getting out there and playing in front of people. That’s how you build up your fan base and once you’ve got that core base, you’ve got it. Then it’s just a matter of the industry catching up with you. I think that’s kind of what happened with me.”

When asked what she thinks about being in the same group as the songwriters she has admired for so many years—songwriters like Dylan and Petty and Young and Springsteen—Williams has to force herself to reply. “It actually blows my mind to think that maybe I’m in the same group,” she whispers, as if a simple acknowledgement of the scale of her talents is blasphemy. And then, after more baffled silence, she breaks into that gorgeous southern chuckle.

Michael Franco is a Professor of English at Oklahoma City Community College, where he teaches composition and humanities. An alumnus of his workplace, he also attended the University of Central Oklahoma, earning both a B.A. and M.A. in English. Franco has been writing for PopMatters since 2004 and has also served as an Associate Editor since 2007. He considers himself lucky to be able to experience what he teaches, writing and the humanities, firsthand through his work at PopMatters, and his experiences as a writer help him teach his students to become better writers themselves.

http://journalstar.com/entertainment/music/article_7f7f98db-a481-5764-989a-21996f401a6f.html

Lucinda Williams, “Blessed”: On her last album, 2008’s “Little Honey,” Williams rocked out, celebrating her then-new-found love and marriage with a set of uplifting, joyous songs. With “Blessed,” she’s back in more familiar territory, singing of the pains of life and love. But she’s doing it with one difference from her previous work.

This time, songs are about characters rather than seemingly autobiographic. Because the world-weary sentiment remains the same, the shift to characters isn’t all that noticeable. But it reveals that Williams, at 58, is becoming a different kind of songwriter.

Musically, “Blessed” balances slower songs with hard-edged rockers, while producer Don Was sets Williams’ distinctive ragged, twangy voice in warm, enveloping sounds. That gives the record a rewarding richness that should make it connect for her fans. Grade: B

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/KentWolgamott

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2011/02/catching-up-with-lucinda-williams-1.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

By Max BlauCatching Up With… Lucinda Williams

Early in a career that’s now spanned three decades, Lucinda Williams mastered the art of writing powerful stories. But her last two records, West and Little Honey, have displayed a particular rawness to go along with her believability—the pain experienced from her mother’s passing and a the end of a broken relationship.

At 58, Williams seems to be doing better—evidenced by the title of her 11th record, Blessed. Following a pair of heartrending records, Williams married longtime record-label executive Tom Overby, continued her longstanding tradition of collaborating with other artists and entered another prolific songwriting phase. Paste caught up with Williams just as she was about to embark on a long touring stretch, discussing her desire to collaborate with Cee Lo Green, working with producer Don Was on Blessed and how Vic Chesnutt inspired one of her new songs.

Paste: In your last interview with Paste, you mentioned that the songs for West and Little Honey were written at the same time. Your current press release explains that your upcoming record Blessed emerged at the end of a “really big writing streak that gave me enough to make two albums.” I’m guessing that means that Blessed will be followed by a similar album?

Williams: When I went in to make West, I just came up with enough for two albums. I wanted to put one double album out, but we had to split them up…This was a different situation. I do have other songs, but some of them are not quite finished yet or they didn’t come out right when we were tracking or something.

When I finished West, I was frustrated because I had enough songs that were finished that I wanted to put out at the same time and I wasn’t able to. This time, we got the songs done for [Blessed]—the next songs will be on the next album. You what I mean? It’s not like I want to put them all out right now.

Paste: Does that mean that there will be a shorter timeframe between Blessed and the next record, or will it be a few more years before that one comes out?

Williams: Maybe, yeah. You never know. I have this one song that we cut in the studio. I decided I wanted to do something else with it. Sometimes it’s a matter of… I wanted to try and get Cee Lo [Green] to come in and sing on it or something like that. It’s kind of a ‘get right with God’ kind of thing. It’s called “Can’t Wish For Nothing”—I wanted to do a gospel kind of thing, or kind of hip-hoppy thing. I don’t know what you want to call it.

But we couldn’t get a hold of him—there was some other stuff like that didn’t quite work out, that weren’t quite ready that we’ll put on the next album with a little different flavor to them. All my songs are different like that. It just depends on what I have the time that I go in to make the album and what works. I don’t ever think about that stuff ahead of time. I don’t ever have a conception or anything like that—a lot of people ask me what’s the theme of the album [laughs].

Paste: You’re beating me to my next question [laughs]. Well then, if you didn’t have a preconceived theme or concept specific for Blessed, what was going through your head around the time you were writing this whole batch of songs?

Williams: Well, some of them were older songs, there’s a song that I… wrote and put on the shelf because I didn’t think it was good.

Paste: Which song was that?

Williams: It’s actually a demo tape I did in 1983—it’s called “Jazz Side of Life”—I wrote for a friend of mine…I thought it was a good song that needed some work…that’s one of the ones that will probably be on the new album. Sometimes they’re really old songs from a long time ago because I keep everything. Like “If Wishes Were Horses” was one of those really, really old songs.

Paste: Where any of those old songs on Blessed?

Williams: No, these were not ones completed like that. You know, I keep every single line and thought and idea in a folder. Some of those—they’re just bits and pieces from over the years. Like “Soldier’s Song,” I had some lines written down from who knows when. That’s a new song. I’m using a few lines to just get me started.

When I’m sitting down applying myself writing, when I’m in that mode, I get all that stuff out. Just set it all on the table and kind of just see what happens. Just go. Other times, I’ll just get a brand new fresh idea out of the blue. Those are the times when I’m doing other things like laying in bed getting ready to get up or getting ready to go to sleep and have some ideas and write it down. But when I actually sit down and finish a song is more when I’m in that mode before we go into record. It just depends.

Paste: What kind of role has your husband Tom Overby played in all of this over the past few years since you got married?

Williams: He’s my personal manager, overall manager. We have a separate business manager… It’s a good team…Tom also has worked in marketing and production and A&R at record labels for years and years and years—He was at Fontana in Universal Music Group when we met. He was looking for a career change, and [former manager] Frank Callari and I were starting to part ways and then Frank died suddenly. It all sort of happened right around the same time.

Tom started getting into producing with me during the West album For instance, Tom was the one who suggested Hal Willner for producer on West. He was the executive producer on West, Tom was. On Little Honey, it was produced by Tom and Eric [Leljestrand] and myself. And this time…

Paste: It was Don Was, right?

Williams: Yep, Tom suggested bring[ing] Don Was in. That worked out just really well. It was a perfect match.

Paste: Tell me more about working with Don Was. What was that like?

Williams: We knew each other a while and everything. We [initially] ran into each other this time last year at a MusiCares tribute concert to Neil Young…Don was in the house band and I was invited to sing—different artists did different Neil Young songs. We were hanging out backstage and I was going over the songs with Emmylou [Harris]—I did one with Emmy and Patty Griffin…Don came around and we started to talk. Tom picked up on this chemistry and he already loved Don as a producer.

Later back at home, we were planning going into the studio and Tom brought it up and said “what do you think about bring Don in to co-produce?…So we met with Don a couple times… he just jumped at the opportunity to do it. I loved his personality—I was a little shy around him at first because of who he was and everything. But then as I got to know him, we really hit it off and became the best of friends.

He was very easy to work with in the studio. He would sit in the room with the band while they were recording and be in there with them…usually when the tracks were going down he was in there. It just gave me a feeling of real comfort and security to have his set of ears in there. If he liked it, I knew it was great. I’ve listened with Tom to some of the albums he’s done… one of my favorite albums of all time is [former Replacements leader] Paul Westerberg’s 14 Songs that Don produced… So I could see that he was very well rounded through what he’s done. One of the things he said before going in was “the most important thing is that I want everything to revolve around Lucinda’s vocals. I want her voice to be the main thing [present].”

Paste: Do you think that working with Don made this album more focused around your voice than with past records?

Williams: That’s always a priority when I record anyway. But [Blessed is] the best sounding record I’ve ever done. Once we got it all recorded, we knew we had something really great. So the next step was mixing and mastering. This is where Don [would make] a suggestion and we said “yes, let’s try this.” That’s why we got Don in there. We didn’t want to make the same record over again.

Paste: Some of the stories behind the songs on Blessed really caught my attention. I heard that “Seeing Black” was about Vic Chesnutt—can you tell me about that one?

Williams: Yeah, it was inspired by him. I should have said that instead of saying it was about him. It was inspired by his suicide, which happened during the time that I was writing. It was so sudden and shocking and stunning and sad.

Paste: I take it you were a big fan of Vic’s work?

Williams: Yeah, yeah. Definitely…I was thinking about the death when I was writing it. [But] it transcends whom I was writing it about obviously.

Paste: Elvis Costello also contributed to that track as well.

Williams: That was Tom’s idea again. Elvis happened to be in town, finishing his album with T-Bone Burnett. Tom sent him an email… we had the tracks done but Tom [wanted] a little more crunchy of a guitar-thing on a couple of these just to give that final [touch]. Tom said “I want to bring Elvis in to play guitar.” I said, “Really? Wow. I never though of Elvis as that kind of guitar player.” Tom said, “He will shred on these things. He’s an amazing electric guitarist.” And he is. I had never heard him play like that before. Most people think of him coming in and singing on stuff.

So, Tom sent him an e-mail; it’s kind of a funny story. Elvis emailed Tom back and said “are you sure you sent this to the right person?” So he came in one night and brought in a few guitars, set up in the control room and just wailed. He played on “Buttercup” and “Seeing Black.”

Paste: In terms of you collaborating with other artists, who have been some of the most memorable musicians that you’ve worked with? It’s a long list to say the least.

Williams: [laughs] It’s a long list…I would have to say of course Elvis, singing on his records and him singing on mine [Costello has contributed to multiple Lucinda Williams records]… I did this recent one on Amos Lee’s last album [Mission Bell].

Paste: Tell me about that one some more.

Williams: To be honest, I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t really know anything about him. I was asked to sing and he was a big fan and wanted me to sing on this one song. This was when I was in the studio so they just sent me the [demo]. He wasn’t actually there…I put a harmony down. Later, Tom and I got a chance to go see him play live here—he just blew me away…So now I’m a huge fan of his.

Paste: And now that you’ve contributed, he had a #1 record on the Billboard 200 charts!

Williams: I know! It’s great. And then the other interesting one was M. Ward’s album [Hold Time]. I was in the studio recording the Little Honey album and he sent the tapes in and sang on it. When I got the tapes back, I loved the track. It’s cool because when we’re out on the road in different towns, one of them will be able to come up and sit in.

Paste: Is there anyone that you haven’t collaborated with yet that you would like to work with in the future?

Williams: Well… maybe The Black Keys, I don’t know. Bob Dylan. Springsteen…Thievery Corporation? I don’t know.

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 Republican

Lucinda Williams, “Blessed” (Lost Highway). 3 1/2 stars.

There are several songs on Lucinda Williams’ latest album that might blow you straight off any chair right into the wall of your room.

One of them is “Seeing Black,” a stunning tale about a friend’s 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 “Buttercup,” is another major gem to add to Williams’ overflowing canon of masterworks, a scathing flip-off to an ex that rivals some of the best songs Bob Dylan’s 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 “The Awakening,” 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 “Blessed,” that’s a minor flaw that’s easy to overlook.

Tracks to download: “Seeing Black” “Buttercup.”

Rating Scale: One Star (poor) to Five Stars (a classic).

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/137602-lucinda-williams-blessed/

Lucinda Williams: Blessed
By Thomas Britt 28 February 2011

Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams’ 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, “she’s a little Hank Williams, a little John Coltrane, a little Chet Baker and a little Loretta Lynn.” 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, 1980’s 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 “Buttercup” 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 we’ve very little time to settle into her confident assertions, because “Don’t Know How You’re Living” outlines the sacrifices she’s made on behalf of the song’s unnamed “you”. 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 woman’s blues.

One key to Williams’ 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 Williams’ mantras expand in meaning as her songs develop. The phrases “You weren’t born to…” and “You were born to…” create the lyrical structure for “To Be Loved”, 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 “Kiss Like Your Kiss”, the word “never” comes up again and again, describing the ephemeral nature of certain pleasures, especially the colors and sensations of seasons. All of these culminate with “there’ll never be a kiss like your kiss”. Here “never” takes on a positive value—an appreciation of present blessings, as they are not guaranteed to last.

“Seeing Black” 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 “Lucinda Williams”), “Seeing Black” 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 Chesnutt’s 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 “Soldier’s Song” and the title track, which rest side by side in the middle of the sequence. Set to a deceptively peaceful-sounding acoustic guitar, “Soldier’s Song” tells the story of a soldier at war and of his family back home. He questions why he’s in “this God-forsaken place” where he doesn’t “know [my] enemy’s name” while his beloved family goes through the motions far away. Like PJ Harvey’s war-focused Let England Shake, “Soldier’s Song” is specific and poignant but not overly polemical. Then there is “Blessed”, the title track and conceptual springboard for the album. Although much of Williams’ writing (such as “Kiss Like Your Kiss”) draws the listener’s attention to good things large and small, “Blessed” focuses on the people behind blessings. Represented in her litany of people who’ve blessed her/us are the “the neglected child who knew how to forgive”, “the battered woman who didn’t seek revenge”, “the blind man who could see for miles and miles”, and “the soldier who gave up his life”.

On her website, Williams is offering a series of videos, “individual testimonials of what it means to be ‘BLESSED’”. 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 Williams’ best efforts, finds the blessings within the blues.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110227/ENT04/102270388/Radiohead-s-provocative-new-release-sure-please-fans

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.