West Words

I am pretty sure I got my Love Band shirt when Lu opened for Neil Young on the Greendale tour. Saw the show at Jones Beach, took the train back into NYC and had a heck of a time finding the right exit out of Penn Station at 1am. If I were to have been mugged, I promise they wouldn’t have gotten my treasured shirt – that is my fav!

Hey Lafayette –

Check out the “Media” tab – great ‘Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” video there from the Bo Ramsey days. Don’t know how I’d missed that! 🙂

Hi Everyone –

Here are videos of some of the new songs from the George’s shows in Fayetteville, AR. Please excuse the quality, but it gives you a great sampling of the awesome new tunes. I suggest having many, many drinks first, and then the video will appear just fine. 😉 (Please know that I have since gotten contact lenses for up-close vision… 😯 )

“Blessed” may be the best album ever, and that is saying something! 😀

I Don’t Know How You’re Livin’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlCuuWgstPg

Somebody Somewhere (Don’t Know What He’s Missing Tonight) – Loretta Lynn song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wecwl83xwtI

Blessed – such a beautiful song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJ9CLGYMDQ

Kiss Like Your Kiss – True Blood soundtrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5L1E_1mmXI

Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (Lafayette – “We’re not worthy!” 😀 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5dQRG6hoWs

Born To Be Loved
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gyQk7Uv91w

The Ugly Truth – the 2nd night at George’s was the first public performance of this awesome song. You may notice improved video quality – thanks TomT for resetting my camera at the brewpub!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn-wHwbATC8

Buttercup – with some funny dialogue about making it cool to have one’s lyrics on stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNZnN7sZqi0

Port Arthur – Janis Joplin tribute song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F1ml3GNgwU

Enjoy and see y’all on the Blessed tour!

xoxoxo,
Sandy

It was an awesome night, and Robert Plant was another fan in the audience. 🙂

9/10/10

Bob Harris, BBC, interview with Lucinda Williams at RCA Studio A, Nashville, TN

Jed Hilly, Executive Director, Americana Music Association, opened the night explaining that RCA Studio A was originally built for Chet Atkins, and that legends Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton had also recorded there.

Both participants in the night’s event are living legends:

Bob Harris, who has been with the BBC for 40 years, having hosted Sounds of the 70’s and The Old Grey Whistle Test.

Lucinda Williams, three-time Grammy Award winner.

Lucinda and Bob spent time together today and recorded a BBC segment that will go out in the New Year when the new record is released.

Lucinda talked about her new album “Blessed”, which was recorded in Hollywood at the historic Capitol Studios, Studio B. Elvis had recorded there, there was a microphone in a box with the name “Frank” written on it where Frank Sinatra? kept his microphone.

Lucinda initially went in to do a one-off thing for the True Blood soundtrack, fell in love with the room and decided to cut the entire new album there. She said that her husband, Tom, is a big fan of Don Was. They ran into Don at a Neil Young tribute concert where he was playing in the house band. “Don was doing Americana before it was called Americana.” “ The older I get, the more prolific I get. When I went in to do ‘West’, we actually had enough songs for two albums and wanted to release a double”.

BH: commented that LW is an observational writer

LW – always jotting down ideas. With “Little Honey”, Lucinda had just gotten engaged and was asked what it would do to her music. She found that hard to answer, because it was so inane. Lu finds it easier to write when she has a sense of well-being and then she can just go into “the vault”. “Look at the world around us, there’s always something going on. Everybody’s got the blues. Being any kind of artist is about how you perceive things, and then make it universal so everyone can relate.”

Lucinda’s father is poet Miller Williams, so she grew up with a built-in writing course, like an apprenticeship.

BH: Uses the term ‘rinsing’ to describe the refining of the writing process

LW: Her dad, Miller Williams uses the term “The Economics of Writing”. Lucinda’s style of writing is simple, and she lets the music help with the interpretation. She had tried writing poetry, and that’s a whole different animal. Once Miller wrote a poem and sent it to her, as an idea for a song. (shakes her head ‘no’)

Lucinda indicated that her style is Country, Folk, Blues, and straight-ahead Rock.

BH: asked about LW’s record collection?

LW – Dad listened to Country Blues – Mississippi John Hurt, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Ray Charles – Country music album, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn. Then in the 60’s I veered off – the Doors, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Dylan, Donovan, the whole folk thing. Then I discovered Delta Blues Robert Johnson.

From age 12 1/2 , that’s all I was interested in – listening to records.

I was always told that my stuff fell in the cracks between country and rock; I fell through the cracks. It all comes down to marketing, and there was no Americana then. If Neil Young had tried to get a record deal when I was, he wouldn’t have been signed either.

BH: Thinks of “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road” as the first Americana record.

LW: The Rough Trade album was really the first Americana, but it was before its time. Rough Trade was thought of as a punk label, but they were the only ones who would sign me, and also signed Victoria Williams, the Pixies, and the Smiths. Until them, I couldn’t get a record deal – Rounder Records and Sugar Hill wouldn’t sign me.

(Dylan’s) “Time Out of Mind” came out before “Essence”. It was a new direction for Dylan, the simplicity. The Nashville newspaper slammed it, ‘these are silly, insidious lyrics. He’d written better lyrics than this.” The Stones album that year got slammed, too.

“I was always very eclectic.”

My regular band now is my rhythm section – Butch Norton – drums; Dave Sutton – base. Doug was ready for change, and is working with Marianne Faithfull.

Greg Leisz played on the album. He was so choked up there to accept the award (Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Instrumentalist), he’s one of the most humble people I’ve ever known. He wasn’t feeling well, he’s had a low-grade fever for 3 months and they don’t know what it is. He doesn’t complain.

When we were recording “Blessed”, he had a dental procedure and I said don’t worry about coming in, but he came in anyway, with the bloody cotton in his cheek. He never complains.

When you have the right people, it’s chemistry. Matthew Sweet. Elvis Costello is on four tracks – just guitar – that was Tom’s idea. Elvis was in town anyway working on his own album with T Bone Burnett. He pumped it up as only an English guitar player can do, like Keith Richards.

BH : asked if they did analog reel to reel?

LW: We always do analog. The entire country is running low on analog tape. It has that warm sound we all love when we listen to old records.

I like to be separated in a vocal booth. I can see the guys but I want to be able to hear myself. With ‘World Without Tears’, we were all in the same room, including the engineer, and I didn’t like it. I’m more relaxed and don’t make as many mistakes when I’m in a vocal booth, because I know I can fix the mistakes then.

We do a minimum of overdubs; you shoot to get as much live as possible.

BH: Asked about sequencing?

LW: Tom is really good at it. Don put one together.

BH: Do you have a shape in your head? I call it the wave shape.

LW: Don (Was) has made great records that have sold – Rolling Stones. We’d like to sell records. I was talking with Luke Lewis about the gatekeepers, and getting the radio stations to play our music. I moved to Nashville in the early 90’s because Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded that song (“Passionate Kisses”), but nobody would cut my stuff. The audience is there, but it’s the gatekeepers. It’s a matter of breaking those walls down.

BH: At South By Southwest, you told the young artists don’t compromise, saying “I’ve never met anyone who’s achieved great success who’s made compromises”.

LW: “I’m so stubborn, I don’t know any other way to do it. I’ve probably been more stubborn than I should have been, out of sheer fear. Fear of being over-produced. It’s just because I’m stubborn and a pain in the CENSORED.”

“I’ve been asked to give Faith Hill a couple songs; she wants something edgy. If you want something edgy, I’m your girl! I want a big fat hit.”

Then Lucinda performed a few songs –

1) “Don’t Know How You’re Livin’” – wrote this about my younger brother / prodigal son, same as “Are You All Right?”
2) “Blessed” – it’s close enough for folk music – that’s what Townes Van Zandt always used to say.
3) “Kiss Like Your Kiss”
4) “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” – a Delta Blues song by Skip James, in honor of the hard, hard times we’re living in now. Skip wrote this during the Depression, and it still rings very true today.
5) “Somebody Somewhere” – just recorded song for the new Loretta Lynn tribute album

Thanks for your help, Paul. 🙂 Are you going to either the L.A.10/25 or Anaheim 10/27 Fairground Boys shows? Are you now a convert? 😀

Hmmm…. was already planning on seeing JP, Chrissie, and the Fairground Boys in San Francisco that night. Wonder if it’s possible to see both on the same day…

Mid-TN Today recap –

http://www.midtntoday.com/2010/09/9th-annual-americana-music-association.html

Following is link to listen to the entire awards show on NPR, Lu comes in at about 38:30 to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Luke Lewis, be sure to listen to his speech. There IS hope for the music industry! Then Lu comes on with “Born To Be Loved” at about 48:13.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129538459

Amazing night!