West Review

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West ReviewIt may only be March but I have to say that this is going to be one of my records of the year.
Lucinda Williams has always been a peerless songwriter.She writes about lust, love, and losslike nobody else, and on this album, co-produced with Hal Wilner, she takes on such subjects as her mother's death, the state of the world, and yet another tumultuous relationship which ended badly. It's her usual tough stuff, but this time, Lucinda sneaks in a note of hope and even redemption in the very bluesy mix.
The album's 13 songs together form a largely down-tempo disc, but "West" doesn't only find Williams in a somber mood.
"Mama You Sweet" is upbeat and "Come On" is a nasty, almost raunchy kiss-off, musically akin to "Atonement" from her last album, 2003's "World Without Tears".
She injects doses of hope and light in tracks like "What If", in which she imagines a world where the president wears pink and a prostitute is a queen.
There are uncomfortable truths here, carried on easy-going melodies. "Fancy Funeral" is a wry look at death's priorities that flows as easily as drink.
Williams lost her mother and an errant lover as these songs were being written. These two truncated relationships fill "West" with exquisitely turned suffering; Williams and band provides the expert musical succour. Hal Wilner is the producer who organised this record's quietly unconventional sounds as Williams wanted them.
Equally raw and sensual is the unravelling blues of "Unsuffer Me", where Williams's ravaged voice begs: "Undo my logic/ Undo my fear" with an intensity that verges on the erotic.
Subtle and heroically blunt by turns, "West" is a meditation on abandonment and recovery, abandon and regret that deserves to be hauled out of the Americana ghetto and celebrated everywhere wounded hearts beat.
This collection sees her at her best with emotion, raw power and intoxicating, intense tunes which should appeal to much more than country and folk fans.
Four years on from "World Without Tear"s comes this studio album from Lucinda Williams, her eighth in a 37-year career - she doesn't rush.
OK, the predominant theme is pain, and no one does pain as eloquently as Lucinda - or as multifariously.
Yet "West" is all musical mood swings: from stoic, heartbreak country to fierce revenge rock, retro pop to folk, poetry to rap, mellow California to dark LA rock.
What makes Lucinda Williams such an important country artist, besides the excellent songwriting and that sultry, scarred southern voice, is her skill at stretching the genre's boundaries while mining its essence.
Which, often as not, is pain.West OverviewWith West, a disc that may well be Lucinda Williams' most personal work to date, the singer-songwriter channels both her emotion and restive creative energy into a startling set of songs that touch on both darkness and redemption. At turns strikingly spare and compellingly muscular, the album's 13 cuts attest to her willingness to stretch as a musician - and to put herself on the line as a chronicler of life. 'The songs deal with a chapter in my life there's a lot of pain and struggling, but it ends with a look towards the future.' Lucinda Williams.

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World Without Tears Review

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World Without Tears ReviewYikes! Lucinda really split herself wide open on this one. As a huge fan of her self-titled and "Car Wheels..." releases, I struggled with the nakedness of "Essence" and grew to love it. Again, with this release, I had a hard time getting through it the first time, but it gets easier with each listen. The lyrics are sheer poetry, albeit dark, painful, poetry. And Lucinda's delivery makes them darker and even more painful. I think a first-time listener might be turned off if this were their first Lucinda Williams experience.
My favorite song on this release is "Righteously". As I've played it, several people have stopped by my cubicle and asked, "What are you listening to? That song rocks!" Almost stripped down musically, it has a wailing guitar and strong bass line that moves the song along. The last line is my favorite - - "Be my lover don't play no game, Just play me John Coltrane".
"Ventura" has a beautiful steel-guitar, wavy-feeling kind of sound. "Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings" (great title!) sounds very Neil Young-ish to me. "Overtime" is classic heartbreak, almost Patsy Cline-ish...the simple drum work and the verby guitar along with the simple lyrics work beautifully well together.
In most of her songs, Lucinda doesn't subscribe to the pop structure of songwriting - - stanza, chorus, stanza, repeat chorus, etc. Instead the songs are more like poems with wonderful music accentuating them. I can never decide if Lucinda's vocals are a strength or a weakness...they are often rough and "hick-ish", but they do add a substantial amount of depth to the words. While I can imagine a "better" singer singing them, I realize the song would lose so much of its impact if it were slick and smooth.
I think Lucinda has come to terms with never hearing her music played on commercial radio stations across the country. Still, and admirably so, she refuses to sell out her themes and her musical style for the spoon-fed masses, and instead brings out a different kind of honesty, a different kind of love, a different kind of relationship, those not usually revealed or acknowledged in the mainstream. We're talking about abusive and drug-addicted, twisted and unhealthy relationships here. There's not very much warm and fuzzy going on. Proof that angst is a wonderful catalyst for art.World Without Tears Overview

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Live @ The Fillmore Review

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Live @ The Fillmore Review"Car Wheels on A Gravel Road" was a Grammy-winner that introduced millions of new fans (including me) to the brilliant performer Lucinda Williams whose poetic lyrics, memorable tunes and country-rock sound seemed both fresh and timeless, especially to fans of Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Her subsequent albums, however, did not seem to reach her new fan base. The spare but evocative lyrics turned stark and minimal, and the emotions they revealed seemed extremely personal. The music was somewhat the same, but darker, more claustrophic, an accompaniment to the obsessive mood. I liked these albums ("Essence" and "World Without Tears") but if you didn't find them a little disturbing, you really weren't listening.
With "Live @ the Fillmore," Lucinda seems to be breaking all ties to the "Car Wheels" gal, and saying to her fans that this intense, internal, obsessive space is where she's at and where she's staying. This album is not a recap of her career, a greatest hits collection. It is almost completely devoted to the last two albums, and the few earlier songs that she includes either predicted her current direction, or are reinterpreted here in a darker vein than the originals.
Does she sell these songs? I would say yes, completely. They benefit from the greater expressiveness of live performances. Her vocal delivery is even harsher, the incredible steel guitar/electric guitar work of Doug Pettibone is even more expressive, at times sheer metal noise, at other times lonesome sobbing. These songs seem very close to the bone; I almost felt I was a Peeping Tom hearing her bemoan a hit and run lover in "Those Three Days," instruct a too-selfish lover in "Righteously," or paint a dark picture of solitude in "Ventura." This is a full-grown woman in three dimensions, a woman who has not found love to be much more than a momentary release followed by aching disaster. It can be scary. But it is artistically brilliant and satisfying.Live @ The Fillmore OverviewLost Highway is set to release the first-ever live album from Grammy Award-winning artist Lucinda Williams. Lucinda recorded this collection of live songs over her 3 night appearance at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore Auditorium. Live @ the Fillmore is on double CD and comes in a deluxe packaging. All 22 tracks that appear in this collection were hand selected by Lucinda. This double album includes such favorites as 'Joy', 'I Lost It', 'Essence' and 'Blue', but Williams digs even deeper into her past with gritty versions of 'Pineola' and 'Changed The Locks'. Live @ the Fillmore features one of the best bands on the road today, with guitarist, pedal steel and background vocalist Doug Pettibone, anchored by Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Jim Christie on drums and percussion. 2005.

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Dedicated Review

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Dedicated Review"Dedicated" is Steve Cropper's debut project on 429 Records. For those of you unfamiliar with Cropper's track record, he has an impressive resume: a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the staff song writer and in-house guitarist on Stax Records staff, and a member of Booker T & the MGs. He also is credited with writing some true R&B classics: "Knock on Wood," "In the Midnight Hour" and "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." "Dedicated" is a tribute to guitar player Pete Pauling and his band of the Five Royales, one of Cropper's biggest influences, and named after the 5 Royales's hit "Dedicated To The One I Love." Aside from Cropper's guitar playing, the album features an amazing set of musicians which includes bassist David Hood (Muscle Shoals sideman), keyboardist Spooner Oldham (Fame Studios sideman and top notch song writer who has also played with Neil Young), Dap-Kings saxman Neal Sugarman, drummer Steve Farone, and drummer Steve Jordan. There's also an all star line up of special guests: Steve Winwood, B.B. King, Shemekia Copeland, Delbert McClinton, Lucinda Williams, Queen guitarist Brian May, and singers Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette. Cropper's playing on "Dedicated" is classic; his rhythms are tight, his fills original and unique, and it's easy to see why he's one of the best guitar players of all time. The best part of these songs is that they are straight from his heart, something you can easily feel from your first listen. If you want to hear some incredible re-makes of classic songs that feature a phenomenal list of musicians, look no farther. You've found it here!Dedicated Overview2011 album from the veteran guitar slinger. As the original guitarist of Stax Records house band Booker T. & The M.G.'s., Steve Cropper has had a storied career. Voted #36 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, Cropper has worked with Blues legends such as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and the Blues Brothers Band. Dedicated is a tribute to R&B and Doo Wop act, The 5 Royales. The collection features reworked versions of the groups most enduring songs, and includes duets with Steve Winwood, Lucinda Williams, Bettye LaVette, John Popper, Sharon Jones, and others.

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Blessed Review

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Blessed ReviewWith the eminent status she has achieved in American song Lucinda Williams could not be blamed for coasting a bit. Much time has passed since the two decades of largely unheeded obsessive perfection that predated her late-90s breakthrough.

How fortunate that "Blessed" finds her lyrical and melodic powers at their zenith. Fresh, blazing inspiration is especially evident in spite of her droll, cool-as-cucumber delivery.

The tempo is subdued, but not in the vein of "Essence" or "West," which were immensely tortured and soul-searching by comparison. A decidedly less precious approach to the songs' overall execution plays to their strengths because Williams' outlook, while still immense with thought and world-weariness, is less clenched and more relaxed. Clipped, factual acceptance is therefore fitting in its thematic dominance.
"Buttercup," one of the few upbeat selections, does not set the stage with its classic rock feel and almost boisterous sense of levity as Williams criticizes a former flame in a nonetheless dignified manner. Its chorus is ingratiating with full throttle guitars and percussion. "Seeing Black," written for Vic Chesnutt, does not cast judgment on the troubled singer/songwriter's suicide but scratches the wounds of those left behind. She probes his motivation with a series of unanswerable questions amid searing guitar work from Elvis Costello.
The shrewdly observed, expertly executed title track finds affirmation in unlikely places - "we were blessed by the neglected child who knew how to forgive/we were blessed by the battered woman who did not seek revenge" - and exemplifies Williams' signature incisive simplicity, the backbone of her talent. It informs more than a few songs here, also among them "I Don't Know How You're Living," typical of her slow-burning, marinated, downbeat best. Her vocals wrench as she contemplates what has become of a former love without any bitterness or self-pity - just acceptance of what has happened - and declares her continued good will.

"Copenhagen" is lullaby-like and huggably warm as it offers an olive branch to an estranged friend, while "Born to Be Loved" is deceivingly simple as it insists upon its title phrase. "Soldier's Song" comes from the perspective of a departed serviceman and the family he has left behind. Her sparing matter-of-factness maximizes the songs' effectiveness.

"Awakening" is a swirling, epic tour de force with deadly serious percussion and guitar work. Her vocals, hanging loose and icy in the mix as she repeatedly declares her intentions to accept the unchangeable are bone-chilling in their funereal restraint amid the song's topsy-turvy arrangement - and appropriately so, since the song is a death of sorts in its resolution to put an end to habits that, for more than half a lifetime, have proven unsatisfying.
"Kiss Like Your Kiss" with its summery, meditative imagery sounds like a safe haven in the storm as it waxes love and comfort. It is the most resolute, unambiguous closing track of Williams' career.
"Little Honey" had many incredible songs, but it was more a hodgepodge than a fully focused, clearly inspired album. "Blessed" is a welcome return in that regard. Her major artistic assets are in full evidence, but she also demonstrates a personal growth that provides a unique listening experience from those she has previously offered and that stands well with the quality of high-watermark albums that cemented her reputation. "Blessed" is destined to join that much-lauded company.
4.5 starsBlessed Overview

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