Before the Gravel Road

Allison loaned me her copy of “Lucinda Williams” a few weeks ago. She casually mentioned that she and Lucinda used to play together as children. I’m still waiting for a photo good enough to post, but even in the copy her dad faxed to her, it’s pretty obvious which one of the group is Allison, and which one’s Cindy.

It’s also pretty obvious when the one singing is Lucinda Williams. Her last two albums, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” and “Essence” are both award winners. Her third album, eponymously entitled, is just as much a winner, despite academia’s failure to recognize it officially.

If you’ve only heard Lucinda on the radio, you probably think of her as a blues singer. “Can’t Let Go” got plenty of air time, and deservedly so. Lucinda is a blues singer, and a good one. But she’s also that incredibly rare phenomenon: a country artist I actually enjoy.

After her first two albums, “Ramblin’“, recorded in a single afternoon in 1979, and 1980’s “Happy Woman Blues” Lucinda waited nearly a decade to come up with the album bearing her name. In fact, the shortest hiatus after that initial frenzy was the three years between “Car Wheels” and “Essence”, released last year. From a purely chronological perspective, she appears to be a careful artist. Her recordings don’t suggest anything less.

Mixing country ballads, alt–folk, grungy blues, and a couple decidedly pop tunes, “Lucinda Williams” is worthy to bear the artist’s name. Apparently her contemporaries agree; tracks from this album have been recorded by the likes of Patty Loveless, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and EmmyLou Harris, and Tom Petty.

• I Just Wanted to See You So Bad — A song about an innocent obsession delivered in a simple package. The kind of bouncy pop number performers love to use to open a show; simple, direct, fun.
• Night’s Too Long — One of the pure, undisguised country tunes, this one’s a faster tune about Sylvia, who’s tired of the small town, so she heads off to the city. It’s hard to say whether or not she’s happy once she gets there, though. Instead of feeding us a carefully packaged story, Lucinda leaves the ending off; even the lyrics to the chorus disagree with the song’s title:

            She loves the night
            She doesn't want the night,
            Don't want it to end

  All Lucinda’s ballads have an air of reality, as if they’re drawn from real life, not imagination.

• Abandoned — A slow country ballad with some nice guitar work.
• Big Red Sun Blues — More country, almost. Lots of dobro and some almost western swing guitar add fun to this happy blues. Yeah; happy blues; it’s a recognized genre. Look it up.
• Like a Rose — Ah; this one is marvelous. A slow, quiet love song in which Lucinda gets to use her voice as the lead instrument.

            I will open myself up to you
            Like a rose

  Old time country fiddle adds character.

• Changed the Locks — She mentions in the liner notes that she’d been warned not to write a song without a chorus, but she thought it worked. No kidding. A hard-driving blues tune about someone so thoroughly out of love that she changes everything to make sure he can’t find her again. Each verse lists another change, each more extreme than the last, and the final verse lines ’em all up:

            I changed the lock on my front door
            I changed the number on my phone
            I changed the kind of car I drive
            I changed the kind of clothes I wear
            I changed the tracks underneath the train
            I changed the name of this town

  As someone said about John Waite’s “Missing You”, if you have to say it that many times, we don’t believe you.

• Passionate Kisses — The growl and rumble of “Changed the Locks” has barely faded when a double snare snap heralds one of my very favorite songs. Is it really too much to ask for a comfortable bed, enough to eat, and passionate kisses from you? Nice harmonies, a happy beat, a Beatle-y arrangement, and Lucinda’s most earnest singing make this a dead cert for pop stardom. Don’t ask me why it wasn’t a huge hit.
• Am I Too Blue — A pair of acoustic guitars in the intro made me expect a simple country tune. Well, almost, except for the complex chord progression, the challenging and beautiful melody, and Lucinda’s poetic lyrics; other than that, it’s just a simple country tune. It makes me want to slow dance with someone. Let me know if you’re free Saturday night.
• Crescent City — A strong fiddle tune about getting out of this place and just going home.
• Side of the Road — One of the least country tunes on the album despite the omnipresent fiddle, and one of the strongest lyrically. Wistful lyrics delivered with genuine feeling, about needing some individuality, even in the most loving of relationships. It’s not about not being in love; it’s about still being me. Wonderful song which is fortunately featured twice on this re-released version of the album.
• Price to Pay — This one is so country it’s almost a parody, but Lucinda carries it off. Still makes me smile.
• I Asked for Water (He Gave Me Gasoline) — Bear with me; this is a longish story.

  According to the liner notes, Lucinda learned this tune from a Howlin’ Wolf recording, and it’s credited as ‘traditional.’ We’ll come back to that in a moment.

  My recent trip to Arizona resulted in two trips to the famous Prescott Brewing Company, the second in the company of my buddy Rod. When we’re together, Rod and I always trade some music, so on the way back to Phoenix, we listened to soundtrack to “O Brother Where Art Thou?” which I hadn’t heard. It blew me away.

  In the movie, Chris Scott King plays Tommy Johnson, blues guitarist and singer.

  While searching for info on the various musicians on “O Brother” I discovered that King really is a blues guitarist and singer, with whom I am not familiar. Further research is indicated. I also discovered that there really was a blues singer in the 20s named Tommy Johnson, credited as an influence on the legendary Robert Johnson. One of Tommy Johnson’s most popular tunes was called “Cold Drink of Water Blues” which he recorded twice in quite different versions. If you combine both versions, you come up with the song Lucinda Williams recorded.

  I suspect it’s not as ‘traditional’ as someone thought. It is, however, a cranking good blues tune, the way Lucinda recorded it.

• Nothing In Rambling — The first of six tracks added when the album was re-released, this cover of a Memphis Minnie tune is one of the nifties acoustic blues recordings I know. Lucinda dives right in, thumping her guitar and wailing the vocals just like they should be wailed. Makes me think of Robert Johnson, or at least Eric Clapton’s interpretation thereof. Great great track.
• Disgusted — A grinding acoustic blues; originally by Lil’ Sun Jackson. Well done.
• Side of the Road — Very little rearrangement, other than acousticization, but this one exemplifies a bittersweet subtlety. In the original recording, at one point Lucinda pronounces the word “doesn’t” as “dudden” – as in, “it dudden mean I don’t love you.” Now, some people think English should only be spoken ‘correctly’, but I revel in the colloquialisms and variations in the geographical segmentation of the language. When she sang, quite clearly in this version, “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you” I felt something had been lost. Oh well. Still a lovely song.
• Goin’ Back Home — A Lightnin’ Hopkins/Big Joe Williams kind of scraping howling blues. The thin, reedy slide guitar sounds like my grandfather’s old tenor guitar which I’ve bastardized into a pure slide guitar, and it almost makes me think I could play it.
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  Something About What Happens When We Talk — From the opening line, with Lucinda’s voice starting low and then climbing way up there to where you know she’s hurting, this song grabbed me instantly. A song about leaving, about almost falling in love, about the things you think when you wonder what it would have been like if you’d crossed that line between being friends and being lovers. A really special song, delivered with just the right mix of wistfulness and angst. Wonderful.
• Sundays — This is the one tune that just doesn’t seem to fit the rest of the album. It’s very much as if Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders had done a quite John Lennon/George Harrison song. Nice, just out of place.

Lucinda’s discography isn’t too large yet; impress your friends, buy ’em all. Her website is chock full of interesting info (except her birth date, somewhere back in 1953; had to find that elsewhere.)

Her father, Miller Williams, is also an interesting character; a poet who, when compared to Maya Angelou, responded that “she writes classical, I write jazz.”