Lucinda Williams
SHE'S the drunken poet babbling at you from the corner of the bar and making a strange sort of sense if you listen with your heart; she’s the blues player who’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know, but will let you buy them a drink anyway.
She doesn’t really care what the hell you think and you love her all the more for it.
She’s ‘American Music’ in all its messed up glory.
She’s hard-core troubadour Lucinda Williams, recovering from having a, sort of, hit record or two and now revelling in rocking out, rolling with the blues and still cool as folk.
Her band Buick 6 had opened the evening with a strangely persuasive, wholly instrumental, set ranging from Television’s Marquee Moon to a Led Zep medley.
Mississippi juke joint
I’d have preferred to hear it in a Mississippi juke joint but life can be hilariously cruel that way.
When they were joined after the break by the ever-capricious Lucinda, they proved to be astonishingly adept at following her mood swings, from the steamily sexy Essence to the rambunctious Drunken Angel, via a rivetting take on one of her most popular yet most engagingly intimate songs Something About What Happens When We Talk.
The idea that she was celebrating 30 years since her bluesy first album on Folkways (re-released this week) rather than her more singer/songwriter-friendly breakthrough album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road might have foxed a few fans but they ought not to have been surprised.
Only latter-day Bob Dylan manages to nearly contain the essence, poetry and vitality of American music in the same way as Lucinda Williams does.
That’s why she’s special and why we really need her.
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First time seeing Lucinda Williams,and at the risk of sounding like an ungrateful wretch,after a long day I must admit I wasn't particularly in the mood for schlepping along anywhere.
Man alive,am I glad I did!That was the best show I have seen since my last best show (er,[url=h…