 The object of cultish adoration for years, singer/songwriter
Lucinda Williams was universally hailed as a major talent by both critics
and fellow musicians, but it took
quite some time for her to parlay that respect into a measure of attention from
the general public. Part of the reason was her legendary perfectionism:
Lucinda Williams released records only infrequently, often taking years to hone both
the material and the recordings thereof. Plus, her early catalog was issued on
smaller labels that agreed to her insistence on creative control but didn't have
the resources or staying power to fully promote her music. Yet her meticulous
attention to detail and staunch adherence to her own vision were exactly what
helped build her reputation. When
Lucinda Williams was at her best (and she often was), even her simplest songs were
rich in literary detail, from her poetic imagery to her flawed, conflicted
characters. Her singing voice, whose limitations she readily acknowledged,
nonetheless developed into an evocative instrument that seemed entirely
appropriate to her material. So if some critics described
Lucinda Williams as "the female
Bob Dylan," they may have been oversimplifying things (Townes
Van Zandt might be more apt), but the parallels were certainly too strong to
ignore.
Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, LA, on January 26, 1953. Her father was
Miller Williams, a literature professor and published poet who passed on not
only his love of language, but also of Delta blues and
Hank Williams. The family moved frequently, as Miller took teaching posts at
colleges around Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas, and even Mexico City
and Santiago, Chile. Meanwhile,
Lucinda Williams discovered folk music (especially
Joan Baez) through her mother and was galvanized into trying her own hand at
singing and writing songs after hearing
Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. Immersed in a college environment, she was
also exposed to '60s rock and more challenging singer/songwriters like
Leonard Cohen and
Joni Mitchell. She started performing folk songs publicly in New Orleans and
during the family's sojourn in Mexico City. In 1969, she was ejected from high
school for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and she spent a year
working her way through a reading list supplied by her father before leaving
home.
Lucinda Williams performed around New Orleans as a folk artist who mixed covers with
traditional-styled originals. In 1974, she relocated to Austin, TX, and became
part of that city's burgeoning roots music scene; she later split time between
Austin and Houston, and then moved to New York. A demo tape got her the chance
to record for the Smithsonian's Folkways label, and she went to Jackson, MS, to
lay down her first album at the Malaco studios. Ramblin' on My Mind (later
retitled simply Ramblin') was released in 1979 and featured a selection of
traditional blues, country, folk, and Cajun songs.
Lucinda Williams returned to Houston to record the follow-up, 1980's Happy Woman
Blues. As her first album of original compositions, it was an important step
forward, and although it was much more bound by the dictates of tradition than
her genre-hopping later work, her talent was already in evidence.
However, it would be some time before that talent was fully realized.
Lucinda Williams flitted between Austin and Houston during the early '80s, then
moved to Los Angeles in 1984, where she started to attract some major-label
interest. CBS signed her to a development deal in the mid-'80s but wound up
passing since neither its rock nor its country divisions knew how to market her;
around the same time, a short-lived marriage to drummer Greg Sowders dissolved.
Lucinda Williams eventually caught on with an unlikely partner -- the British indie
label Rough Trade, which was historically better known for its punk output. The
simply titled Lucinda Williams was released in 1988, and although it didn't make
any waves in the mainstream, it received glowing reviews from those who did hear
it. With help from guitarist/co-producer
Gurf Morlix,
Lucinda Williams' sound had evolved into a seamless blend of country, blues, folk,
and rock; while it made perfect sense to roots music enthusiasts, it didn't fit
into the rigid tastes of radio programmers. But it was clear that she had found
her songwriting voice -- the album brimmed with confidence, and so did its
assertive female characters, who seemed to answer only to their own passions.
Many critics hailed Lucinda Williams as a major statement by a major new
talent. Rough Trade issued a couple of EPs that featured live performances and
material from Lucinda Williams, and
Patty Loveless covered "The Night's Too Long" for a Top 20 country hit.
However, it would be four years before
Lucinda Williams completed her official follow-up. She signed with RCA for a time
but left when she felt that the label was pressuring her to release material she
didn't deem ready for public consumption. Instead, she went to the small
Elektra-distributed label Chameleon, which finally released Sweet Old World in
1992. A folkier outing than Lucinda Williams, Sweet Old World was an unflinching
meditation on death, loss, and regret. Even its upbeat moments were colored by
songs like the title track and "Pineola," two stunning, heartbreaking accounts
of a family friend's suicide (poet Frank Stanford, not, as many listeners
assumed,
Lucinda Williams' own brother). Needless to say, the record won rave reviews once
again, and
Lucinda Williams toured Australia with
Rosanne Cash and
Mary Chapin Carpenter.
On that tour,
Carpenter decided to record "Passionate Kisses," the key track and statement
of purpose from Lucinda Williams. It shot into the country Top Five in 1993 and
won its writer a Grammy for Country Song of the Year. Other artists soon started
mining
Lucinda Williams' back catalog for material: avowed fan
Emmylou Harris recorded "Crescent City" on 1993's Cowgirl's Prayer and cut
"Sweet Old World" for her 1995 alternative country landmark Wrecking Ball; plus,
Tom Petty covered "Changed the Locks" for 1996's movie-related She's the
One. As the buzz around
Lucinda Williams grew, so did anticipation for her next album. With Chameleon having
gone under, she signed with Rick Rubin's American Recordings label and began
sessions with
Morlix again co-producing. Dissatisfied with the results,
Lucinda Williams' rigorous retouchings led to
Morlix's departure from the project and her backing band. In 1995, she moved
into
Harris' neighborhood in Nashville and through
Harris hired
Steve Earle and his production partner
Ray Kennedy. At first, she was so enamored with their work that she
re-recorded the entire album from scratch. When it was finished, she decided
that the results sounded too produced, and took the record to Los
Angeles, where she enlisted Roy Bittan (onetime
E Street Band keyboardist) to co-produce a series of overdub sessions that
bordered on obsessive. During the long wait for the album, the media began to
pay more attention to
Lucinda Williams; some of the coverage was fairly unflattering, painting her as a
neurotic control freak, but she always countered that it was unfair to criticize
the process if the results were worthwhile.
Rubin mixed the final tracks, but the album was further delayed when he
entered into negotiations to sell the American label. Mercury stepped in to
purchase the rights to the album, which was finally released in 1998 under the
title Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Boasting a bright, contemporary roots rock
sound with strong country and blues flavors, not to mention major-label
promotional power, the album won universal acclaim, making many critics'
year-end Top Ten lists and winning The Village Voice's prestigious Pazz & Jop
survey. It also won
Lucinda Williams a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album (despite being the least
folk-oriented record in her catalog) and became her first to go gold, proving to
doubters that she was not just a songwriter, but a full-fledged recording artist
in her own right. After a merger shakeup at Mercury,
Lucinda Williams wound up on the Universal-distributed roots imprint Lost Highway.
She was the subject of an extensive, widely acclaimed profile in The New Yorker
in 2000, written by Bill Buford, who was nominated for a National Magazine Award
for his work; however,
Lucinda Williams and some of her supporters took issue with some of his more
objective-minded analysis.
Lucinda Williams delivered her next album, Essence, in 2001, after a relatively
scant wait of just three years. An introspective collection, it often found
Lucinda Williams taking a simpler, more minimalistic lyrical approach and was
greeted with rapturous reviews in most quarters. The track "Get Right With God"
won
Lucinda Williams her third Grammy, this time for Best Female Rock Vocal, which
further consolidated her credibility as a singer, not just a songwriter. Paring
down the time between album releases even further,
Lucinda Williams returned in 2003 with World Without Tears, which became her
highest-charting effort to date when it debuted in the Top 20. 2005 saw the
release of two live recordings, one (Live @ The Fillmore) for Lost Highway and
the other (Live from Austin, TX) for New West. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
Contact Grabow for more information or to book
Lucinda Williams for your next corporate or private event.
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