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Re:Masters: Lucinda Williams
The alt-country icon and masterful songwriter confirms the
sweeter outlook behind her rocking new album, 'Little Honey'
By Alan Light
Special to MSN Music
"It's like everybody knows me now," says Lucinda Williams, "and I see them following this story like
a documentary -- 'She's come out of the dark hell, and she burst through and
came out on top! She hasn't gone down a hole, but she found her soul mate and a
band she loves!'"
And that, in a nutshell, is the story of her latest album, the eclectic,
welcoming "Little Honey" (read review). Though, as Williams discusses in this
interview, the whole project isn't happy-go-lucky. It does reflect the
contentment she has found with her fiancé, music executive Tom Overby
(also her manager and the album's co-producer). After years of personal and
professional struggles established her as the poster girl for troubled artists
everywhere, the 55-year-old Williams has made peace with the world -- though a
new digital-only EP of protest songs, titled "Lu in '08," shows that she's still
going down swinging.
The sound of "Little Honey" ranges from the honky-tonk name-calling of
"Jailhouse Tears," a raucous duet with Elvis Costello, to the snarling blues of "Honey Bee." A
closing cover of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top" echoes the perils of
the rock-'n'-roll lifestyle she addresses in "Little Rock Star" and "Rarity."
Williams rediscovered, and completed, two songs she started decades ago: the
lovely, yearning "Circles and X's" and "If Wishes Were Horses."
After "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" elevated her to songwriting
royalty in 1998, Williams has been reluctant to repeat herself. She explored
simpler, sparser language on "Essence" (2001), and went deeper into rock and even hip-hop
styles on "World Without Tears" (2003). With "Little Honey," she
revisits the range of influences, and the signature craft of her compositions,
that first made listeners stand up and take notice.
"I took some risks with the albums since 'Car Wheels,'" she says. "Nothing
damaging, but I know some fans go 'Huh? What?' By now, everybody realizes that
I'm not just a country artist. I'm given permission to do what I want to do. But
I've also shown fans that I'm not gonna abandon my roots, and I never have. And
this album tells that whole story."
MSN Music: The general response to "Little Honey" is that this is the
"happy Lucinda" album. Is that how you see it?
Lucinda Williams: I don't really think in terms of happy and sad, but I guess
there are a couple of more upbeat songs that would qualify as happy. There are
still some darker songs, though. But I think that because I'm in a great place
in my life -- you can just sense it. There's a liveliness to it all, a feeling
of letting my hair down. I think my confidence shows, my maturity and wisdom --
all the positive things come across in the general ambience of the album.
This album is being held up as a contrast to the downbeat tone of
last year's "West" album. However, many of these
songs were written at the same time as the "West" songs, weren't they?
It's kind of ironic, because this album really could be called "West, Volume
2."
Almost all the songs here had been written before "West," and had been ready
to put on that album. But there wasn't enough room, and we were running out of
time and money and we had to narrow down to the best songs we had at the time.
I actually wanted to put them all out and not have anything left over -- to
close the door to that chapter and move on, and have the new record be all new
songs. I thought it would be a challenge to find the emotion when we went back
to these songs, but I got a new band, and we re-cut all of them, started fresh
and it all worked out.
The other theme people are noticing is that you used to take so long
between releases, but lately, you've been putting out an album every year or so.
Do you feel a change in your writing or recording process?
When I went in to do "West," it was the first time I had that many songs, the
first time I had songs left over. Who's to say why that happened. Other than
that, I'd been through the most traumatic event of my entire life: the death of
my mother. That's the only thing I can point to to explain all these songs
tumbling out. That started this flood, opened the floodgates.
And it wasn't only my mom's death. There was splintering between my siblings
out of that, and a relationship with a guy who had drug and alcohol issues and
was emotionally abusive, all while my mother was dying. So when that was done, I
was free physically, and I was dealing with all this pain -- and starting to
demo songs.
Also, being in the studio now seems to inspire me to write -- at night, after
we're done, or in the morning before we start. That's not something that was
common to me. It happened again this time. "Little Rock Star" and "Plan to
Marry" started in the studio during the recording of the album. Hopefully, that
will continue, but who knows?
Last year, you did a series of concerts in New York and Los Angeles
at which you played all your previous albums straight through, one album
per night. What did you take away from that experience? What did you discover
about the evolution of your work?
That I've become a much better writer, which I'm real pleased about. It's
certainly the way it should be. But it's good to go look at the early material.
Everybody has their favorite songs, and some are my earliest songs. And I kinda
wanted to look at that and see if I could figure out why, what is it about those
songs? So I was analyzing my whole circle of albums, and how I branched out and
tried different things.
The moment that catapulted me was when Laura Cantrell recorded this song "Letters" on her album. I
probably wrote that song 30 years ago. It's never been released, never even been
published. It was on a demo tape that she got a copy of from a mutual friend of
ours. And she sent me the advance, and I was completely floored. I would never
have thought of recording that song, and I went, "Wow, this is a sign of
something. I need to review these songs."
Artistically, it can be hard to go back and get into an early song if I just
don't feel it's good enough, but it's an important thing to do. (Story Continues On Next Page...) |
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