PRINTWild honey
Lucinda Williams sweetens The Blue Note on June 15th
COURTESY OF LOST HIGHWAY RECORDS
Lucinda Williams, long hailed as one of America’s foremost singer-songwriters, walks the line between mainstream success and indie cred.
June 10, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
Showcasing both her freshest songs and early award-winning work, Lucinda Williams will cool down Columbia on Monday at The Blue Note. Williams has a reputation as one of music’s most uncompromising and fascinating writers and performers. Her latest album, Little Honey, debuted in October at No. 9 on the Billboard charts and peaked at No. 1.
According to a biography posted on allmusic.com, the singer-songwriter has noted influences from artists as varied as Joan Baez, Hank Williams and Leonard Cohen. She began writing songs after hearing Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. This early exposure to music rooted in Americana led to a comfort with poetry and lyrics that remains apparent four decades later on Little Honey.
For all its lyricism, Little Honey comes across as a slightly tired and watered-down version of Williams. The opening track, “Real Love,” is tamer than her earliest work and lacks the traditional country energy of her first recordings.
However, the album does have its merits. The songs tend to run together, but a standout track such as “Honey Bee,” with its jarring guitar and Williams’ unleashed vocals, makes the listener stop to turn up the volume.
In her career, Williams has made the difficult task of appealing to both a mainstream audience and the indie scene look simple. As a country singer, she flew under the radar until 1998 when her breakout album, the poppier Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, spent 20 weeks on Billboard’s 200 chart. She was in her mid-40s then, and she’s since provided an example to both listeners and the music industry of the grace and artistic development that age can offer. The three-time Grammy winner hits notes that resonate with country, folk, blues and rock fans, but she also pushes boundaries that keep her relevant to the hipster crowd with cross-genre collaborations and covers. Little Honey features “Jailhouse Tears,” a whiskey-soaked duet with Elvis Costello. The album closes with a lusty cover of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top.” Meanwhile, some of the best-known performers across all genres have produced powerful covers of her finest work: Williams won a songwriting Grammy for Mary Chapin Carpenter’s popular cover of “Passionate Kisses.”
The new album, which will likely be the center of attention on this summer’s tour, offers a glimpse into the artistry of her band, The Buick 6, and is sure to provide a breezy set. Peter McDevitt, a booking agent for The Blue Note, anticipates an older, calmer crowd for the show. “I’m not anticipating a young crowd, really,” he says.
The Blue Note show will give fans a look at Williams’ voice and style, which draw attention to her heartfelt lyrics. She carries an earned confidence to the stage that will demand the attention of even those who have no idea about her raw delivery. Although her earlier work tends to weep, her later recordings, such as 2007’s West and Little Honey, showcase the sharp, rugged quality of her voice. Her show could offer anything from the warmth of her early work to the vivacity of some of her recent releases. This veteran will give listeners a chance to decide for themselves if she deserves the title of “America’s Greatest Songwriter,” given to her by TIME in 2001. As Williams’ plans to bring her sound to The Blue Note, Columbia awaits a casual show that will highlight what an inherent talent can do with a stage and a microphone.
Where: The Blue Note
When: Monday, 7 p.m.
Call: 874 –1944
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