Octo_Russ

Lucinda Williams [Car Wheels On A Gravel Road]

Just lately i've had a rash of female singer songwriters in my Blog, what with Shawn Colvin and Kathryn Williams recently, and Nanci Griffith mid month too, i played this disc 16 months ago and reported my feelings in my Blog [26th March 2010], and here it is again, i actually played this over the park as i watched the sun go down, it's a very 'twangy' album in many ways, Williams is great with off the cuff stories and ideas, even the picture's very down to earth.

Lucinda Williams is now 58, yes the big 60 looms, and it seems hard to fathom she's old enough to be Grandmother material, she was born in Louisiana USA, and she recorded this album in 1998, the front cover is really appropriate, a self-built wooden house down a dirt road [photo by Birney Imes].

Most of these tracks i really enjoyed, but tracks 3, 7 & 9 are the highlights on the album, showing Lucinda Williams at her songcraft best, here's a synopsis of each,

3 2 Kool 2 Be 4 Gotten - my favourite track of the album, starting with a solo martial snare drum beat intro [0:00-0:10], a really excellent way to start a track [drums by Donald Lindley], and Gurf Morlix's twangy electric guitar comes in and completes the intro [0:10-0:25], and it's these two that create a real groove throughout that makes the track, Williams is very idiomatic in her wording, each of the three verses starts off restrained, but ends up more emotional, or maybe it's just the little stories she spins, i like the lyrics at the start of the second verse, 'man running through the grass outside, says he wants to take up serpents', you have to comprehend the 'bible south' to fully get that, the start of the third verse is especially restrained, with Gurf Morlix restraining the use of his guitar, so it's more Williams and the snare drum in duet [3:08+], plus the extra snare drum solo just before that, a fantastic track.
7 Can't Let Go - the dobro intro is excellent [Williams i believe], and with a couple of slide guitars in there, it's very bluesy, a Randy Weeks song, love the lyrics 'feel like i been shot didn't fall down',
9 Metal Firecracker -