BY ROBERT BAIRD A Fine Pair LUCINDA WILLIAMS NEWFOUND HAPPINESS HAS HER SEEING DOUBLE The ceiling of the Ritz Theatre, on Sixth Street in Austin, Texas, was literally caving in. Great tufts of insulation mixed with plaster hung ominously over the fidgeting crowd. It was 3am, long after beer sales had ceased, and still Lucinda Williams had not come on. This was supposed to be her big night. Her third album, Lucinda Williams, had just been released on UK label Rough Trade. Unfor- tunately, in a tale all too common in the record business, Rough Trade had gone bankrupt just as the until near dawn. record was released, and the label’s By the time the now-seething showcase at South by Southwest had singer/songwriter, who has a repu- rapidly devolved into disaster. The tation for being difficult, launched PA system was funky. And the show- into the first chords of the new case had gone off at least two hours album’s opening track, “Just Wanted late, which meant that Williams, the to See You So Bad,” anger was headliner, probably wouldn’t appear radiating from the stage. Fronting PHOTOS: MICHAEL WILSON PHOTOS: stereophile.com n December 2014 75 A FINE PAIR a band led by the great guitarist Gurf lighter, more optimistic tones. The songs Morlix, she raced through the album, range from ballads like “One More originals like “Passionate Kisses,” and Day,” a confessional plea for another “Crescent City” and the Howlin’ Wolf chance, to more rockin’ and, in one cover, “I Asked for Water (He Gave Me case, politically charged material: “West Gasoline)” in record time. While the Memphis,” her take on the West Mem- angry tempo actually made the tunes phis Three case. Her voice, always the rock harder, it was clear that, despite dividing line between fans and detrac- the title of her preceding album, Happy tors, is strong and sure throughout. Woman Blues, on this March night in Its doubleness aside, Williams’s latest 1988, Ms.Williams was something less is also distinguished by being an all-star than pleased. guitar record that contains the work of Flash forward to 2014 and the release chops. Blame time spent on video games no fewer than seven players: Val McCal- of another new Lucinda Williams or social media, but few artists today lum, Stuart Mathis, Jonathan Wilson, album, Down Where the Spirit Meets the could produce enough material in one Doug Pettibone, Tony Joe White, Bill Bone, a two-disc set of new material go to even make a double, let alone a Frisell, and Greg Leisz. Of the tracks recorded in the studio. Williams mar- successful one. Add in today’s dominance recorded with Frisell, only two, “It’s ried music executive Tom Overby in of tracks over albums, and streaming, Gonna Rain” and a J.J. Cale cover, 2009, and the emotions surrounding which favors tracks over actually owning “Magnolia,” appear on the new record. this project are much happier, much an entire record, be it in download or The balance will form the bulk of the healthier—almost scarily so. physical form, and Down Where the Spirit next, yet-to-be-titled Williams release, “There is a myth that you’ve got to Meets the Bone looks crazy, brave, or a which should come out next year. A continuously live in chaos in order to little of both. cover of Lou Reed’s “Pale Blue Eyes” create. I decided I was gonna prove that “I hope it’s not too long for people,” (which he recorded with the Velvets) wrong,” Williams says in a recent inter- Williams says. “We actually recorded and an old Williams tune, “Jazz Side of view from her home in Los Angeles. “I enough for three albums. It was gonna Life,” rescued by Overby from a demo can’t live the rest of my life in chaos. My be next to impossible, out of all those cassette, are highlights from that record biggest fear was, am I going to be able to songs, to hone it down to one album. to look forward to. get into a solid, committed, loving rela- The other option was to put out two “Bill can play anything,” she marvels. tionship and still be able to write? What separate albums at the same time, like “He’s so spiritual and incandescent or I found out was that if you find the right Tom Waits did, but to me that would something. He just looks like this . person, it does work. But it has to be the really be scary—what if one cancels out he’s so sweet. He’s like a big kid. He’s so right partner. In the past I was in rela- the other one? I still think in terms of al- shy and so soft-spoken and humble, it’s tionships where I just kind of shut down bums, when you could just turn it over.” unbelievable. And he stands there and creatively, and that would just scare the Williams says she wanted to record smiles, and I look down at his feet—he hell out of me, and I’d go running. and release a double album in 2007, always has cool shoes on, red Converse “I knew it could work, because I grew but that Luke Lewis, president of Lost sneakers or something—and then he up around writers, poets and novelists, Highways Records, her then label, was starts playing, and you’re like, ‘Oh my who were married, in the academic skeptical that it would be a financial or God.’ The stuff that I like most that world, with kids running around all over artistic success. So the double album he does is the more beautiful, wistful, the house. Like my dad—he was con- became We st (2007) and its follow-up, psychedelic folk kind of thing. He just stantly writing about everything, from a Little Honey (2008). Does it worry her adds all this color that you wouldn’t get wreck on the highway to a cat sleeping that this new 20-track collection is the otherwise. And he’s so perceptive.” on the windowsill. first release on her own label, the newly A special treat on this album is the “Once I found my soul mate, I found formed Highway 20 Records? presence of Tony Joe White, who it really liberating. In a strange kind of “Not until I was doing an interview happened to be playing a show in Los way, I became more prolific, because it with Uncut magazine and the guy—he Angeles while Williams was recording, just opened up a whole new world of loved the album and all, but he said, and was lured into the studio to add his writing and things to write about.” ‘Well, it’s a lot to take in,’ and I thought, guitar and harmonica to two numbers. And write Williams has. Once a staple ‘Oh, great.’ Tom [Overby] gently “When you hang with him in person, of the physical-media biz, multidisc stu- warned me that some of the critics he’s the same person offstage as he is dio albums—two- or, in extreme cases, probably aren’t going to like the fact that onstage,” Williams says. “He’s the same three-LP sets—occupy a proud place in it’s a double album, and they’re going to person that you hear on the records. the history of popular music, represented make comments about it, and you just He walks and talks it, you know? His by such masterpieces as The Beatles (“The have to be ready. I keep thinking about daughter lives here, and we’ve gotten to White Album”) and the Rolling Stones’ Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde. Not only be friends, and she let me know he was Exile on Main Street. The great doubles was it a double album, but one song playing, and of course we were gonna succeeded in being career-defining state- took up one whole side of the vinyl. be there. ments, significant landmarks in an artist’s And yet it doesn’t feel too long to me. It “At one point, when we were listen- catalog, narratives or small symphonies doesn’t even seem like a double album. ing back to what he’d just done, I said, that would often be sequenced to tell a I’m hoping mine doesn’t either.” ‘God, it sounds like the Jimi Hendrix of story and whose success would show the Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone country soul. It’s psychedelia blended vibrancy of an artist’s vision and the mus- is a very typical collection of Williams’s with Delta blues.’ I never realized how cularity of his, her or their songwriting established songwriting modes, albeit in great a guitar player he is. It’s mind- stereophile.com n December 2014 77 A FINE PAIR blowing. My jaw dropped when I first been abandoned for several years. A heard him play guitar. And then he put rehab followed. Now filled with a mix some of that trademark Tony Joe harp of digital and analog gear, Dave’s Place on. It just made those tracks. has an EMT plate reverb that was once “I went up and hugged him when he in A&M Studios and was purchased was leaving, and I said, ‘Can’t you stay from Herb Alpert. around for more?,’ and he said, ‘Gotta “Alan Parsons liked the place a lot. get back to my fish.’ Fishing is like his George Duke.