lucinda williams

Lawd almighty, but ain't there been some archival albums appearing lately? In the past few weeks Elsewhere has noted albums of Bob Dylan barely out of his teens (here); Kris Kristofferson before the fame (here), Willie Nelson's earliest material (here) . . . and now the great George Jones. The honky-tonk balladeer, country weeper (Things...
> music/3341/george-jones-the-great-lost-hits-time-life-southbound/

Another week, another Willie album? (Previously here the joke was another month, another Willie but . . .) So it has seemed lately -- but this isn't new material: here are songs by Willie from betweeen 1959 and '65,  11 of them just solo with guitar, the rest with a small band. The solo pieces -- only one breaking the two minute...
> music/3320/willie-nelson-rarities-vol-1-great-american-music-southbound/

To be honest, despite very much liking most of Merritt's '02 album Bramble Rose -- and concluding the review, "a name to remember, Tift" -- I lost touch with her augmented alt.country which came with a little sensuality and suggestions of Petty-like country-rock. That said, of course I remembered the name so this came qucikly to...
> music/3321/tift-merritt-see-you-on-the-moon-concord/

As in rock‘n‘roll, country music has its casualties, like Hank Williams who died at age 29 in the back of his chauffeur-driven Cadillac on the way to a gig. Others make a longer crawl to the bottom through years of drink, dope, one-night stands in cheap bars where they stagger through versions of their hits with a local...
> film/3293/crazy-heart-a-film-by-scott-cooper-roadshow-dvd/

Elsewhere agrees with itself that Willie Nelson makes too many albums these days (although the last one Country Music was excellent). But the collection to return to repeatedly is Classic and Unreleased, a '95 Rhino box set of Willie's early years. In it you can hear the gifted songwriter that everyone recognised, and the utterly personal...
> music/3284/kris-kristofferson-please-dont-tell-me-how-the-story-ends-light-in-the-attic-rhythmethod/

When Rosanne Cash crashed into the country music scene in the late 80s she was, as the Americans say, a real piece of work. With purple hair, a drug problem and a brusque manner, she arrived in Nashville from California and immediately alienated the country music establishment. Despite her high irritant factor, Cash - daughter of...
> absoluteelsewhere/3225/rosanne-cash-interviewed-2004-the-road-less-travelled/

As you may already know, Karen Elson from England comes with a number of black marks against her on this debut album: she was a model (and no one takes them seriously, huh?) and her husband is Jack White (Stripes). Still, Carla Bruni made better albums than most would like to give her credit for -- and we shouldn't hold her marriage against...
> music/3213/karen-elson-the-ghost-who-walks-xl/

According to his website, country-rocker Trooper recorded these songs with his touring band 15 years ago in a Brooklyn studio in just four days, then he moved back to Nashville and the tapes were left to languish. Now mixed and mastered these 11 songs (10 originals and a strong treatment of Neil Young's Wrecking Ball) appear for the first...
> music/3108/greg-trooper-the-williamsburg-affair-52-shakes/

The country-gospel duo of Charlie and Ira Louvin are perhaps best known in popular culture as the guys who recorded the album Satan is Real. For the cover they set up their vision of Hell in a quarry where they erected a cardboard cut-out of the Devil and set fire to dozens of tyres (and almost themselves in the process). The album cover...
> fromthevaults/2824/the-louvin-brothers-the-christian-life-1959/

This album by peripatetic British-born, LA-raised country-blues rocker singer-guitarist Bean -- now resident in NZ -- has been around the stereo for perhaps so long I forgot to post it. With a tight, revolving door band which includes slippery and earthy guitar by Mike Petrie, Robbie Duncan, Mark Laurent and Ray Ahipene-Mercer, Bean...
> music/2992/carol-bean-crossing-the-dirty-river-carolbeancom/

In an odd reversal of the journey Marianne Dissard took -- from France to Arizona to create Fanco-alt.country -- this group fronted by Rosemary Moriarty out of Ohio (they are Ramones-like all called Moriarty) have an established following in France where they reside for their alt.country, old time folk. With harmonica, double bass, acoustic...
> music/2953/moriarty-gee-whiz-but-this-is-a-lonesome-town-cartel-border/

In recent years I have been lecturing in contemporary music (rock'n'roll to hip-hop) and it has been an insight for me. After showing clips of a young and wild Elvis for example some students will come to me afterwards and express surprise: they only knew him from parodies as that boring fat guy. History is reductive: it's necessary to...
> music/2921/johnny-cash-cash-american-vi-aint-no-grave-american/

This soundtrack album is from the excellent movie which has been picking up Jeff Bridges acclaim and awards, as it should. He does a terrific job as an aging country singer whose career has been derailed by booze and drugs and itinerancy. And who looks for all the world like Kris Kristofferson might have if he hadn't pulled himself up a notch...
> music/2870/various-artists-crazy-heart-soundtrack-new-west/

Just from the repeated electric strum here, Waylon Jennings was announcing a different kind of country music: and its minimal sound threw even greater attention on his lyrics which questioned the whole country music establishment as epitomised by the smooth Nashville Sound, the Grand Ole Opry and the Music Row writers cranking out generic...
> fromthevaults/2883/waylon-jennings-are-you-sure-hank-done-it-this-way-1975/

Although his previous album This Old Road won some critical plaudits, it is hard to hear Closer to the Bone as much other than a collection of sentimental songs, some of which border on the trite. Kristofferson, especially in recent years, has never been much of a singer (he concedes that) but here his voice really has lost most of its...
> music/2821/kris-kristofferson-closer-to-the-bone-new-west/

Tough and often earthy blues rock/alt.country from a New Zealand-born LA raised singer-songwriter who here calls up some big names (guitarist Doug Pettibone, Spooner Oldham on keyboards) whose credentials (Dylan, Ronstadt, Neil Young, Lucinda Williams) adds lustre to what is a fine collection of self-produced, mostly original co-writes (with...
> music/2782/helen-henderson-twisting-wind-ranui/

The previous album by M Ward, Post-War, was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2006 albums for its dark hues, free-range musical approach (blues, alt.rock, indie-folk, Americana etc) and the fact it had something to say. At that time I noted his musical magpie tendencies (a good thing) and because of its layers said it would stand the test of...
> music/2207/best-of-elsewhere-2009-m-ward-hold-time-4ad/

Long before she was a country-rock cover star and dating California governor Jerry Brown in the late Seventies, Linda Ronstadt was a singer struggling to find her forte. Her albums with the Stone Poneys showed her folk-rock chops and their cover of Mike Nesmith's Different Drum gave them a hit but also signalled a solo career beckoning for...
> music/2748/linda-ronstadt-hand-sown-home-grown-silk-purse-raven-emi/

The previous album by this Atlanta-based singer-songwriter, Lantana of last year, was a revelation: her crystalline vocals conjured up the purity of Joan Baez but her sometimes dark subject matter took her into that emotionally unsettling area where the likes of Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams and Eilen Jewell sometimes set up shop. The...
> music/2693/caroline-herring-golden-apples-of-the-sun-ode/

Of all the songs Johnny Cash recorded in his final years the most moving was September When It Comes on his daughter Rosanne‘s album Rules of Travel: “I cannot move a mountain now,” he croaked. It  brought tears to the eye. Rosanne Cash has had an erratic career: her first albums were excellent then things went...
> music/2630/rosanne-cash-the-list-emi/

If nothing else, and there is a lot of "else" here, the instrumentation on this new album by the Nashville singer-songwriter Kane would be pretty arresting: drums, electric guitar, banjo and baritone sax, the latter from Deanna Varragona who has played with Lambcop. It makes for a sound which can be sprightly (the banjo) but also...
> music/2563/kieran-kane-somewhere-beyond-the-roses-shock/

With the great Lucinda Williams due to return for long overdue concerts, it seems only right to draw attention to this DVD of her first appearance on the Austin City Limits telelvison show in 1989. It was almost 20 years ago and at the time -- although she'd released her first album a decade previous -- she was riding on the crest of her...
> music/2245/lucinda-williams-live-from-austin-tx-1989-dvd-new-west/

After her last, quite exceptional but largely melancholy album West (in part influenced by death in the family) it is almost as if Williams is here staking her claim again to some sassy rock'n'roll threads. The opener Real Love blazes off the disc and the closer is a cover of AC/DC's It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock'n'Roll)...
> music/1836/best-of-elsewhere-2008-lucinda-williams-little-honey-universal/

The new album by the US-Hispanic singer should get a good reception here given her popularity at the last Womad (see tag for interview) -- but this one sees her embracing a more centrist rock position with piercing guitars and a sharp backbeat in places, and at other times reaching for Nashville and New Orleans. Of course the Mexican...
> music/1911/lila-downs-shake-away-emi/

It would be a brave or foolish person who tried to give a snapshot of the career of this guitarist in just a few short sentences: so here goes a fool. Frisell came out of the Midwest (so there's some country, widescreen sensibilities and folk for you) and studied at Berklee with Jim Hall (some straight jazz into the mix). He became an...
> music/1834/bill-frisell-band-lookout-for-hope-ecm/

This alt.country/rock singer out of Austin and Berklee College of Music in Boston came to attention with her 2006 solo album Seven Angels on a Bicycle which won great praise from the likes of Lucinda Williams and Elsewhere for its melodic darkness delivered by Rodriguez in a voice pitched somewhere between innocence and experience. And she...
> music/1790/carrie-rodriguez-she-aint-me-manhattan/

He smoked a joint on the roof of the White House, sang with Julio Iglesias and on We Are The World, and he's still here. And still great -- sometimes. Willie Nelson, much like Dean Martin, has an effortless approach to life -- and recording. He could, as they say, sing a telephone directory and make it sound intersting. But latterly it is...
> absoluteelsewhere/495/willie-nelson-album-reviews-2000-2005-what-a-long-strange-trip/

This singer-songwriter from Idaho (originally, then LA and latterly Massachusetts) will be deluding herself if she thinks that no one will say "early Lucinda Williams" when they hear the track In the End here: the same world-weary, vowel dragging delivery . . . But Jewell has much more going for her than that comparison: with a...
> music/1511/eilen-jewell-letters-from-sinners-and-strangers-signature/

Almost 20 years ago on her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams sang Am I Too Blue, a penetratingly drained song about loneliness and self-doubt. If it hadn’t been for some flashes of jangling pop and a few light-hearted romps in the intervening years, the essence of Am I Too Blue and its honest weariness might stand as Williams’...
> absoluteelsewhere/433/lucinda-williams-interviewed-2007-out-of-the-blue/

Here is another album (like that by the wonderful Jimmy Norman, see tag) which has appeared long after its US release: this from singer-songwriter Speace came out mid-06. No matter, this alt.country/folk/Americana collection confirms why she has been a critics' favourite everywhere from Nashville to New York folk clubs. Speace has a classic...
> music/1456/amy-speace-and-the-tearjerkers-songs-for-bright-street-wildflower-elite/

John Mayall (whose Blues From Laurel Canyon in '68 appears as an Essential Elsewhere, see tag) was undeniably the man who founded the British blues boom in the early 60s and on his albums at the time he covered classic and often little known blues material. His bands during those years included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce (who went on to...
> music/1458/john-mayall-live-from-austintx-new-west-elite/

The last photographs of Johnny Cash told their own story: the thinning grey hair, the once tough jaw bent out of shape by years of painful dental surgery, the lines which spoke of a world-weariness. And the ineffable sadness in those dark eyes as if he was looking into the beyond where he would once again be with his wife June, who died just...
> absoluteelsewhere/398/johnny-cash-remembered-2006-solitary-and-singular-man/

In the days after Hurricane Katrina it was believed that this great New Orleans r'n'b singer had been washed away. Fortunately he had been rescued although his home, like much of that wonderful city, had suffered extreme damage. The interesting thing about the rumours of his death was the sudden recognition of his talent in the wider...
> music/1353/various-a-tribute-to-fats-domino-tipitinas-shock/

With Malin sometimes sounding like a young Mick Jagger, mostly like a slurry and coked up Tom Petty (before he went soft-rock), and with the urgency of Springsteen's Born to Run period mixed with the Stones' It's Only Rock'n'Roll, this album fairly leaps out at you as Malin hauls in supporters such as Ryan Adams, Jakob Dylan, the Queens of the...
> music/1185/jesse-malin-glitter-in-the-gutter-shock/

The man who single-handedly created swamp music, Tony Joe White, records and writes new material seldom these days and his last offering -- The Heroines with guests Shelby Lynne, Lucinda Williams, Michelle White, Emmylou Harris and Jesse Colter -- suggested the pace was slackening even further. A glance at this new album might confirm...
> music/1111/tony-joe-white-uncovered-swamp/

Although saturated in the sadness which has affected her in recent years -- the break-up of a relationship, the death of her mother -- it would be unwise to presume that everything here has turned on those events: Williams is too smart and too poetic a writer to be quite that literal. That said, she concedes the opener Are You Alright? was...
> music/1059/lucinda-williams-west-universal-best-of-elsewhere-2007/

About 15 years ago (at least) I saw a short-lived Auckland band The Dribbling Darts of Love which was fronted by Matthew Bannister, formerly of Sneaky Feelings. I'd always liked Matthew's music and this outfit -- with his wife Alice on cello -- were excellent. He played one song that I asked him about afterwards and he said it was by the...
> music/964/the-louvin-brothers-my-babys-gone-1955-64-raven-emi/

Iowa-born singer-songwriter Brown is one of those singer-songwriters that other artists line up to pay tribute to: in fact Lucinda Williams, Ani DiFranco, Gillian Welch and others appeared on a tribute to him a few years back. He's a poet (he recorded an album of William Blake poems) and is very much in the boho-Beat Generation lineage whose...
> music/896/greg-brown-the-evening-call-red-house-elite/

Believe it or not, when I was a kid my dad -- who had spent time at sea and was never happier than when on a ship -- not only played my Beatles and his Louis Armstrong albums with equal enjoyment, but would often bang on a Burl Ives album of sea shanties. My younger sister and I grew up to the sound of him singing, "My father was the...
> music/901/various-rogues-gallery-anti-shock/

To be honest, I thought he'd died years ago. Most people who influenced Bob Dylan back in New York in the early 60s -- like Woody Guthrie who mentored Elliott -- are long gone. But not Jack, it seems. For one of Dylan's first gigs he was billed as "the son of Jack Elliott" (who was born Elliot Adnopoz 75 years ago) because...
> music/887/ramblin-jack-elliott-i-stand-alone-emi/