Lucinda Williams LiveArtist: Williams, LucindaGenre: Rock Publisher: Salt Lake City / Kingsbury Hall Released: 09/14/05 |
A Review by Dainon Moody
09/20/2005
I've seen her only twice live – much less than those who like to follow her around like old, dazed stalker-boys, screaming out barely intelligible requests in between consistent praising – but that's still twice more than most out there. When I caught her the first time around, I'd intended to watch her opening band and exit stage left. I reconsidered and decided I'd stick around for the first few songs in her set, sorta try her on for size. I ended up blankly gathering up my things after her encore, absolutely riveted by her performance. I thought I knew why she grabbed me then. After her concert earlier this week, I think I know even better now.
She's already got her corner of the singer-songwriter market secured – that's not even a question. We call her a singer-songwriter because she doesn't lend herself to any one specific genre. It's too easy to throw her into the Country & Western pile. Yes, she wears the battered cowboy hat. She's wont to play in her boots, something that shows off enough skin to expose the mystery smudge of a tattoo on her arm (was it a snake at one point? will she ever tell?) and her jeans may as well be faded blue makeup covering her pigeon-toed legs in a very thin layer. And, yes, she strays towards that territory. She knows it well.
She has no problem name-dropping Townes Van Zandt and Bob Dylan. She talks about how Willie Nelson and Tom Petty cover her material like she's lent cups of sugar to next door neighbors. Listen to “Pineola” or “Out of Touch” and you'll hear a ferocious country singer who's more growl than twang. You'll hear a category creator – countrified angst for your mom and dad's generation. Hey, she crossed the 50-years-young mark a couple years back, so the shoe fits. Audiences eat her anger up like candy because, while it seems real, it's not exactly – it's just for show, just until the song wraps. Then it's back to her charm.
At the same time, she's just as happy to let on Etta James is a huge influence in her songcrafting. In the next album she's piecing together (with – yes! – 25 new ones to sift through), it'll be more evident there than it's been anywhere. “Reason to Cry” already shows us she's a fan of Muscle Shoals and Sam Cooke and Muddy Waters, as does new song “Knowing” and the older-but-always-heart-piercing “Still I Long for Your Kiss”. These are songs she's apt to drop her guitar for and hang onto her microphone stand for fear she might fall over. That's how powerfully she comes across; it seems to allow her voice to leap out and offers you a better look at the balladry that is sometimes overshadowed by her trademark worldweariness. It's why she introduces her band as the Love Band. She breaks your heart and puts it back together again in the space of six minutes or less. It may be a sign of aging gracefully. But it definitely is the crooner in her getting out once in a while.
It appears it's the guitarist in her Love Band (aka Dougy Pettibone) who veers the whole crew into the rock territory but, where he leads, the rest follow (the rest being Taras Prodaniuk on bass and Jim Christie drumming). “Righteously” allows him a chance to play with his instrument a while, veering into ambient territory, something Lucinda admits to liking immensely; she's always urging them on into going a little longer. It's her band that has given the lot of them the reputation for being a rock show versus, well, anything else. And so we thrill at “Changed The Locks”, the hardest rocker of the night and dig on the ZZ Top-inspired “Atonement”. It's there in spades. It's simply a matter of how much she tends to screw with the set list. Tonight, gloriously enough, she tinkered with it plenty. So much so that she says, “I don't know why we even bother with a set list, but I don't wanna do the same damn thing every night, either.”
But, honestly, the real reasons we love her? Here's a new list. Lucinda's a storyteller we can't seem to get enough of. Put her behind a microphone and she's going to make the seats you're sitting in a little more comfortable. It's like sitting at the feet of your favorite poet. She'll take plenty of time to drop, say, 21 or so of her favorite pieces throughout the night, but she'll field requests for other possibilities from random voices in the crowd. (“Yeah, we'll get there.”) Her songs become extensions of a two-hour-plus conversation. So what if it leans towards being one-sided? She'll go on about her last live album, talking of how things – or elements, rather – just seemed to come together and it was time to bank on that old black magic. She compliments the crowd repeatedly, unafraid to let on how comfortable we make her (we responding in kind with more clappity-clapping and even more rapt attention). And her encore's more like a miniature set. How's five songs grab you? She sings of her native Louisiana and speaks of New Orleans in a more somber tone than she has the songs that came before (her mother lived there up until her death a year ago), introducing many of us to places like “Lake Charles”.
She's practically mauling us with a bear hug. And so she's gracious while she's delivering songs that are tired, strained, raspy, drawly, weather worn – and, most importantly, beautiful. And we love her for it. We can't get enough of it.
Then again, maybe it's just me.
© Copyright ToxicUniverse.com 09/20/2005
