Most any musical artist today will scowl when someone tries to
\npeg their style down to a particular genre. Can you imagine asking
\nPrin…URHHH… “The Artist” about if the new album will be his
\ntypical R&B stuff, asking Tool how it feels to be such an
\ninnovative heavy metal band? Or asking Lucinda Williams why she
\nhasn’t broke it big in the “country” market?<\/p>\n
Lucinda Williams is a near legendary singer-songwriter known for
\ntaking about a half-decade to make each album. Too unconventional
\nto fit into the new country flock and too roots oriented to cross
\nover into adult contemporary, Williams is burdened by her greatest
\ngift: her songwriting.<\/p>\n
So, you can’t really blame her for trying to get a little karma
\nfrom the contemporary country music explosion of the early 1990’s
\nwith her album,
\nSweet Old World<\/i>. After all, Garth Brooks was breaking the
\nsales registers, people were doing the “Achy Breaky” and hoot
\nskooting to the local country swing bar.<\/p>\n
\nSweet Old World<\/i> sounds more polished than her 1988 major
\nlabel debut. And
\nSweet Old World<\/i> had what it took to get to the top of the
\ncountry music charts: she had a pensive ballad to hook in the baby
\nboomers (“Prove My Love”) and a playful ditty that would go great
\non the dance floor with “Lines Around Your Eyes.”<\/p>\n
But she was still Lucinda Williams. The opening song, “Six
\nBlocks Away,” opens with a lovely visual play on a guy who works at
\na donut shop who is lovelorn. But don’t awwww…yet. By the end of
\nthe song, we see the person walking erratically down the street and
\navoiding contact with other people. By the end of the song, we’ve
\ngot a clear cut stalker as the center of attention of the song.<\/p>\n
Another raw song, “Pineola,” tells the story of a little girl
\nwho is coming to terms with the suicide of a family friend. Her
\nheartful lyrics feel as raw as a sudden dust storm. “Born and
\nraises in Pineola \/ His mama believed in the Pentecost \/ She got
\nthe preacher to say some words \/ So his soul it wouldn’t be lost,”
\nit’s an unforgettable lyric.<\/p>\n
Those who love Bonnie Raitt should by all means pick up
\nSweet Old World<\/i> just to hear the blues shuffle of “Hot
\nBlood.” Another ballad, “Something About What Happens When We
\nTalk,” stand up with some of Raitt’s best work. Again, her barren
\ndelivery of lyrics like, “Conversation with you was like a drug \/
\nIt wasn’t your face\/ so much as it was your words.”<\/p>\n
For songwriters, Williams is a great example of how someone can
\nbe a great songwriter by using simple words and phrases. Only
\nproblem is that for every brilliant writer like that, there is
\nabout 1,000 bad poets who are trying right now to find the right
\nrhyme for “beer” or “irony.”<\/p>\n
Lucinda Williams got even better with her craft with her
\nexcellent album,
\nCar Wheels On A Gravel Road<\/i>. True,
\nSweet Old World<\/i> stands as a class by itself, but it seems
\nthat sometimes Williams’ true self shines in half of the brilliant
\nsongs and the two or three commercial songs in it feel like she was
\nforced to put them on just to move some copies at the record
\nstores. But heayah, if there’s any artist out there that deserves
\nto make a comfortable living by writing great songs, it is
\ncertainly Lucinda Williams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6161],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36326","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lucinda-williams","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36326"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36326"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}