Copyright 2007 Ben S. Pollock
Lucinda Williams brings out passions in people. It’s not as black or white as love her or hate her, though that’s what’s you hear. Here at Shady Hill manse, the instant that My Beloved or I hear she’s coming to sing, we tell our friends then buy tickets.
While Fayettevillians and others within range feel obligated to praise her, not everything is for everyone. Two “aginners” (not necessarily local) come to mind: One only has heard her on late night TV shows when she tends to sing the more raucous songs of her repertoire, anthems in rock parlance, no twang. “She hates men,” he says, adding without irony that he doesn’t like country music anyway. Another went to last week’s concert, having never even heard a recording of her. He was disappointed: “Her songs are all negative.” Both men love music in general.
My response to the first — and to each I accepted their comments with no rebuttal because this is mere difference of taste — is that some of the tenderest songs come from k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge, who tend to not sing about men. On the second: Broken hearts move lyricists of every genre: country, rock, pop and stage musicals, too. Lucinda’s loud, angry songs? Cathartic! Lucinda’s country/folkie/rocker narrators — don’t mistake the songs for the writer — have moved on from the fellow who’s bad news, and isn’t that positive, not negative? Happens to men, too: Paul Simon has “50 Ways to Leave.”
Lucinda returned to Fayetteville to perform last Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007. Local write-ups call this her hometown, and that’s relative: She spent teen-age years here, as I understand it, when her father and stepmother, Miller and Jordan Williams, settled here after Miller made the English department of the University of Arkansas his academic home.
We’ve attended three — or is it four — of Lucinda’s concerts, and this was the best. My Beloved’s one word sum-up was “warm,” as in Lucinda’s warmest show she’s seen. Warm works for me, but fleshing it out is irresistable.
First, Lucinda’s voice was not strained, though she’s in the midst of a tour. We’ve heard her husky, and her style might seem to be enhanced by hoarseness, but we like that she obviously was more relaxed here and seemed to be taking care of herself. Emotions are conveyed better, and it’s easier to stay on pitch, too.
She brought her band this time, and they’re extraordinary, versatile as to types of songs, to instrumentation and to where their leader wants to take a piece in the moment, in tempo and tone. Two years ago, she alternated her songs with her dad reading his poems, either solo or accompanied by guitarist Doug Pettibone, and that was intimate and wonderful. But backed by drums, electric bass, Pettibone and another guitarist besides herself (the three strumming or picking a wide variety of guitars, keyboards and mandolin as needed), filled the Walton Arts Center with the now-traditional, electrified, small-ensemble orchestration of all pop music.
The review published two mornings after Thursday’s concert was positive. Check it out for details. This Brick comprises impressions.
The review gave a paragraph to the opening act, old-time Nashville country star Charlie Louvin. A rough dozen paragraphs is fair for a newspaper sum-up, and that means one graf on the second banana is all there’s room for. Lucinda picked well, as Louvin’s work was effective counterpoint, complementary to her variety. But she said from the stage that his music, like other mid-century songwriters, continues to inspire her, that she continues to find substance and sustenance in the roots of what she’s trying to write herself. She introduced her band members with both their childhood towns and current home towns for the same reason, she said, to emphasize roots.
Warm veered to “hot” in terms of volume, my only negative, and others said it was too loud. It came after intermission. Louvin and his band’s volume smoothly filled the hall. I thus was surprised then to have my ears blasted. The sound mix throughout the main act distorted the vocal. The audio crew perhaps didn’t factor in the acoustics of the WAC. I wouldn’t say loud so much as harsh. M.B. and I could hear the words better with earplugs I always store in my coin pouch.
Lucinda’s comments were far from the generic “Hello, Memphis,” of lead singers. Yet she kept them to a minimum, realizing both the purpose of a concert is the music but also because — it seems — she knows she can express herself best through melody and lyric. We felt warmth through the anecdotes.
Solid songwriting in any style is a gift. No less so is the interpretation of a piece. Until recent decades these generally were skills of separate artists. It’s instructive to hear recordings of Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael sing their own, but their verses deserved real singers. Lucinda tops her own songs, but Thursday she showed the vocalizing isn’t tied to herself, from a Fats Domino classic to Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe” (where our star honored the original by rendering it as we remember it) to her energetic cover of “Can’t Let Go,” which she said she wished she’d written but was by Randy Weeks.
Lucinda brought Louvin back for her encore, which further demonstrated this. She sang harmony for one of his classic hits, never overwhelming his soft, 80-year-old voice. Then he sang chorus to her “Get Right with God.” Lucinda said the driving gospel piece was another demonstration of roots, for it was inspired by the old Louvin Brothers band.
During its guitar break, Louvin dropped his microphone, took Lucinda’s hand and they danced for 16 bars. The balcony, packed with a huge variety of people from all over, sat in the dark yet drank in that glowing warmth. Must be Fayetteville.
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