I am a big fan of Alison Krause. You might also want to check out Lucinda Williams, particularly her earlier CDs. She is a mixture of country, blue grass, rock and God knows what else. Her voice sends shivers down my spine. She also writes most of her own material. She comes through Chicago with some regularity and I occasionally make the trek downtown to see her. As it happens, she was in Chicago over the weekend. After reading the following review, I wish that I had seen her this time around.
Lucinda Williams tosses set list for emotional jam
By Bob Gendron
Special to the Tribune
Published October 3, 2005
Lucinda Williams had Louisiana on her mind and wasn't going anywhere until she gave the capacity crowd a taste of her native state's traditional sounds.
During an extensive encore Saturday night at the Vic, the singer invited rousing opener and fellow native C.C. Adcock along with his fiddler/accordionist Cedric Watson onstage to join her sharp backing trio for a roadhouse jam session that wove together Cajun, zydeco, blues and swamp rock. The sextet slithered through Howlin' Wolf's "Come to Me Baby," dedicated "Crescent City" to hurricane refugees and whisked everyone off to "Lake Charles."
But they were just warming up.
Full of R&B and gospel rhythms, "Get Right With God" raised the proverbial roof. Hands clapping and hips swaying, Williams gleefully presided over a healing service amplified by Watson's wheezing squeezebox, Adcock's snakebitten guitar reverb and a beat big enough to drive the devil down.
The impromptu display followed what was already the kind of performance one hopes was preserved on tape. Two dates away from completing a six-month tour and in great spirits, Williams' band abandoned the set list a few minutes into the 2-hour concert. Though she has a tendency to mumble slow verses, Williams clearly enunciated each lyric, wringing out a colorful palette of gritty tonal nuances.
With her drawl pouring forth like fresh maple syrup, she was spurned ("Those Three Days"), tender ("Fruits of My Labor), defiant ("Changed the Locks") and aroused ("Righteously"). The 52-year-old's lean body bent into the shape of a crooked cigarette as she inherited the soul of a tough street-corner beat poet on "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten," then straightened back up for the mortality meditation "Pineola."
Another welcome surprise was Williams' debut of four of an astonishing 24 unreleased new tracks. Sizzling with punk rawness, "Come On" extended a middle finger at an ex-lover. Yet it was the skeletal "Rescue" and shivering "Where Is My Love" that reflected Williams' recent move toward dark-themed Billie Holiday-styled jazz ballads, quiet tunes so devastatingly scarred from loneliness that they barely tolerated minimal musical accompaniment.
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