The Spill Magazine The Spill Magazine
The Spill Magazine The Spill Magazine
The Spill Magazine The Spill Magazine
  • Reviews
    • Album Reviews
    • Features
    • Live Reviews
    • Festivals
  • Portraits
  • Headlines
    • News
    • Contests
    • Events
    • Entertainment Headlines
    • Concert Listings
    • Toronto Concert Venues
  • New Music
    • Premieres
    • Track Of The Day
  • Track Of The Week
  • Books + Movies
  • About
  • Reviews
    • Album Reviews
    • Features
    • Live Reviews
    • Festivals
  • Portraits
  • Headlines
    • News
    • Contests
    • Events
    • Entertainment Headlines
    • Concert Listings
    • Toronto Concert Venues
  • New Music
    • Premieres
    • Track Of The Day
  • Track Of The Week
  • Books + Movies
  • About
  • Spill Menu
    • Reviews
      • Album Reviews
      • Features
      • Live Reviews
      • Festivals
    • Portraits
    • Headlines
      • News
      • Contests
      • Events
      • Entertainment Headlines
      • Concert Listings
      • Toronto Concert Venues
    • New Music
      • Premieres
      • Track Of The Day
    • Track Of The Week
    • Books + Movies
    • About
Portraits
221
previous article
SPILL NEWS: #CBCMusicFest | 2016 CBC MUSIC FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED
next article
SPILL NEWS: ADULT BOOKS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM WITH SINGLE AND VIDEO

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Lucinda Williams

THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT:
LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Lucinda Williams is one of America’s most critically acclaimed songwriters and recording artists, as well as the daughter of poet Miller Williams. She has won three Grammy Awards and is considered a leading light of the so-called “alt-country” movement. Her songs, with their simple chord structures and gorgeous melodies, incorporate elements of rural blues, traditional country, and rock and roll. They are distinguished by evocative, plain-spoken lyrics that investigate the human mystery. In 2002, Time magazine called her “America’s best songwriter.”

Lucinda Williams was born on January 26, 1953, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her mother was Miller Williams’s first wife, Lucille Day. With her professor father moving from job to job, Williams grew up in southern towns such as Vicksburg, Mississippi; Jackson, Mississippi; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and New Orleans, Louisiana. She also lived for a time in Mexico and Santiago, Chile. As a child, she met many of her father’s writer friends, including Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor, who famously allowed the five-year-old Lucinda to chase her peacocks. By the time she was twelve years old, she was writing her own songs on guitar and performing for her parents’ guests.

Her family moved to Arkansas in 1971 when her father took a teaching position at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County). After a brief stint at UA herself, she began the career of an itinerant musician, playing in bars and coffeehouses in Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; Houston, Texas; and Greenwich Village, New York. In 1979, calling herself simply “Lucinda,” she recorded Ramblin’ on My Mind for Smithsonian/Folkways. It was a minimalist album of old blues and country songs by the likes of Robert Johnson, the Carter Family, and Memphis Minnie. Williams sang and played twelve-string guitar; her only accompaniment was John Grimaudo on six-string guitar. The sole original song was Williams’s own “Disgusted.” Her second album, 1980’s Happy Woman Blues, credited to “Lucinda Williams,” was recorded with a full band and consisted mainly of Williams’s original pop country material. Neither album received much attention.

Williams moved to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1980s, where she fronted rock bands and developed a cult following and a critical reputation. But it was not until 1988, with the release of Lucinda Williams, that she established herself as a singer/songwriter of the first rank. Sometimes referred to as “the white album” by fans and recorded for Rough Trade, a British label that specialized in punk and ska acts, the album was only a minor commercial success, though it earned her a small but intensely loyal following and a burgeoning reputation as a “musician’s musician.”

When Rough Trade abruptly folded after the album was released, RCA stepped in and signed Williams. But when they presented her with sugary, radio-ready mixes of her songs, she walked out. She eventually landed at Chameleon, another tiny independent label, and the RCA songs showed up—mixed her way—on her 1992 album Sweet Old World, a collection of trenchant songs about longing, love, death, and survival. (The song “Pineola” was a fictionalized account of the suicide of a family friend, poet Frank Stanford.) Sweet Old World was voted the eleventh best album of 1992 by the Village Voice’s prestigious “Pazz and Jop Poll” of critics.

In 1993, Mary Chapin Carpenter had a hit with “Passionate Kisses,” off Lucinda Williams, for which Williams won a songwriting Grammy. Patty Loveless recorded her “The Night’s Too Long,” and Tom Petty covered her “Changed the Locks,” both from Lucinda Williams.

In 1998, she released what is often regarded as her masterpiece, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which went on to win a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album. In Rolling Stone magazine, the venerable critic Robert Christgau called the album “perfect.” Williams toured with Bob Dylan, one of her primary influences, and on her own, in support of the album. Williams followed up the success of Car Wheels with the brooding, stripped-down Essence in 2001 and the musically adventurous World Without Tears in 2003. In 2005, she released an old-style double live album, Live @ the Fillmore. In part because of the relatively long time between album releases, Williams has developed a reputation as a perfectionist.

Williams did a number of low-key concerts with her father, trading acoustic versions of her songs with his poetry readings. She continues to tour and write songs. She released the album West in 2007 and followed that up the next year with Little Honey. In 2011, she released the album Blessed. Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone came out in 2014.

Her new album The Ghosts Of Highway 20 is slated for release in North America February 5th.

The Ghosts of Highway 20 from Lucinda Williams on Vimeo.

Portraits
daniel adamslucinda williamsportraitsthe ghosts of highway 20
daniel adams, lucinda williams, portraits, the ghosts of highway 20
About the Author
Daniel Adams
Daniel is an illustrator/graphic designer based out of Austin Texas. He graduated from Pratt Institute with a Bachelors degree in Illustration and an Associates degree in Graphic Design.Daniel started his career in graphic design in the world of online casinos. Since then he’s worked with various clients from around the United States and Canada including but not limited to NHL, Subway, Paraco Propane, Pitney Bowes, Xerox, Conduent, Nestle Waters, The Spill Magazine, Stamford CT’s DSSD, Beechnut Baby Foods, Elizabeth Arden and much more.
RELATED ARTICLES
daniel adamsportraits
 
Mötley Crüe

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: MÖTLEY CRÜE

by Daniel Adams on March 19, 2019
THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT: MÖTLEY CRÜE Mötley Crüe is The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. Vince Neil (vocals), Mick Mars (guitar), Nikki Sixx (bass) and Tommy Lee (drums) [...]
 

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: GROUNDERS

by Daniel Adams on March 29, 2018
THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT: GROUNDERS Grounders’ home base is an overflowing garage in Toronto’s West End, but the roots of their new album Coffee & Jam stretch much [...]
 

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: FEVER RAY

by Daniel Adams on March 21, 2018
THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT: FEVER RAY The solo project of the Knife’s Karin Dreijer, Fever Rayshares some of that group’s icy electronic atmospheres, but takes a [...]
 

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: BJÖRK

by Daniel Adams on March 9, 2018
THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT: BJÖRK A visionary artist who effortlessly blends avant-garde and pop elements, Björk soon eclipsed the popularity of her former group the [...]
 

SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: VAN MORRISON

by Daniel Adams on February 26, 2018
THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT: VAN MORRISON Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music’s true innovators, a [...]

Latest Album Reviews
View All
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE DREADNOUGHTS – ROLL AND GO
8.0
—
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: DYLAN MOON – OPTION EXPLORE
8.0
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: 1st BASE RUNNER – LIGHT ROARS
8.0
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE DREAM SYNDICATE – ULTRAVIOLET BATTLE ...
8.0
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: WARDRUNA – KVITRAVN – FIRST FLIGHT ...
8.0

Tweets by @spillmagazine

SPILL MAGAZINE MENU
  • Home | The Spill Magazine
  • Premieres
  • Track Of The Week
  • Album Reviews
  • Books + Movies
  • Features
  • Live Reviews
  • Festivals
  • Portraits
  • News
  • Events
  • Entertainment Headlines
  • Concert Listings
  • Toronto Concert Venues
  • About Us
  • Contests
  • New Music
  • Spill Magazine Contributors
  • TOTD
  • Privacy Policy
  • The Scene Unseen
  • Newsletter

Copyright © 2022 | The Spill Magazine
All Rights Reserved.

TRENDING RIGHT NOW
   
 
SPILL FEATURE: CRUISE TO THE EDGE 2022 – THIS YEAR’S PROG CRUISE MAKES A LOT OF NOISE. A WHOLE LOT OF NOISE.
747
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: PRIMUS – CONSPIRANOID
588
 
SPILL FEATURE: DON’T YOU FEEL CLOSER? – A CONVERSATION WITH CY CURNIN OF THE FIXX
583
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: THE FIXX – EVERY FIVE SECONDS
466
 
SPILL NEWS: BARENAKED LADIES TO RELEASE LIVE TRACKS FROM SOLD-OUT ROYAL ALBERT HALL SHOW | DELUXE EDITION OF ‘DETOUR DE FORCE’ OUT JUNE 3
343
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: NAZARETH – SURVIVING THE LAW
337
 
SPILL VIDEO PREMIERE: LOST CAT – “L.O.S.T.”
328
 
SPILL LIVE REVIEW: NIGHTWISH w/ BEAST IN BLACK @ HISTORY, TORONTO
317
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: LUCIUS – SECOND NATURE
288
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: DOROTHY – GIFTS FROM THE HOLY GHOST
275
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: AVI KAPLAN – FLOATING ON A DREAM
271
 
SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: FANTASTIC NEGRITO – WHITE JESUS BLACK PROBLEMS
270
 
SPILL LIVE REVIEW: KRAFTWERK @ MASSEY HALL, TORONTO
236
ENTERTAINMENT HEADLINES