WHEN Lucinda Williams released her brilliant breakthrough eponymous album in 1988, she revived Gram Parsons’ dream of creating cosmic country music.
Williams, with her distinctive, lustrous drawl and world-weary lyrics, was ideally suited to carrying the “alternative country” torch, with Emmylou Harris running out of steam and Steve Earle yet to hit his stride. This album has been unavailable for a decade, but is now rereleased on Williams’s own label, along with 20 live tracks, 14 from a concert in Holland in 1989.
It includes the rousing country rocker Passionate Kisses, later a massive hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter; The Night’s Too Long, a swirling, epic story of a young girl’s hopes and dreams; the haunting, painterly Big Red Sun Blues; and Am I Too Blue?, defined by Williams’s trademark aggressive self-doubt.
Thankfully this self-doubt, which was in evidence when Williams played in York last year and mistook our quiet appreciation for indifference, is absent from the album’s live tracks where her raw and heartfelt interpretations make this anniversary edition a real cause for celebration.
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