Tag: Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams: “Good Souls Better Angels” (album review)

Lucinda Williams Good Souls

The new album from Lucinda Williams — Good Souls Better Angels (2020)– is a far cry from her 1992 album Sweet Old World. Of course, the world has changed a lot since 1992 and so has Williams. But her new album, veering at times more toward punk music and blues than country, still reflects her great talent.

Recorded in Nashville with Williams’s band Buick 6, the album Good Souls Better Angels is from a powerful singer and strong person asserting herself amidst a crazy world. In the opening blues track, Williams proclaims, “You Can’t Rule Me,” and you believe her.

Her energy comes through on such songs as “Wakin’ Up,” about an abusive relationship, and “Man Without a Soul” (“You bring nothing good to this world”) about Donald Trump.

But she also reveals softer moments in some of the highlights of the album, including “Big Black Train” and the closing track “Good Souls.”

Many reviewers love the new album. Pitchfork calls it an “unsparing new album” with “some of the heaviest, most inspiring music of [Williams’s] career.” Others have compared it unfavorably with her best work. AllMusic reports that Good Souls Better Angels is “full of fierce, engrossing music from a great band with a mesmerizing frontwoman, but as fine as that is, it comes from someone who is capable of better work.”

I’m still listening to the album more and more. And although at this moment I do not yet know if it will become my favorite Lucinda Williams album, it is the album for our current era. Williams captures the anger, insanity, and, yes, beauty, of our times in a powerful album. And I’m not sure you can ask for more than that.

What do you think of Good Souls Better Angels? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Lucinda Williams: “Man Without a Soul”
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    Lucinda Williams: “Man Without a Soul”

    Lucinda Williams Man Without Soul Trump

    Lucinda Williams is tackling social and political issues in her upcoming album, Good Souls, Better Angels (2020). The first track released off the album is the song “Man Without a Soul.”

    From the title, one may correctly surmise that the song is about the current occupant of the White House. In the song, she warns the president that somehow it will all come to an end. Williams sings, “You bring nothing good to this world, beyond a web of cheating and stealing/ You hide behind your wall of lies, but it’s coming down/ Yeah, it’s coming down.”

    You may hear the track at Rolling Stone or check out a live performance of “Man Without a Soul” below.

    Williams and her husband Tom Overby produced the album with Ray Kennedy. Good Souls, Better Angels will hit the Internet on April 24, 2020 through Highway 20/Thirty Tigers.

    Leave your two cents in the comments.

    Buy from Amazon

  • Lucinda Williams: “Good Souls Better Angels” (album review)
  • Matthew Ryan Reminds Us What Matters on New EP “Fallen Ash & Embers”
  • Lucinda Williams Joins Jesse Malin on “Room 13” (Song of the Day)
  • Matthew Ryan Finds Beauty Within Our National Affliction: “On Our Death Day”
  • Dwight, Lucinda, and Steve: “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)”
  • When Cotton Gets Rotten
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    Lucinda Williams Joins Jesse Malin on “Room 13” (Song of the Day)

    I have been a fan of Jesse Malin’s work since he released The Fine Art of Self-Destruction in the U.S. back in 2003. So, I was particularly excited to hear that Lucinda Williams was producing his latest album, Sunset Kids.

    The album also features a duet with Malin and Williams. The song is “Room 13.” Malin explained to Rolling Stone that that song is about loneliness: “Music can be a great way to hide the pain and loneliness, but sometimes you’ve gotta deal with it head on. ‘Room 13’ is that place far away from the distractions, the noise and the telephone zombies. It’s a place where you’re forced to reflect on what really matters most.” Check it out.

    Malin’s album Sunset Kids will hit the Internet on August 30, 2019 on Wicked Cool Records.

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    Dwight, Lucinda, and Steve: “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)”

    Loud Smoke

    Dwight Yoakam recently posted a video of a rehearsal of “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music).” Yoakam is currently touring with Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams. So, the two join in for a rousing rendition of the song.

    Yoakam, Earle, Williams and the band jam on the song with the band in the dressing room before their show, which is part of their “LSD Tour.” Check it out.

    “Dim Lights, Loud Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)” goes back many decades. Joe Maphis, Rose Lee Maphis and Max Fidler wrote the song, which was first recorded in 1952 by Flatt & Scruggs.

    The video is by Emily Joyce Photography. Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris

    Emmylou Harris Tribute

    On January 10, 2015, a group of great performers came together at Washington, DC’s DAR Constitution Hall to honor Emmylou Harris. To celebrate Harris’s work, Rounder is releasing DVD and CD versions of The Life & Songs of Emmylou Harris: An All-Star Concert Celebration, created and produced by Blackbird Presents.

    The performers on the DVD and CD feature many of my favorite artists. The package includes music by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Vince Gill, Patty Griffin, Chris Hillman, Iron & Wine, Alison Krauss, Kris Kristofferson, Daniel Lanois, Martina McBride, Buddy Miller, Conor Oberst, Mavis Staples, Sara Watkins, Lee Ann Womack, and Lucinda Williams.

    Of course, the celebration would not be complete without Emmylou Harris. She performs “Boulder to Birmingham,” a song she co-wrote about Gram Parsons after he passed away. The song originally appeared on Harris’s 1975 album Pieces of the Sky.

    Below, Harris performs “Boulder to Birmingham” at the celebration concert with a little help from her friends. She begins singing the song alone before the others join her onstage. It is not much of a stretch to see the symbolism in the arrangement, considering how Harris must have felt so alone after Parson’s death. But her fans and colleagues, who in many ways are children of Gram Parsons, remind her that she is not alone. It is a beautiful song, and this performance is a nice arrangement.

    The Life & Songs Of Emmylou Harris: An All-Star Concert Celebration will be released in various forms on November 11, 2016.

    What is your favorite Emmylou Harris song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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