Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams is an American singer-songwriter from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Her work spans americana, country, folk and alt-country, and she is also associated with rock and folk songwriting. She is a three-time Grammy Award winner and is noted for her critical reputation despite only moderate commercial success.

Early life and beginnings

Williams is the daughter of poet and literature professor Miller Williams. Her father works in different parts of the American South as well as in Mexico and Chile before settling at the University of Arkansas. She develops an interest in music early in life and begins playing guitar at 12.

By her early 20s, she performs publicly in Austin and Houston, where she focuses on a blend of folk, rock and country.

Recording career

Williams records her first album, Ramblin', in Jackson, Mississippi in 1978 for Smithsonian/Folkways Records. The album consists of country and blues covers. She follows it with Happy Woman Blues in 1980, which features her own songs. Neither release attracts much attention.

During the 1980s, she moves to Los Angeles before settling in Nashville. She performs both with a rock band and in acoustic settings, building a following and a critical reputation. Her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams, appears on Rough Trade Records in 1988. Its single, “Changed the Locks,” about a broken relationship, receives radio play and attracts listeners including Tom Petty, who later covers it.

Sweet Old World follows on Chameleon in 1992. The album deals with suicide and death. Williams then gains wider recognition as a songwriter when Mary Chapin Carpenter records “Passionate Kisses” from Lucinda Williams; the song becomes a country hit and brings Williams the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994.

Breakthrough and later work

Williams develops a reputation as a slow and exacting recording artist, with six years passing between her second and third albums. In that period, she continues to appear on other artists’ records and on tribute compilations. She also opens concerts for artists including Neil Young and records with Elvis Costello, Nanci Griffith, John Prine, Leftover Salmon and Steve Earle.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road becomes her mainstream breakthrough in 1998. It includes “Still I Long for Your Kiss,” which appears in The Horse Whisperer. The album receives strong critical attention, goes gold and wins the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. She tours with Bob Dylan and also on her own in support of the release.

Essence follows in 2001. It uses a more stripped-down approach and moves her further from the country music establishment while gaining an audience in alternative music. The single “Get Right With God” wins the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance in 2002. The title track is co-written and co-recorded with Ryan Adams.

Her seventh album, World Without Tears, appears in 2003. It experiments with talking blues and electric blues. In 2004 she guests on Flogging Molly’s “Factory Girls” and appears on Elvis Costello’s The Delivery Man. In 2006 she records a version of John Hartford’s “Gentle On My Mind,” which plays over the closing credits of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

West follows in 2007 and focuses on personal material, including her mother’s death and the breakdown of a difficult relationship. She later releases Little Honey, her ninth studio album.

Recognition

TIME names Williams “America’s best songwriter” in 2002. Emmylou Harris describes her as an example of the best of what country music claims to be, while also suggesting that the genre loses by keeping her outside its centre. Williams is widely regarded as a major songwriter in americana and country music.

Musicians and collaborations

Williams works with Buick 6 as her band. Across her career she also collaborates with Steve Earle on “You’re Still Standin’ There” from I Feel Alright, and records with artists including Elvis Costello, Nanci Griffith, John Prine, Leftover Salmon, Ryan Adams and Flogging Molly.