癲狂院 Vixen Owl Cigar..。o○

Let Me Tell You A Secret...


A Grammy Winning Classic
Southern culture, with imagined memories of god-fearing salt of the earth people, has always been a mystery to this psuedo-sophisticated upstate NY boy.
Hotel owners and souvenir stands from Maryland through Georgia all had their charms, in a watered down lets please the Yankee tourist kinda way, but I never felt I truly understood.
I tried grits and way too sweet iced tea , battled bugs the size of a baby's arm and bought fireworks...

Scratchy, with unusual pronunciations -- somewhere between deep South and hillbilly -- it is in turns plaintive, erotic, joyous.
And Williams' guitar rhythms can be gentle (as in "Greenville," Williams list of complaints about a narcissistic, abusive man ) or driving (as in her mantra-like emotional purging of an ex-lover, "Joy." )
On "Car Wheels ," Williams is most likely to sing about -- usually that rejected her, and left her empty of life and pride.

On "Still I Long for Your Kiss ," a track featured on the soundtrack to Robert Redford's "The Horse Whisperer," but done on "Car Wheels " at a slightly faster, less moony, more desperate tempo:
The days go by, but they don't seem the same
I cry and cry, and I call out your name
I go downtown, I see your face
Nobody around can take your place
But you put me down and you turned me away
Still I long for your kiss

And on "Metal Firecracker ":
Once I was in your blood, and you were obsessed with me
You wanted to paint my picture, you wanted to undress me
You wanted to see me in your future
All I ask: Don't tell anybody the secrets
Don't tell anybody the secrets I told you

But as I got older, my cynicism waned and my sincerity grew in direct proportion to the quality of Pavement records.
I no longer viewed the South as a backwater cultural wasteland and my mind started to drift to juke joints, Sun Studio, the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Nashville, Graceland (the place not the record) and the very real/imagined breeding ground for my life's passion, Rock and Roll.
By 1998 (Brighten the Corners, I think ) Ms. Williams released Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, her masterpiece and probably the 90s musical high-water mark, at exactly the right time for me to realize what its all about.
I think I finally get it.

The record was 6 years in the making with a whole lot of reported record company pressure.
Rumors of scraped producers and session men abounded and expectations grew but Ms. Williams seemed resolute in her desire for perfection.
Sonically the record is flawless and was obviously worth the wait.
The snare cracks, slide guitar moans but it is her voice, which has never sounded better and justifiably takes center stage.
The sh-t hot band never overshadows her but always enhances that voice.
With slurred esses and brilliant alliteration, she yearns, drawls and testifies like some Holy alliance of Al Green and Hank Williams Sr..
Absolutely P e r f e c t ！！！！！

Car Wheels On A Gravel Road【Lucinda Williams】
Original, Gritty and Real

This is what the record execs just don't get: music is meant to help us make sense of our lives, our real lives where people and lose and die and dream.
And no cliched pop ballad sung by a pretty boy band or a tarted-up seventeen-year-old vixen will ever be able to match the talents of someone like Williams.
Check the CD book -- all the songs, with one exception and one co-written song, were written by Williams.
I didn't even need to check the book to know that -- you FEEL in the music that she lived through these things, that these things really happened.

Williams' style is not really country or blues or folk or rock.
It's a little of both, and since I artists you can't define (see my previous review of the Indigo Girls' "Rites of Passage" ), I took to her immediately.
The music (and the emotion) is raw but technically polished, performed by Williams and a skilled group of musicians with the demonstrated finesse of a group of pros (Williams has been around a long time, but is just recently getting some long-overdue credit ).

　This is an essential collection for those who appreciate singer-songwriter performers.
It is and is not folk, country, or rock all at once.
There is not a bad song on the recording and all you want to do when the last notes of the last song fade away is to play it again, and again
Maybe I think so highly of this album because I had already fallen in with Williams' songwriting as channeled through Emmylou Harris ('Sweet Old World', on the stellar Wrecking Ball ) and Mary Chapin Carpenter ('Passionate Kisses' ).
Maybe it's because the album was produced by long-time E Street Band pianist and musician extraordinare, Roy Bittan.
Whatever it is, I'm sold.
Easily one of the few Gr8 albums of 1998 (Mermaid Avenue, the joint venture between Billy Bragg and Wilco being another ).

This is one of those CDs that grows on you with each consecutive play, and one that the changing tide of the music business will never diminish.
Even you prefer Nirvana to Emmylou Harris, this is a CD that anyone who appreciates well-written, well-played music will enjoy for years to come.


【Track Listings】
01. Right In Time
02. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
03. 2 Cool 2 Be 4-Gotten
04. Drunken Angel
05. Concrete And Barbed Wire
06. Lake Charles
07. Can't Let Go
08. I Lost It
09. Metal Firecracker
10. Greenville
11. Still I Long For Your Kiss
12. Joy
13. Jackson