I have a blind spot when it comes to early Lucinda Williams Happy Woman Blues, Lucinda Williams, you know “I Lost It”, “Passionate Kisses” that kind of stuff, but the more important she got the less amused I was and then while the world fell to its knees in front of the god like Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, I never got past “2 Kool To Be 4Forgotten” and a dragged out “I Lost It” didn’t much help.
I followed that with an astonishingly bad live show that even Costello showing up for a coupla songs didn’t save in the early 00s and I was gone. whenever she gears up for a country blues jam I begin to nod off and she does it a lot. Reminds me of Pete Townshend writing about the birth of the guitar solo in his autobiography, basically it was made to kill time after the move from 20 minute to one hour rock shows.
But the buzz over the nearly 104 minute, 20 songs Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone has been deafening and I’ve listened to it a coupla times and really, who has the time to search out “East Side Of Town”? I am not a fan of her singing, though I am of her lyrics, and her songwriting is hit and miss. Here it hits big time enough times to be worth a deeper look. Hence the gig.
Anyway, Lucinda has a whole lot banking on this double album and I am thinking the live show is gonna be terrific so I am gonna check it out at a still not sold out Beacon Theatre and maybe let that guide me to the temple of LW.
