Just like the kinds of country roads she often sings about, Lucinda Williams has had a rambling career, full of ups and downs. Her twenties were spent bouncing between Austin and Houston, refining a sound that blended blues and country with a fresh outlook. It took ten years to score a hit with “Changed The Locks”; another decade followed before Car Wheels On A Gravel Road earned her a Grammy and a new generation of fans. Last year’s double album, Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone, could have a long generational tail to it too. Give it time and the record’s slow-burning meditations on life, love, and loss will seep into your own bones. Williams can harness patience like no one else.
In honor of her sixty-second birthday today, we’re dipping back into our own live archives for a song she performed at the Cactus Cafe back in 1986. “Crescent City” is the sound of Williams looking back to her New Orleans childhood with nostalgia, permanently aware of all the miles she’s put between herself and home.
–Art Levy
