Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams

SOUL MIGRATION
Lucinda Williams Talks About the New Direction She's Charted on West
For the better part of 25 years, Lucinda Williams has been one of the most uncompromising -- and most riveting -- singer-songwriters on the American landscape. From folk beginnings to a spot at the forefront of what would become known as Americana, Williams has maintained an aesthetic as rich and changeless as the Delta soil that nurtured her as a youngster. West may be the most direct collection of songs in her three-decade career, thanks in part to the immediacy of subject matter that includes the death of her mother and the less-than-amicable breakup of a long-term romance. To Williams's credit, however, the album never comes across as an exercise in journal writing or dirty-laundry airing. She simply spins her tales -- each awash in vivid emotion -- and lets the listener absorb the good, the bad, and the ugly, ultimately pointing toward redemption just over the horizon. Williams recently gave Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague a look to the West.

Barnes & Noble.com: The songs on West sound like they're definitely part of a sort of song cycle -- like they were all written in fairly close proximity.

Lucinda Williams: They deal with a certain chapter in my life, and they tell a story. I continued to write new songs all through the process, even after we'd blown through the recording budget. It was hard to narrow it down. I wanted to do a double CD; actually, then [I] thought [about] maybe doing a Volume One and Volume Two. Those songs are still gonna come out, maybe on the next album.

B&N.com: It sounds like you took a different approach to sound here, opening things up a bit.

LW: There were probably some things that lent themselves to that -- it wasn't a conscious decision. Working with someone like Hal Willner certainly had a major impact on the outcome of the sound. He brought in certain players, like Jenny Scheinman on violin, who did all the string arrangements for the songs, and Rob Berger, who did all the keyboard stuff. I think it was a good combination of his input and my input.

B&N.com: What in Hal Willner's past made you think he'd be a good match?

LW: Marianne Faithfull's Strange Weather album was probably the one that made me think it would probably work. That album is derived from folk and blues roots, yet it has this very mature, womanly quality to it. It's very modern sounding, but very traditional at the same time. I kind of wanted to stretch out a little more for a while. A lot of things I do on my records are things I've been wanting to do, but maybe never did. It's not like I wake up one day and change what I want to do all of a sudden. These things have always been a part of me.

B&N.com: Have people ever expressed surprise to you about changes in your sound?

LW: I started off as a solo artist doing the whole singer-songwriter thing, but that was by default more than anything. I started playing folk songs on guitar because that was the easiest thing for me to do. [laughs] I always listened to a lot of different music. My dad is a big jazz fan, and my mom played piano -- I tried to learn that but I wasn't patient enough. Every time I meet new people, I get introduced to new kinds of music. Tom [Overby, Williams's beau and West's executive producer] has turned me on to a lot of stuff -- artists like Thievery Corporation, Kruder & Dorfmeister, M.I.A. …To me, it's all connected, it all goes back to the Delta blues stuff I devoured as a teenager. I was obsessed with that, and I hear that in the Black Keys, the White Stripes, a lot of bands that use that Delta funkiness and kinda bring it up to date.

B&N.com: You can kind of hear that on some of West's songs -- like "Wrap Your Head Around That" and the other more in-your-face songs.

LW: Well, that kind of stuff is never really thought out. When I go into the studio, my approach is very organic, really. I kept writing songs and bringing them in, and we were kind of messing around more than anything. That one, for instance, turned into a kind of jam thing -- the original rough mix was even longer than that.

B&N.com: How about a song like "Come On," which definitely sounds like it's aimed at one person in particular?

LW: Yeah… [laughs] I guess you could say there's a certain amount of satisfaction I got from that. It's kind of like Bob Dylan song "Positively Fourth Street," I guess.

B&N.com: There are a few songs about the recent death of your mother. Did writing something like "Mama You Sweet" help you get through that experience?

LW: It did. It always does. That's why I write to begin with, you know? I'm trying to sort through things. That song basically deals with sort of the burden that you're carrying…all the things you learned from your mother or your father, the things they pass on to you. I guess it's saying that now that this person is gone, you have to deal with stuff. My mother was a troubled individual, and she was in a lot of pain her whole life, so I witnessed a lot of that when I was growing up. It's not a resentful song, just a realistic one.

B&N.com: Does the song "Fancy Funeral" also stem from that?

LW: That's a pretty literal story. Before she died, my mother, who had been in poor health for a long time, expressed that she didn't want a big deal -- she just wanted to be cremated and have a small ceremony. I wanted to do that, but then [other family members] showed up and kind of input their opinions about how we should have a proper burial. I got caught up in a surreal situation -- I'd never ever been in a funeral home before. You actually have to go shopping for things to bury people in. It's bizarre; you're really emotional and they take advantage of you. It was a nightmare.

B&N.com: You once said that you couldn't write a song when you were in a happy relationship -- and you've mentioned recently that you're in one. Have you changed your mind about that?

LW: I used to think that. It was true until I met Tom. He's the first man I've been able to live with and still feel true to myself and feel all the emotional and creative freedom I felt before. That's how I knew he was the right person for me.

February 2007