Lucinda Williams on her battle back to health and new album Stories From A Rock And Roll Heart
LUCINDA WILLIAMS likes to tell it like it is. “No sugarcoating,” is her way of putting it.
Recent times have been tough on one of America’s finest singer songwriters but she’s facing up to her situation with remarkable fortitude.
“I just carry on, I trudge along,” she tells me.
In 2019, a tornado blew half the roof off the Nashville home she shares with her partner in life and music, Tom Overby.
It was devastating but, accepts Lucinda, not nearly as bad for her as for those who lost their entire houses.
Not long after that, the Covid pandemic plunged this compulsive communicator into the challenging world of isolation.
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“A prisoner inside these four walls,” she sings on one of her new songs.
Then, in November 2020, she suffered a stroke in her bathroom as she prepared to take a shower.
After a week in intensive care and further weeks at a rehabilitation centre, she returned home unable to play her beloved guitars and having to walk with a cane.
But there’s no “poor me” about Lucinda, “Lu” to her friends.
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She’s been no stranger to setbacks in a career spanning more than four decades. It only truly took off in 1998 with the release of classic album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road.
Now the singer, who turned 70 in January, is doing everything within her power to make as full a recovery as possible.
She’s been back playing live since 2021 and today sees the release of her new album, the defiant, visceral Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart.
As the title suggests, the emphasis is firmly on rock, a perfect example of why this genre-defying artist has complete disdain for her often-used nickname, “Queen of alt-Country”.
Southern drawl
She once said: “I’m too rock for country and too country for rock.”
But if you judge her by the company she keeps, let’s just say that Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patti Scialfa contribute backing vocals to the anthemic title track and the rousing New York Comeback.
It’s also worth noting that Lucinda was born in the same month, January 1953, that her namesake (but no relation) Hank Williams died in the back seat of a baby blue Cadillac convertible.
Country’s first superstar had much in common with her — both maverick spirits with a knack for killer tunes and cutting lyrics.
I’m meeting Lucinda on a warm June day at a grand Victorian hotel in central London.
With the effects of her stroke still apparent, I watch as she steps slowly but determinedly and unaided through the hotel lobby.
She’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans and her hair is cut in that familiar shaggy blonde, shoulder-length mop.
We sit side-by-side on a giant cream-coloured sofa and she immediately sets the tone by looking on the bright side.
“My voice has held up, maybe even gotten better,” she says softly in her engaging Southern drawl.
“That’s what a lot of people have said since the stroke.”
Lucinda says her new album developed into a rock record “organically”. “Usually, we don’t think ahead of time about a theme, we just kind of see what naturally fits together,” she says.
“By coincidence, a lot of the songs were to do with uphill battles, personal and otherwise, and coming back.”
Cue the rollicking call-to-arms which emphatically kicks off proceedings, Let’s Get The Band Back Together.
Lucinda says the song is about being “back in the company of old friends”, while also reflecting the collaborative nature of her latest music.
She has enlisted her pal, New York rocker Jesse Malin, who was more than happy to return the favour after Lucinda produced his 2019 album, Sunset Kids.
“Jesse flew down to Nashville half a dozen times, bringing that rock ’n’ roll element with him,” she says.
“And, much to my surprise and delight, my husband Tom has turned out to be a pretty damned good lyricist and my road manager Travis Stephens has also come up with some great ideas.”
So how did Springsteen end up singing on the record?
“I was sitting round the kitchen table with Tom and Jesse,” she answers, setting the scene.
“We were working on the Rock N Roll Heart song and Tom, who has been a Springsteen fan for ever, said: ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Bruce to sing on this?’
Moving tribute
“Jesse, who knows everybody in New York City, piped up and said, ‘Well, I think I could get hold of Bruce for you’.
“And, sure enough, he went home, got in touch with the right people and Bruce and Patti said, ‘Yes!’
“Every time I hear Bruce’s voice on Rock N Roll Heart, it thrills me. He’s got that iconic voice and it sounds good with mine.”
Another rock hero who has touched Lucinda’s life is the late Tom Petty, which explains why Stolen Moments could be a lost Heartbreakers classic and serves as a moving tribute.
“Tom’s death [in 2017] really affected me because he had invited me to open his shows at The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
“They were the last shows he ever did. Then he was gone just when I was getting to know him better. The whole thing was so heavy.”
Lucinda remembers Petty as “a very sweet, good-natured and down-to-earth person”.
“There’s a story I like to tell which explains a lot about him,” she says. “I was also his support in the Eighties when he was already a huge star.
“When I went on stage, he noticed his audience were restless and not paying me much attention.
“So, one night, he went out with me and introduced me. He said, ‘Ok, listen, guys, I want you to listen to this next artist because she’s really good’.’’ After that typical story from a rock ’n’ roll heart, we return to Lucinda’s aptly-titled album.
On the brooding This Is Not My Town, with its intentional Doors-style organ, she is joined by her kindred spirit, Margo Price, 30 years her junior but with a similar genre-defying aesthetic.
She says: “We’re becoming good friends and we text each other back and forth.
“Margo reminds me a little bit of me. She’s got that youthful vigour and excitement about everything.”
The evocative Hum’s Liquor, with lyrics mostly by Tom Overby, references the place in Minneapolis where the late Bob Stinson of hellraisers The Replacements would buy his booze.
Fittingly, it features Bob’s bandmate and surviving brother Tommy Stinson on backing vocals.
Lucinda says: “Tom was living in Minneapolis. From his apartment, he could see Bob going into this liquor store every single morning, without fail, at a quarter to ten.
“The song is not meant to be judgmental. It’s more of an ode to Bob Stinson. It’s no secret that all The Replacements guys were big drinkers.”
Bad choices
In her candid new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, Lucinda tells of her fling with lead singer Paul Westerberg.
She tells me: “Paul was pretty irresistible. I fell in love with his solo work [check out 14 Songs] and he had boyish good looks.
“I’m kind of embarrassed because I have all these stories in my book about different guys. I hope none are mad at me.”
Another muse she mentions is Ryan Adams, the supremely gifted singer whose career was derailed in 2019 when several woman accused him of sexual harassment.
Lucinda says his behaviour was a “disappointment”, but “I don’t want to abandon him.
“I was on the phone with him when he said, ‘Everybody thinks I’m a monster now.’ And I said, ‘Ryan, you’re not a monster, you just made some bad choices’.’’
We return to Rock N Roll Heart and the two songs which have a steel guitar-driven country feel, Last Call For The Truth and Jukebox.
The first of these seems to be an acknowledgment that time is running out.
“Tom came up with most of the lyrics and I wrote the melody,” says Lucinda. “At first, I was worried that it sounded too cynical. I wouldn’t want to put something about ‘my lost youth’ into a song.
“I’m an older woman. I’m proud of my age and I don’t want there to be anything negative about feeling older.
“But, as I got to know the song more, I found a way to embrace it and interpret it in my own voice.”
Jukebox dwells on isolation and suggests that small comfort might be found in sticking on a favourite record.
Lucinda says of its inspiration: “We were staying at a New York hotel with a bar attached. It had a really great jukebox. I would enjoy loading it up.”
So, which songs did she like to put on? “It depends on the mood but I love Etta James’ At Last and The Doors’ Light My Fire,” she decides.
The final track on Rock N Roll Heart, Never Gonna Fade Away, comes with a moving insight from Lucinda.
“I actually wrote, ‘I just wanna fade away’, when I was feeling really morose and melancholy,” she confesses. “I played it to Tom and he said, ‘No, you’ve got to change it to Never Gonna Fade Away.’”
It’s clear from this reaction that Lucinda’s husband encourages her to keep on fighting despite the setbacks.
In her book, she describes how her renowned poet father Miller Williams literally faded away with Alzheimer’s during the last four years of his life.
I ask if he was on her mind when Never Gonna Fade Away was being conceived.
“I hadn’t thought about it but that’s a brilliant observation,” replies Lucinda.
“Maybe I was thinking about him subconsciously. It’s such a horrible disease. There was that period when he was still alive but only physically there.”
Lucinda remained very close to her father until his death on January 1, 2015. “We had a bond from the time I was very young,” she says. “He had a great sense of humour and he taught me a lot about the economy of writing.
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“He also said, ‘Never censor yourself’. Don’t sugarcoat things.”
It was advice that has served Lucinda Williams and her heartfelt songs well.
