(2023) Lucinda Williams - Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart
Review:
On November 17, 2020, Lucinda Williams suffered a stroke that left many of her fans worrying about the future of one of America’s best and most fearless songwriters. It didn’t take long for Williams to regain her ability to sing, and the six albums in her Lu’s Jukebox series (intended to benefit artists and venues who lost their income during the COVID-19 pandemic) proved she was still in fine form as a performer. However, they were all devoted to covers, leaving open the question of her relationship with her songwriting muse. 2023’s Stories from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart is her first album of original material since her recovery, and comes two months after the publication of her memoirs, Don’t Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You. Williams co-produced Stories from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart in tandem with engineer Ray Kennedy and Williams’ husband and frequent studio collaborator Tom Overby, and Overby also co-wrote these ten songs with Williams; most of the tracks also include contributions from Jesse Malin and/or Travis Stephens. Thematically, these songs don’t always find Williams at her most inspired; “Let’s Get the Band Back Together,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart,” and “Never Gonna Fade Away” are exactly what you expect them to be from the titles, and coming from one of America’s most perceptive lyricists, they’re frankly disappointing. “Jukebox” is a well-executed character study but it’s built from familiar materials, and “New York Comeback” is a tale where the parts don’t fully come together (and Bruce Springsteen’s overwrought backing vocals on the latter don’t help). All that said, the songs that do work work very well, and “Stolen Moments,” “This Is Not My Town,” and “Last Call for the Truth” are soulful and evocative tales of bruised emotions and lives out of balance, and “Hum’s Liquor” is a heartbreaking narrative based on the last years of the Replacements’ Bob Stinson. (Adding to its impact are the backing vocals from his half-brother, Tommy Stinson.) And even when the songwriting is below Williams’ average, her vocals are still a wondrous mix of toughness and fragility, and the album sounds great, with a superb studio band (including guitarists Stuart Mathis and Doug Pettibone and drummer Steve Ferrone) generating the right blend of rock ‘n’ roll swagger and bluesy loneliness, all captured with warm clarity by Ray Kennedy’s engineering. Stories from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart isn’t the triumphant return some might have hoped for, but for its flaws, it shows Williams hasn’t lost her spark or her determination to create, and this may not be a great album, but it suggests she has it in her to make another great one somewhere down the line. Here’s hoping. — AMG
Track List:
01 - Let's Get the Band Back Together
02 - New York Comeback
03 - Last Call for the Truth
04 - Jukebox
05 - Stolen Moments
06 - Rock N Roll Heart
07 - This Is Not My Town
08 - Hum's Liquor
09 - Where the Song Will Find Me
10 - Never Gonna Fade Away
Media Report:
Genre: americana, rock
Country: Louisiana, U.S.A
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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