The second track on Lucinda Williams’ The Ghosts of Highway 20, like the opener, features lyrics by somebody other than Williams.
In this case it’s Woody Guthrie supplying the words from beyond the grave. Williams met Guthrie’s daughter Nora at a German music festival and later received these lyrics from her with a note that read “I can’t think of anyone better to try and put music to these words – and no better person to sing them. But I understand if it’s too dark”.
Last year I posted my song-by-song discovery of Courtney Barnett’s album Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, listening to each song for the first time before writing about it.
I liked that experience, especially because the album turned out to be a great one, and I’ve been wanting to give it another try. This time, however, I’m going not with a newcomer but an artist I already know and love.
Lucinda Williams recently announced that her 11th studio album, titled The Ghosts of Highway 20, will drop on February 5th. Williams has been reasonably prolific, releasing an album about every other year since 2001’s Essence. That’s after taking 18 years to release her first four records.
I’ve wanted to do another song-by-song album review on the blog, and I think the new Williams album might be just the ticket.
Today’s album is the first in my top ten 1992 records that I discovered well after the year it was released. Lucinda Williams simply wasn’t on my radar back then.
But she was very much on my radar a decade later, after I fell in love with Car Wheels On a Gravel Road and started gobbling up the rest of her catalog.
The deluxe edition of Lucinda William’s 2001 album, Blessed, was accompanied by a companion CD called The Kitchen Tapes. It features the same 12 songs, in the same order, but recorded as demos by Williams sitting in her kitchen with a guitar and a tape recorder.
Some of those songs ended up with similar acoustic treatments on the final album, but others (like today’s SOTD) became hard-edged rockers, highlighted by excellent supporting guitar work by Elvis Costello.
Meet Me In Montauk 