Album Review: Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart - Lucinda Williams

The stroke that she suffered in 2020 would have felled a lesser soul but Lucinda Williams – one of the great songwriters and a rock n’ roller from toe to head – is more resilient than most. As she proved with a joyously received Vicar St. show in January, there’s a difference between being down and being out.

Despite the fact that her guitar playing is sadly a thing of the past, for now at least, Stonesy rockers like ‘Let’s Get The Band Back Together’ and ‘Rock N Roll Heart’ still howl with belief and intent. There’s a joyful/melancholic tribute to Tom Petty who’s riding with her again in ‘Stolen Moments’ and a nod to another fallen rocker, The Replacements’ Bob Stinson, who’s walking down to the off licence dragging his demons behind him in ‘Hum’s Liquor’.

Big name backing vocals from the likes of Mr and Mrs Bruce Springsteen, Angel Olsen and Margo Price are all well and good but this record belongs to Williams’ voice, snarling at you one minute and beguiling you the next with that breaking tremolo. As rockin’ as the rockers are, it’s the slower numbers where that voice fully envelops the listener that are the real jewels. When she requests “one more song to sing along to” from the corner booth in ‘Last Call For The Truth’ holy rollers everywhere will have a lump in their throats. The keening pedal steel behind ‘Jukebox’ where she “thanks God for my corner bar” is similarly devastating.

‘Where The Song Will Find Me’ is a thing of rare beauty where the ache in her timbre is lifted even higher by the underlining strings. It’s a celebration of the art of writing itself from someone who knows that the songs are a gift that present themselves when they’re ready to be found.

“I love that song,” she told me as part of a recent interview. “It's about being ready for the muse to hit because you don't know when that's going to be. Like the song says, you could be in the backseat of a taxi or on an airplane or anywhere and something will just come in.”

I’m ‘Never Gonna Fade Away’ she promises in closing. If she’s lost a step due to her troubles, there’s no evidence of it here.

“The original version of the song was ‘I just want to fade away’” Williams says. “I played it for my husband Tom and he said, ‘No, no, you’re not fading away.’ He insisted I change it to ‘Never Going To Fade Away’.”

He was right.