Believe me, that was a huge bone of contention. It’s true that what jumps out immediately is how much the album is weighted to songs from your last two albums, Essence and World Without Tears.Ī. I wanted it to be more of a retrospective, greatest hits thing. I had thought we would have more songs to pick from.
But I was a little frustrated because we hadn’t been able to afford to record more shows than that. We ended up with all songs from the Fillmore, which I was glad about for the romantic, historical implications. We recorded three nights at the El Rey (in Los Angeles) and three nights at the Fillmore (in San Francisco), and then we had to sit down and try to weed out the best stuff.
So what was the process of getting it done?Ī. Like some of Bob Dylan’s live records are just horrible, you know? They’re usually not recorded that well, there’s so much noise and applause and stuff that gets in the way, and usually the performance isn’t as good as it is on the studio version. That’s another reason why I never have been real enthusiastic about doing it, because I don’t like most live albums. I don’t know what I used to think-I guess that you just turn on the tape recorder and record the show and that’s it, the way bootlegs are done. Now I have the band together that I feel comfortable with, and it felt real natural and confident. People kept telling me to do it, but it was never the right place at the right time. Why was this the right time to make a live record?Ī. So I decided early on that I better become a really good songwriter, then I could be like Bob Dylan and nobody would care if I could sing that well because my songs would be really good. I would try to do it and I couldn’t and I’d just get all frustrated. Looking back on it, I felt limited as a singer from the get-go, because I grew up listening to singers more in the folk realm, like Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell-all these singers who had amazing ranges and could just sing all over the place. I’ve always thought of myself as a songwriter first, and I’ve always seen my voice as more of a vehicle to get my songs across. But what does performing onstage mean to you?Ī. Everyone usually indentifies you as a songwriter. At the landmark, ’50s-retro Safari Inn near her home in Burbank, Williams polishes off a bowl of oatmeal and settles in to talk about the process of assembling a live album, the changes in her songwriting, and why her notorious reputation as a studio perfectionist may finally be behind her. It’s why I can’t live there anymore.”Īnd she’s been on the run since getting back to her current hometown of Los Angeles-a raucous 52nd birthday party celebrating her return was followed by several nights in a row hanging out at friends’ gigs-so she hasn’t even unpacked yet. “They’re systematically killing off everything that’s traditional, because they’re ashamed of being Southern. “The New South is absolutely horrible,” she says. After spending the holidays with her family in Fayetteville, Arkansas, she headed to Nashville for a few weeks-her first extended stay in Music City, USA, since moving away several years ago. Williams just returned from a month-plus road trip across the South and Southwest. And, as the Fillmore album documents, she’s earned the right to catch her breath after a relentlessly productive few years-all but 4 of the 22 songs on the double-CD come from her last two studio albums (2001’s sparse, intimate Essence and 2003’s dark, groove-oriented World Without Tears), and she’s honed her band into one of rock’s most dynamic and powerful units. Since then, she’s added vocals to forthcoming projects from the North Mississippi Allstars and Michelle Shocked. Tony Joe White, and Warped Tour punks Flogging Molly, and contributed a song to the Alejandro Escovedo benefit record Por Vida. In 2004 alone, Williams turned up singing duets alongside Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, Graham Parker, swamp-rocker Looking back at some of her earliest efforts at songwriting, attempting to rekindle some of the “innocence and purity” she worries has been lost in her work. Looking back in the most personal way following the death of her mother last March. Looking back at the recordings from her 2003 tour that eventually resulted in her new album, Live at the Fillmore. Williams has spent most of the last year looking back. I’m always looking to move forward,” says Lucinda Williams, “and sometimes looking back is what allows you to look ahead.”