“Lucinda Williams today is a different artist from the one whose disgracefully belatedcommercial breakthrough came with Car Wheels on a Gravel Roadin 1998. That Lucinda had released four albums of her own songs on four labels ineighteen years — all of which, back to 1980’s girlish, strummed-acoustic Happy Woman Blues, favored concrete narrative and verse-chorus […]”
“Like many genres, country music prizes the personal. Listeners want the impression that an artist sings from experience, that she lives the life she sings about in her songs. Whether it's actually true or not is beside the point. There's no doubt that Lucinda Williams writes what she knows: On two exceptional albums (*Lucinda Williams* and *Car Wheels on a Gravel Road*), one really good one (*Swee”
