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Lucinda Williams Biography

Lucinda Williams Biography

 Lucinda Williams (born January 26, 1953) is an American rock, folk, and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams. This release featured "Passionate Kisses" a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter which garnered Lucinda her first Grammy (Best Country Song, 1994). Known for working slowly, only one other album was recorded and released in the next several years (Sweet Old World in 1992) before her greatest success came in 1998 with Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. This album presented a broader scope of songs that fused rock, blues, country and Americana into a more unique style that still managed to remain consistent and commercial in sound. It went gold and earned Lucinda another Grammy while being universally acclaimed by critics. Since Car Wheels, she has released a string of albums that have also been critically acclaimed, though none have sold in the numbers of her 1998 breakthrough. She is a three-time Grammy Award winner and was also named "America's best songwriter" by TIME magazine in 2002.

 
By her early 20s, Williams was playing publicly in Austin, Texas and Houston, Texas, concentrating on a folk-rock-country blend. She moved to Jackson, Mississippi, in 1978 to record her first album, for Smithsonian/Folkways Records. Titled Ramblin', it was a collection of country and blues covers. She followed it up in 1980 with Happy Woman Blues, which consisted of her own material. Neither album received much attention. In the 1980s Williams moved to Los Angeles, California (before finally settling in Nashville, Tennessee), where, performing both backed by a rock band and in acoustic settings, she developed a following and a critical reputation. While based in Los Angeles, she was briefly married to Long Ryders drummer Greg Sowders. In 1988 Rough Trade Records released the self-titled Lucinda Williams, which was produced by Gurf Morlix. The single "Changed the Locks", about a broken relationship, received radio play around the country and gained fans among music insiders, including Tom Petty, who would later cover the song.

 Sweet Old World (Chameleon, 1992), also produced by Morlix, was a melancholy album dealing with themes of suicide and death. Williams' biggest success during the early 1990s was as a songwriter. Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded a cover of "Passionate Kisses" (from Lucinda Williams) in 1992, and the song became a smash country hit for which Williams received the Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994 (Chapin also received a Grammy for her performance of the song). She duetted with Steve Earle on the song "You're Still Standin' There" from his album I Feel Alright in 1996. The long-awaited release, 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was Williams' breakthrough to the mainstream and received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Containing the single "Still I Long for Your Kiss" from the Robert Redford film The Horse Whisperer, the album received wide critical notice and soon went gold. The single "Can't Let Go" also enjoyed considerable cross-over radio play. Williams toured with Bob Dylan and on her own in support of the album. An expanded edition of the album, including three additional studio recordings and a second CD documenting a 1998 concert, was released in 2006. Williams followed up the success of Car Wheels with Essence (2001). This release featured a less produced, more stripped-down approach both musically and lyrically, and moved Williams further from the country music establishment while winning fans in the alternative music world. She won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Performance for the single "Get Right With God", an atypically uptempo gospel-rock tune from the otherwise rather low-key release. The title track includes a contribution on Hammond organ by alternative country musician Ryan Adams. Her seventh album, World Without Tears, was released in 2003. A musically adventurous though lyrically downbeat album, this release found Williams experimenting with talking blues stylings and electric blues.

 In 2006, Williams recorded a version of the John Hartford classic "Gentle On My Mind", which played over the closing credits of the Will Ferrell film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Williams was a guest vocalist on the song "Factory Girls" from Irish punk-folk band Flogging Molly's 2004 album, "Within a Mile of Home", and appeared on Elvis Costello's The Delivery Man. She sings with folk legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott on the track "Careless Darling" from his 2006 release "I Stand Alone". In 2006, Williams announced her engagement to music executive Tom Overby. Although she first told reporters the marriage would take place that year, she still described Overby as her fiancé during her spring 2007 tour. Williams' official website now lists Overby as her manager. In 2007, Williams released West, for which she wrote more than 27 songs. The album was released on February 13, 2007 and contains 13 tracks and has a similar sound to World Without Tears. It addresses her mother's death and a tumultuous relationship break-up. Vanity Fair praised it, saying "Lucinda Williams has made the record of a lifetime – part Hank Williams, part Bob Dylan, part Keith Richards circa Exile on Main St. ..." In Spring of 2008, it was announced that the next album from Lucinda Williams wrapped recording in March and will be scheduled for an August/Sept 2008 release.

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