How happiness became Lucinda Williams’ creative fuel
The idea that suffering makes for great art is one of those time-honored rock & roll tropes that even made its way into the title of a 1982 Todd Rundgren album (The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect). And while Lucinda Williams has had her share of personal trauma that’s informed her work over the past few decades, the happily married musician isn’t buying it. For her, happiness is rather underrated when it comes to the creative process, even if the name of her fine new double-CD, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, might suggest otherwise.
“[Being miserable in order to create great art] is a big myth,” she said with a laugh by phone at her L.A. home. “Not that suffering doesn’t help your writing, but I can’t write when I’m in the middle of feeling like crap. That’s the last thing I want to do. Tom Petty said the exact same thing in an interview. There’s this whole myth that you’re sitting on the side of your bed drinking Jack Daniel’s while your tears fall onto your guitar and you’re writing away. That’s not how it works (laughs).”
In the past 10 years, the respected 61-year-old singer-songwriter has had her share of ups and downs, with more of the former than the latter being the case. While she parted ways with former major label Lost Highway following the release of 2011’s Blessed, Williams was able to find her way over to Nashville-based imprint Thirty Tigers, where she found plenty of simpatico support that included her former A&R rep Kim Buie and label owner David Macias, a music industry maverick who Williams adores.
“I love David Macias,” she gushed. “We just see eye to eye on a lot of different issues, including political ones. He’s very much that type of person. He’s very artist-oriented and doesn’t think like a corporate head. He gave us a decent enough advance—not like it would be with a huge major label, but the tradeoff is that we own the masters and we get to have our own label under the umbrella of Thirty Tigers. It’s just a great situation.”
It would be easy to worry about Where the Spirit Meets the Bone becoming a quintessential case of creative over-indulgence. But Williams deftly sidestepped that scenario with an all-killer-and-no-filler collection of songs. Opening cut “Compassion” is a piece by her father/renowned poet Miller Williams, that she put to music. Stripped down to vocal and acoustic guitar, it has the cadence of a murder ballad that has a world-weary aura hanging over it.
From here, the Louisiana native drawls her way through Tony Joe White-flavored swamp rock (the twang-soaked “Protection”), endearingly pledges her love (the Harvest-like “Stowaway in Your Heart”) and even gives a girlfriend an emotional hand up (an upbeat “Walk On”). Best of all is an ethereal and near-10-minute reading of the late J.J. Cale’s “Magnolia,” featuring a gauze of delicate riffs and chords courtesy of the elegant and minimalist support of guitarists Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz.
Since 2007’s West, Williams has released four records. She’s also put behind her the idea that the various personal and professional trials and tribulations she endured were the impetus for the depth of her work. It just so happened that West came at the end of her leaving a particularly abusive domestic relationship and coping with the passing of her mother. It was also around the time she fell in love with and eventually married music executive Tom Overby. It didn’t seem like much of a coincidence that this newfound tranquility coincided with this prolific (for Williams) release of records.
“I’m not really sure [where this creative burst] has come from. It’s this period in my life and being in this place where I feel where I’m comfortable. It’s given me more freedom being happily married and in that kind of situation that’s forcing me to push myself to find other things to write about besides unrequited love,” she said. “I have to be in a certain state of mind to feel like writing. The other side of it all is that you can draw on those things that created the pain. I just look at it like an endless well where I dip into it and pull stuff out that goes all the way back into my childhood and not just my own life. It’s really been liberating to be in that place as a writer.”
Lucinda Williams will be appearing on Nov. 17 at the Beacon Theatre, 74th Street & Broadway. NYC.
For more information, please call 866-858-0008 or visit www.beacontheatre.com.
