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New gems from Lucinda Williams
Unlike year before last, when a lyric sheet malfunction sent Lucinda Williams into a tailspin, this year’s performance by the once and perhaps future (who knows?) Austinite was blissfully free of incident. Not only did Williams look as if she were having a devil of a good time wowing the scorched crowd in front of the SBC stage, but she also treated the audience to that rarest of gems at a Lucinda show — new material.
Kicking off with deceptively downbeat back-to-back renditions of “Drunken Angel” and “Pineola,” Williams ranged across the breadth of her career, from “Crescent City” (dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina) to the bleak-yet-beautiful “Out of Touch” and “Real Live Bleeding Fingers (And Broken Guitar Strings),” a song Bob Dylan wouldn’t eschew from his repertoire.
But it was the new stuff that proved enthralling. “Jailhouse Tears” revealed a rarely seen playful side of Williams the writer; a country spoof with lines like “They locked me up … you locked me out” and “I used to be a user … You’re a three-time loser,” the song might have been a throwaway, but it will be playing on the radio in your head after one listen. Her other debut, “Un-Suffer Me,” was another kettle of fish entirely. Similar in intensity though totally a polar opposite in mood to “Hot Blood,” the dirgelike blues was a nakedly raw plea for emotional rescue: “Unlock my love, undo my fear…Unlock my love and set me free,” she sang in a slightly raspy voice. It was a riveting performance that seemed to darken the sunny afternoon.
Williams’ show ended on a roller coaster peak, not a trough, however. “Get Right With God” sounded tentative when she first began performing it, but it has metamorphosed into a showstopper, with snake-handling guitar, snare-popping drums and Williams shimmying across the stage like Little Egypt, clapping hands and flashing her horse-laugh grin. Hey, even blues-singin’ girls just wanna have fun.
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