Car Wheels on a Gravel Road – Lucinda Williams
In a previous review I mentioned “grit” and subsequently struggled to explain exactly what I meant. Well, this album has it in spades: an unconventional voice, rustic instruments that sound real, a well-produced album that doesn’t sound like it’s been over-produced and lyrics that talk of people and places that you can picture, or at least imagine.
I made so many notes whilst listening to this that I’d bore you all to tears if I wrote it all here, so I’ll just give you the highlights.
“Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” – fantastic - the mandolin after each chorus gives it a great feel.
“2 Kool 2 be 4-Gotten” - Despite the awful title and worse syntax this is a nice spritely/poppy number, giving a real flavour of the South with its mention of “taking up serpents”, june bugs and hurricanes.
“Can’t Let Go” – superb song and blues guitar, but it’s a pity that it’s a cover version. I always feel a little cheated when I love a song that I hear for the first time and then find out it’s not the artist’s own. However, it is a great performance and one cover in a collection of otherwise original songs is fair enough.
“Joy” – I love the vocals and guitars. Listen carefully at the start of the song – you can hear the dobro in the left speaker and the electric guitar on the right.
There are a few songs on here that on my first listen, I thought sounded “a bit too country” even for me. But I was wrong, even these songs are elevated by the accordion, the dobro, the mandolin, Lucinda Williams’ voice or some other element that makes you sit up and take notice.
There are so many things that I love about this album because it’s right up my street. I love albums that make good use of accordion, mandolin and what is probably my favourite instrument in music: the resonator/dobro. It’s such an amazing sound that I could listen to it all day. Added to this “sonic pallette” is the lyrics, which mention people, places, travel, geography – again, all things that I love about good songs.
Lucinda Williams has a great unconventional voice.
@Citizen of Legoland said that it sounded like Sheryl Crow and he’s on the money in terms of the voice, because she does sound very much like her on a lot of tracks.
Having Roy Bittan (Springsteen’s long-time piano player) play Hammond and accordion on the album is another plus, as is having the great Steve Earle producing.
At first, I was thinking an 8 or a 9 for this, but even the songs that I thought were weaker grabbed me on the second and third listens. If I was weighing this against the very best albums in my collection, this would probably still be a 9, but I don’t think anybody could nominate a better album I haven’t heard before, so for the purposes of this thread, for the first time, I’ll go the full
10/10.
Well done
@bennyboy, a superb choice (chef’s kiss).
