Lucinda Williams Covers:
Robert Johnson, Nick Drake, Hank Williams, AC/DC, Tom Waits & more!
More than almost any artist today, Lucinda Williams exemplifies just how fluid the line which separates the various American forms of modern music can be. Claimed as alt-country by the country crowd, and a folkrock crossover by most modern radioplay, in thirty years, ten studio albums and the longest list of guest appearances this side of Emmylou, her work been nominated for Grammys in the Rock, Pop, Country and Folk categories, and won in all but Pop.
But though her more recent work is an true amalgam of all these styles and more, singer-songwriter Lucinda didn’t get her start as a country girl or a pretender to the popcharts. Her first two albums, released on Smithsonian Folkways in 1979 and 1980, were throwback folkblues, raw and rootsy; the first, Ramblin’, a set of warm acoustic old-school covers from the likes of A.P. Carter and Robert Johnson, the second a set of originals that showed lyrical promise, but stalled at the gate of commercial sales.
1993 would find Lucinda winning her first Grammy, for penning Mary Chapin Carpenter hit Passionate Kisses. Her two subsequent recordings got plenty of play in my father’s house during the late eighties and nineties, but then, he’s a collector. But most audiophiles agree with Nelson: it is her fifth album, 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, which marks the pinnacle of her sound — torn, wailing popblues with rock production dynamic; mournful ballads that cut to the heart like a rusty piano wire — bringing her her first gold album, the Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and the recognition she deserved after 20 years of reinvention.
In the decade since Car Wheels was released, Lucinda Williams has made her way through the cultural consciousness like a standard-bearer. And, as a future post exploring her songbook will surely demonstrate, others of talent, too, have been affected by those songs enough to make them their own.
But today is first and foremost about Lucinda’s voice and method, not her songwriting. And it is fair to say that even as her voice mellowed into that gorgeously worn rasp, and her genre designation evolved like a personal odyssey through the evolution of American music, the one consistency throughout Lucinda’s career has been the authenticity of the work itself, and the conviction that performance matters.
She is known to be a perfectionist — this is a woman who is known for re-recording the same album several times before letting it go. She is prolific on the tribute album circuit in between records, and when she picks a song to cover, she brings it the same attention, the same determination to find the truth of the song.
The result, more often than not, is magic.
As a grand collection, Lucinda’s life’s work in interpreting other artists’ songs is an opus in itself, one which follows her own path as an artist. From her sunnier, gentler early work interpreting the long-gone greats of the blues and country world to mid-career takes on the great sixties and seventies folk canon to more recent coverage of rock gods and the kings of contemporary folkworld, the thread which unites them is neither voice or approach, but something less tangible — something authentic, be it raw or flowing, drawn out from the original song’s emotional core.
Their gems are too numerous to count. Today, a few personal favorites, compiled into a chronology in coverage.
- Lucinda Williams: Malted Milk Blues (orig. Robert Johnson)
- Lucinda Williams: Jambalaya (On The Bayou) (orig. Hank Williams)
(from Ramblin’, 1979)
- Lucinda Williams: I Asked for Water (He Gave Me Gasoline) (orig. Howlin’ Wolf)
(from Lucinda Williams, 1988)
- Lucinda Williams: Which Will (orig. Nick Drake)
(from Sweet Old World, 1992)
- Lucinda Williams: Positively 4th Street (orig. Bob Dylan)
(from In Their Own Words: Live From the Bottom Line, NYC, 1994)
- Lucinda Williams: You Don’t Have Very Far to Go (orig. Merle Haggard)
(from Tulare Dust: Tribute to Merle Haggard, 1994)
- Lucinda Williams: Here in California (orig. Kate Wolf)
(from Treasures Left Behind: Remembering Kate Wolf, 1998)
- David Crosby and Lucinda Williams: Return of the Grievous Angel (orig. Gram Parsons)
(from Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, 1999)
- John Prine w/ Lucinda Williams: Wedding Bells / Let’s Turn Back The Years (orig. Claude Boone/Hank Williams)
(from In Spite Of Ourselves, 1999)
- Lucinda Williams: Cold, Cold Heart (orig. Hank Williams)
(from Timeless: Hank Williams Tribute, 2001)
- Lucinda Williams: Lately (orig. Greg Brown)
(from Going Driftless - An Artist’s Tribute to Greg Brown, 2002)
- Lucinda Williams: Hang Down Your Head (orig. Tom Waits)
(from the Crossing Jordan soundtrack, 2003)
- Lucinda Williams: Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys (orig. Ed Bruce; pop. Willie Nelson / Waylon Jennings)
(from The Imus Ranch Record, 2008)
- Lucinda Williams: It’s a Long Way to the Top (orig. AC/DC)
(from Little Honey, 2008)
Many of today’s tracks come from solid tribute albums; I can’t speak to the country comps, but coverlovers with an ear for contemporary folk-slash-americana are strongly encouraged to track down the Greg Brown, Kate Wolf, and Gram Parsons tributes via the artist- and label-centric links above.
And of course, Lucinda Williams is an essential part of any true audiophile’s collection. Folkfans without their own well-worn copy of both Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and Lucinda Williams can remedy the situation here.
Previously on Cover Lay Down:
- M. Ward and Lucinda Williams covered Don Gibson’s Oh, Lonesome Me, and I loved it so much I tracked down a few more Gibson covers.
- Newcomer Laura Tsaggaris covered both Lucinda Williams and Britney Spears, and got away with it.
Category: Lucinda Williams
May 20th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I had most of these already (and about a half dozen more that you probably already have), but the ones I didn’t–including the Kate Wolf song–are absolutely fantastic. Well done, BH!
May 21st, 2009 at 5:50 am
[...] Click here to go to CLD to check Lucinda Williams covering AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way To The Top”, Bob Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street”, Tom Wait’s “Hang Down Your Head”, Gram Parson’s “Return of The Grievous Angel”, and more. [...]
May 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Sometimes ya stumble on a post that seems like it was made just for me. Today is such a day. Huge Lucinda fan, but I only know about 2 of the tracks you posted. Thanks for sharing, and you know what I’m gonna be listening to the rest of the afternoon.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
I love the Tom Waits cover
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Only Lucinda could do that Merle Haggard like she did…..thanks Mr. Boyhowdy!
May 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Oh, how I love her. Thanks for these covers. I haven’t heard many of them…
November 8th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
[...] to celebrate the legacy of a man taken from the world far too early. It’s hard to top Lucinda Williams‘ mournful take on Positively 4th Street. And the newly-released John Oates cover of He Was a [...]
November 17th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
[...] like her own heroine Lucinda Williams, who we featured here last May, Kasey is a powerful interpreter of song, too. And though as a [...]
December 26th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
[...] Alt-country goddess Lucinda Williams covers Hang Down Your Head and a host of other fitting songs. [...]
March 23rd, 2010 at 8:02 pm
[...] Prine teams up with Lucinda Williams to cover Claude Boone and Hank Williams, alongside plenty more covers from Lucinda’s career. [...]
June 24th, 2010 at 7:27 am
I love her cover of Bob Dylan’s Masters of War.
Check it out on the EP “LU in 08″