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LIVE MUSIC<br />
LIVE MUSIC<br />
14 TONE AUDIO NO.75<br />
©Photo by Jay Blakesberg<br />
September 24, 2015<br />
City Winery<br />
Chicago, IL<br />
E<strong>the</strong> second of Lucinda Williams’ two-night<br />
Lucinda Williams<br />
Lucinda Williams<br />
14 TONE AUDIO NO.75<br />
arly on during<br />
stand at City Winery in Chicago, her gut<br />
took over. “I have a feeling in my bones this<br />
is gonna be a good night,” she remarked in<br />
a relaxed Sou<strong>the</strong>rn drawl that served as <strong>the</strong><br />
welcoming equivalent of a glass of ice-cold<br />
sweet tea enjoyed on a neighbor’s front<br />
porch on a hot summer day. The Louisiana<br />
native’s premonition served her and <strong>the</strong><br />
sold-out crowd well.<br />
Not too long ago, Williams seemed to exist in a<br />
different, darker place. While her live performances<br />
usually adhered to an across-<strong>the</strong>-board consistency,<br />
her emotional state appeared fragile and reflected <strong>the</strong><br />
brooding nature of 2007’s West—a record inspired by<br />
a bad breakup and her mo<strong>the</strong>r’s death. Her engagement<br />
and subsequent marriage in 2009 to her manager,<br />
Tom Overby, changed Williams’ outlook. Last<br />
year’s superb Down Where <strong>the</strong> Spirit Meets <strong>the</strong> Bone<br />
ranks among <strong>the</strong> best work of her career and showcases<br />
a shift in songwriting toward topical issues.<br />
Performing with <strong>the</strong> backing trio Buick 6, Williams<br />
displayed likeminded artistic breadth and diversity<br />
over <strong>the</strong> course of a decades-spanning 110-minute<br />
concert rife with passion, intimacy, and rawness.<br />
Wearing a black blouse, blue jeans, and abundant<br />
eye makeup, <strong>the</strong> 62-year-old singer came across with<br />
<strong>the</strong> take-no-muss attitude and learned experience of<br />
a veteran bartender whose sympathy shouldn’t be<br />
confused with her toughness. Her innate ability to<br />
make songs biographical, from-<strong>the</strong>-heart declarations<br />
couched in pride, identity, and persistence repeatedly<br />
showed that her type of quiet intensity often proved<br />
more potent than <strong>the</strong> kind produced by rapid tempos<br />
or thrash riffs.<br />
Inhabiting <strong>the</strong> persona of a woman used up and<br />
thrown away, Williams transformed “Those Three<br />
Days” from a somber reflection of defeat into an assertive<br />
statement of self-worth. On “Compassion,” one<br />
of several tunes she played solo, <strong>the</strong> vocalist appropriated<br />
her fa<strong>the</strong>r’s poetry and became an involved observer<br />
that countered weariness with pathos. Indeed,<br />
while Williams still does relationship-rooted sadness<br />
and toxicity like nobody else, her mood and approach<br />
suggested much more complex, and deeply compelling,<br />
possibilities.<br />
Embracing a defiant stance that would’ve been<br />
hard to imagine a few years ago, she treated <strong>the</strong> sli<strong>the</strong>ring<br />
“Cold Day in Hell” as a fierce kiss-off, belting out<br />
<strong>the</strong> bridge and holding notes to underline her intent.<br />
The cautionary “Something Wicked This Way Comes”<br />
moved to a taffy-pull groove, Williams twisting words<br />
as if expressing <strong>the</strong>m while sitting on a tire swing that<br />
kept her just far enough away from unknown danger.<br />
(continued)<br />
November 2015 15