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Lucinda Williams - Little Honey (2008)

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After the poised artfulness of last year's 'West', here's our favourite country-rock hard case getting back to brass tacks: small-group rock. It's also the cheeriest thing she's ever done – there's a euphoria to the slashing Fenders and thumping drums, serving to underscore the self-conscious upfulness everywhere to be heard in the lyrics. But then Lucinda has ever been self-conscious; that quality remains the axle on which her wheels turn. Elvis Costello's on board, by the way. Nick Coleman

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Track Listings

01. Real Love

02. Circles And X's

03. Tears Of Joy

04. Little Rock Star

05. Honey Bee

06. Well Well Well

07. If Wishes Were Horses

08. Jailhouse Tears

09. Knowing

10. Heaven Blues

11. Rarity

12. Plan To Marry

13. It's A Long Way To The Top

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Little Honey is the ninth studio album from three-time Grammy Award-winner Lucinda Williams. The 13 songs on Little Honey showcase all of the elements that have made Williams one of the most celebrated living songwriters. She revives the spirit of the delta on "Heaven Blues", emanates beauty and heartache on "The Knowing", duets with Elvis Costello on the classic mini-drama "Jailhouse Tears", sings poetry atop subtle horns on the epic "Rarity", and exudes the country blues on "Circles And X’s", which she wrote in 1985. Williams dives deeper into her rock roots than ever on tracks such as the album’s opener "Real Love", the intense, raw power of "Honey Bee" and the grand crescendos of "Little Rock Star", where she draws on her personal wisdom from experience in a sincere letter to younger artists who walk the fine line between success and self-destruction. Little Honey was produced by Eric Liljestrand, who engineered Williams’ West, and Tom Overby. Along with Costello, Little Honey features guest vocals by Matthew Sweet, Suzanna Hoffs, Jim Lauderdale, Tim Easton and the legendary Charlie Louvin. Williams is backed by her solid road band Buick 6, which includes mainstay Doug Pettibone on guitar, with David Sutton (bass) and former Eels’ members Chet Lyster (guitar) and Butch Norton (drums). Keyboardist Rob Burger, who also played on West returns for the Little Honey sessions. : ~ Amazon

Lucinda Williams has a great laugh—it’s a joyful sound to hear on the aptly titled Little Honey, the 10th album in her three-decade career. A sweet sense of renewal imbues Williams’ latest work, which encompasses all the elements of her eclectic catalog—from her stark early sets Ramblin’ (1979) and Happy Woman Blues (1980) to her 1988 self-titled breakthrough to last year’s textural West, co-produced with Hal Willner (Lou Reed, Bill Frisell). But not since her masterpiece, 1998’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, has Williams dug so deep and come up with an album that brims with such varied, impeccable writing. Aided by loose-limbed playing from her band Buick 6, some notable party guests, and a voice full of everything from righteous gusto to hard-won wisdom, Little Honey is Lucinda Williams at her best.

A sharp contrast to the studied tapestry of sound and embittered lyrics of West, Little Honey finds Williams in celebratory mode, with raucous rock, bluesy testimonies and tongue-in-cheek twang. Her brooding introspection—found here on a handful of moody tone poems and mournful ballads—adds depth to the proceedings. A decade ago, the Louisiana-born Williams proffered that her best work was borne of emotional crises and the ensuing solitude—exactly the circumstances surrounding West, which examined a harrowing breakup and the devastating loss of her mother. But Little Honey proves that philosophy wrong: This time out, Williams has found “Real Love,” the barnburner that kicks off the album, and she sings “Tears Of Joy,” a stunning Chicago-meets-Texas blues. On both tracks, her chansons d’amour are abetted by the straight-ahead backing of her touring group: longtime (for Williams) guitarist Doug Pettibone, joined by axman Chet Lyster, bassist David Sutton, and drummer Butch Norton, who give the album its punch.

The direct, autobiographical narrative “Tears of Joy” could have been written by Memphis Minnie: “Uprooted and restless, I paid the cost / I’ve been a mess, misguided and lost / But I’ve been so blessed since our paths have crossed / That’s why I’m crying tears of joy.” Williams gets straight to the heart of the matter with some of her strongest vocals ever. Likewise, on the spare “Heaven Blues”—on which she pays tribute to the Delta, recalling Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was The Ground”—Williams has been to hell and back and is ready to make her own heaven. Norton’s inventive percussion (including a washing machine and a manhole cover) is the perfect rhythmic backing to Williams’ crossroads declaration.

Little Honey also acknowledges the other roots music that has so informed the Americana queen’s songcraft. Her peals of laughter follow the wry honky-tonk number “Well Well Well,” with its classic C&W ending: “If you hang around trash you can’t come out clean.” Helping out on harmonies are Ryman throwback Jim Lauderdale and the eightysomething Charlie Louvin, the surviving member of country’s great duet, the Louvin Brothers.

Williams playfully nods to the tradition of “he said/she said” duets—think the evil twins of Conway and Loretta—on the fabulously fun “Jailhouse Tears.” As the “three-time loser,” Elvis Costello hasn’t relished such a down-home vocal role since he took on the guise of a country killer in “Psycho.”

Little Honey does have its somber moments, and this is where Williams’ poetry shines: Both “Knowing” (a dozen of its lines starting with “I didn’t know”) and the exquisite “Rarity” employ a lamps-down-low horn section and ?Hammond B-3 to create a lush soundscape for Williams’ bruised delivery. “Little Rock Star,” its soaring chorus provided by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, is the follow-up (a beautiful loser, L.A.-style) to “Drunken Angel,” Williams’ 1998 character study of doomed Texas songwriter Blaze Foley. And remorse is the theme of windswept ballad “If Wishes Were Horses” and the mothballed “Circles and X’s,” written in 1985.

One of the most moving moments on Little Honey is the stark “Plan To Marry,” which features Williams alone with her acoustic guitar: “When the destitute and isolated / Have all been forgotten / And the fruit trees we planted / Are withered and rotten.” Williams once described the difficulty of writing a truly meaningful protest song—she’s done it here.

Little Honey is bookended by glorious rockers: Following a false start of blasting guitar, “Real Love” finds Williams swept up in a sea of crunchy Fenders, reverb and Rob Burger’s Wurlitzer. And straight from the School of Rock (or is it hard knocks?), she closes with AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top,” bringing gospel-style fervor to the hell-raisin’ nugget: While Williams belts it out, Memphis soul sister Susan Marshall and company join her in a frenzied testimony. In between, there’s “Honey Bee,” a lusty rocker during which Williams bares all.

Co-produced by West engineer Eric Liljestrand and Williams’ fiance, Tom Overby, Little Honey is the happy ending to 1998’s “Joy.” During the finale of her late-’90s concerts in ever larger halls, Williams and her band were known for vamping on the song’s rhythmic hook, “You took my joy / I want it back.” A decade later, on Little Honey, she’s got it and she gives it. How sweet it is. : ~ Holly George-Warren

Original News:

Catching Up With... Lucinda Williams

By Josh Jackson (Paste Magazine)

Still Available:

Lucinda Williams - West (2007)

Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123