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NEW YORK — Lucinda Williams has been in the spotlight this spring with her autobiography, new album and concert appearances around the world, including two shows at The Fitzgerald in Berwyn June 29-30. Less than three years later, there were fears that her creative voice would die.
In November 2020, the singer-songwriter suffered a stroke while getting ready to take a shower at her home in Nashville. Her husband, Tom Overby, found her on her bathroom floor. Williams was taken to hospital.
Her recovery is hard and still not complete.
“I’m really fine,” she told the Associated Press in a recent interview. ”
She is fragile and moves slowly. She can’t play the guitar, has ongoing weakness in her left side, and has great pain gripping her frets. In January, she can’t help but wonder if Williams, who turned 70, is pushing anything.
Talking to her and her husband and manager reveals how much she needs to come back and how she considers it part of her rehabilitation. She was a teenage girl trying to get out of a troubled home life. I can’t stop singing.
do you want to retire? “No,” she said. “That thought flashed in my head and I would think, I’m not ready for it.
Williams’ singing voice came out unscathed from the stroke, as some critics noted when she started performing again last summer. On the blues scene, Williams said, “Williams had a great stage presence, told a great story about what she was singing, and had a great voice.
Her autobiography, Don’t Tell Anyone The Secret I Told You, was written before her stroke and marks her first time writing a book. It will be released on Tuesday, April 25th.
“That’s because a lot of my songs tell a story and people always want to know the story behind the songs,” Williams said. “This book is like my gift to my fans.” I feel like
Lucinda Williams’ new book Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You is out on Tuesday, April 25th.
– Crown offer
Some followers seriously thought that when Williams met and married Overby, it might hurt her songwriting. Her idea was insulting and even sexist.
Still, seeing it all printed is frankly breathtaking. Her preference for men, she explains, was poets on motorcycles, but she wasn’t for slow, steady relationships.
You can create memorable songs inspired by bingo cards from past boyfriends, or nearby boyfriends, and their personal stories. “Right in Time,” “Those Three Days,” “Wake’ Up,” “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings,” among others.
There are also rock and roll names in bold. Readers can find songs about Ryan Adams and Paul Westerberg.
But the crux of her story is overcoming mental illness.
Williams’ mother was sexually abused at an early age and was in and out of mental hospitals for years. Williams’ father would say, “It’s not her fault, she’s not well.” She grew up with her mother, who was half-born as the singer and her two younger siblings. .
Her father, Miller Williams, a poet, was an itinerant college professor who constantly moved the family to different towns. He apologized to his daughter when he first heard the line “mixed with tears and a little dirt” about the girl sitting in her backseat in the song “Car Wheel on the Gravel”. bottom. She didn’t realize she was writing about herself.
Not all is bad. Williams recounted the party at which her father’s literary friends put rock’n’rollers to shame.
When she was 12, undergrads from her father’s class moved into their house as “guardians.” “But it wasn’t easy.”
That’s when her own obsessive-compulsive disorder manifested itself. She began playing her music, describing it as “a world I wanted to be in, a better world than I was in”.
Lucinda Williams’ upcoming album, Stories From a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart, is in some ways a love letter to her musical life.
– Associated Press
Williams hopes telling her story means something to those whose loved ones have mental health issues or who have their own issues.
“I was tired of tiptoeing and walking on eggshells about mental health,” she said. I didn’t feel it.”
Williams was a classic late bloomer musically, and for years it was said that she was too rock for country and too country for rock and roll. She was 45 when her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was released. Because of the wicked comments in her book about all the men she thought knew too well what to do with her career.
Williams wrote that she wanted to be like Bob Dylan or Neil Young.
“I’m starting to get to it,” she said. “If you haven’t got there yet. I hope you can.”
Her next album, Stories From a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart, was in some ways a love letter to her musical life, featuring an old band, a great jukebox, a corner bar and two late rockers (Tom Petty). and Bob Stinson of The Replacements.
The songwriting was more difficult, as Williams always composed melodies on guitar. She had to accept her help with the help of musician Jesse Marin. Her husband, who generally stuck to the business side of music, is co-writer of each song and road manager on six of them, Travis Stevens.
“I was a little hesitant at first,” Williams said. “But then I saw Tom Waits and his wife working together as songwriters. It made me feel more comfortable.”
The album also features vocal contributions from Bruce Springsteen and his wife, Patti Shalfa. The two hosted a dinner party that was attended by Williams and Overby on his second date in 2007.
“He has a very unique blues sound and it’s on my record,” she said. “I’m still star-struck.”
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