No Depression 's Kim Ruehl's interview with Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams requires little introduction. After all, over the course of the past three decades, she's become one of the most reliable singer-songwriters on the Americana/roots/indie/whatever scene.

When I was preparing for our recent interview, I was considering the artfulness with which her career has grown over the past 30 years, despite the fact that she's never scored a pop hit. In fact, it struck me as a bit of a blessing to her catalog that she's somehow managed to skirt the mainstream.

Consider Shawn Colvin. I'm a fan, so stay with me. She had that one song that struck on pop radio, for whatever reason, "Sunny Came Home." Compared to her entire moving, memorable catalog, that wasn't her best song. But, suddenly, mainstream America knew Shawn Colvin, and they continue to know her for that tune. I know comparing the worth of songs can be like comparing that of individuals (how do you measure it?), but I'd say it was no "Diamond in the Rough" or "Polaroids" or "Steady On." It was surpassed on its own album by "Trouble" and "If I Were Brave." It was the cockroach song - the one which showed itself to the rest of the world, while back here inside the walls, we all knew there were countless more milling about, going persistently unseen.

I say this not as a criticism of Colvin's work. Like I said, I'm quite fond of her gift. I only find it unfortunate that your average casual music fan knows her for that song.

Lucinda Williams, meanwhile, has skirted that whole issue. People know Car Wheels on a Gravel Road or they know Essence, or the Folkways recordings. They're familiar with individual songs like "Lafayette" or "Joy" or "Six Blocks Away." They have their personal favorite, but it's one they've chosen. Not one which mainstream radio has chosen for them. It's a feat, the sort of thing much more likely for an artist starting their career right now, than for one whose career launched decades ago, and spanned the era of MTV and corporate radio. And, it's a feat which has led Williams to the level of artistic control and integrity which has become a bit of a trademark for her work.

So, that's where I started when we got on the phone a couple weeks ago, and you can read the whole transcript below. But first, I should mention she's taking the stage at the 2nd Annual No Depression Festival Saturday, Aug. 21, 2010, at 7:05 p.m. (Tickets are still available here.)

And now, for my full interview with Lucinda Williams:

KR: Since this is for ND and they gave you a lot of ink in the print days, and you were on the cover a few times, I was wondering if you ever read what's written about you.
LW: Sometimes. I always read the stuff in No Depression. I used to read more, but now I read less and less of the stuff that's out there. ND always wrote good stuff about me, so I didn't mind reading what they wrote. [laughs] As a general rule, though, I don't voluntarily read it now. If someone says, "Here's a great review," I'll read it. I used to read all of it, and then it got to be...sometimes, the more there is out there, there's always gonna be the one or two weird ones.

KR: Do negative reviews get you down?
LW: Most of them aren't all the way negative. I think as an artist, your sensitivity gets heightened, especially when you're on the road and you're working night after night. It's probably the hardest when a new album comes out. That's when [you have to wonder] whether it's four stars, or did you get three stars...but that's why I don't read too much of it, becuase you get sensitive. For the most part, overall, I've had good press. I can't really complain. Some of my best friends are music critics [laughs]. Maybe because my father's a writer, and I grew up with writers, I'm real comfortable with music journalists. I find kind of a common bond.

KR: Well, and you've also been in this industry making records for 30 years now, so you must just get used to the constant feedback.
LW: That started happening after Car Wheels, because that was the album that put me out there. Up until then, I was the critic's darling, and then I went from the critic's darling to being the star, and that kind of thing. It's similar, but maybe on a different scale. I wasn't playing big arenas like REM. Although they went through the same thing. First they were the underground band, then they made it and people started taking potshots at them. It's just [a matter of] going up the ladder. Wilco went through the same thing. People wanna feel like they just discovered you or something.

My first album, the self-titled one on Rough Trade, that was the one that people were like, "Where have you been all these years?" Then I did the Sweet Old World album. Then Car Wheels kind of put me in the spotlight, and that got all the great reviews and the Grammy. Then, after Car Wheels, things started moving to a different place. All the while, I was building a fanbase.

KR: And yet somehow you've never really had a big pop hit...
LW: I was so critically accalimed when I first got discovered and more people were just kind of...I don't know how it goes. You can't get great reviews from every reviewer for every album.

KR: But, do you think maybe it's a blessing in terms of your audience that you've never had a big pop hit? You've kind of skirted that, and yet still been respected all along...
LW: I don't know. I guess. I'm sort of balanced on the edge between...are you saying the fact that I haven't "sold out" or whatever?

KR: I think some of the singer-songwriters who have scored big hits, people just know the one song. Whereas, with you, people kind of know your whole catalog.
LW: Yeah, they follow my career. I've always made albums. I think that's the nature of the kind of music I do. Each song is crafted with the same attention to detail, and it comes out as part of an album. At a certain point, I didn't even think about trying to get a song played in rotation on the radio, because radio started changing so drastically. Really, the only way the kind of music I'm doing [can get known], you have to get out there and play live and make records. It's a slower climb, but that's how I've always done it and it's worked for me.

I get stuff on the radio, but at this point you're not gonna hear me on K-ROCK. That would be fine if you did, but at this point it's kind of nebulous. It's like worrying about having a video on MTV. That used to be a way to get to more people. Somehow, not by choice, I just kind of skirted around all that. I wasn't against doing a video, but if I was going to do a video, I wanted to do it my own way, and do something real artistic. That wasn't going to fly. At the time, I didn't have that kind of creative control with videos. With the music, I did. But, the first time anybody ever talked to me about making a video, they wanted to put it on CMT - the country music video channel - because they said MTV would never play it. I'd get all these treatments from the different directors and I just didn't like any of them. If I was going to do a video, I wanted to do something like Bob Dylan Don't Look Back - that kind of style.

Then the days of MTV came and went and I survived. [laughs] I survived and here I am. And now it's all about my Facebook fan page, which, just since i got off the road at the end of last year, I had some time. I didn't pay attention at all to that stuff, but I started going on there and I set up a personal page and then I started chatting with my fans a little bit. Amazingly enough, my fanbase grew on my fan page from 10,000 to now over 75,000, just because I've been going in and conversing with them. Most of them go, "Is this really you?" and I say, "Yeah it's me" [laughs].

KR: Do you spend a lot of time looking for music online?
LW: No. Tom does that, though. He's all connected in with all that. He knows about every band, songwriter, and singer who walks the face of the earth. Tom, my husband/manager, worked in A&R at record companies in marketing for years and years. He does a lot of that. He goes on the Velvet Rope and checks in. This morning, I said to him, "Did you hear the original bass player in the Kinks died?" and he said, "Yeah that was a couple weeks ago." I said, "Ok, well I just read about it in Rolling Stone yesterday."

I'm online, in the meantime, and I'm looking for a weight bench and some skin care that isn't loaded with preservatives, and that kind of thing. Trying to find rugs for the bathroom.

KR And you're working on new music now?
LW: Yeah we're in the mastering stages of a new record now. I started writing toward the end of the year. We got home [from the last tour] in November and I was writing a little bit every day or every few days. We got everything cut and mixed. We've been working with Don Was. We recorded over at Capitol Studios. It sounds great. We're finishing mastering and everything.

KR: So you'll be playing new tunes at the festival?
LW: Yeah

KR: Is there anything else you want people to know?
LW: We're just looking forward to [the festival]. We haven't played in a little while now, and we have this great new guitar player who's going to be playing the shows with us, named Val McCallum. He played on the record. Him, Greg Liesz...we wanted Greg to come out but he was booked in Australia. Then it's my regular bass player and drummer - Butch Norton on drums, David Sutton on bass. For these shows it'll just be the four of us. Rami Jaffee, who's now playing with the Foo Fighters and used to play with the Wallflowers, he played keyboards and accordion on the record. He might try to come and do a couple of the shows with us. I'm not sure which ones, but he was booked up with other stuff, too. It'll be cool. It's going to be great, we're looking forward to it.

For more on the 2010 No Depression Festival, check out the full lineup and schedule. Visit Lucinda Williams' website for a full list of her current tour dates.