Album Review: Lucinda Williams sings The Beatles from Abbey Road

Taking on an album of Beatles covers ain’t for the faint-hearted, but Lucinda Williams is one tough cookie. Indeed, this collection of songs serves as volume seven of her celebrated Lu’s Jukebox, with the likes of Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones getting the full Williams treatment in previous editions.

The dozen tracks tackled here were recorded at the Beatles ground zero of Abbey Road Studios, and it turns out that Lucinda is the first major artist to record Beatles songs there aside from the Fab Four themselves.

The album opens with decent run-throughs of ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, ‘I’m Looking Through You’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, but it is the chugging rhythm of ‘Rain’ that really grabs your attention, perfectly capturing the psychedelic detachment of the track.

‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ ups the ante by adding some extra percussive beef. It’s on another White Album tune, though, that things get properly interesting. ‘Yer Blues’ was The Beatles intentionally parodying British imitators of the blues. Here, Williams flings back the real deal and it’s muddy, filthy and wonderful.

Similarly, ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ is soused in alt-country, while ‘I’m So Tired’ dispenses with the end section that flamed the bizarre ‘Paul Is Dead’ conspiracy theory, replacing it instead with an inspired rock-out section.

7/10