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LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Live At The Fillmore [Lost Highway]

Laura Cantrell – investment banker by day, respected nu-country DJ by. night – gained a dizzying reputation with her two previous albums. A degree in economics and, by country standards, suspiciously comfortable upbringing (no rags-to-riches back story here) proved little hindrance as she made the Americana a-list. Her debut, Not The Tremblin’ Kind, was judged an instant classic by the alt.country cognoscenti. John Peel declared it his favourite album of the last ten years.
While Humming By The Flowered Vine is perhaps too subtle an outing to garner similar praise, it is nevertheless an immaculate collection of classy torch songs and crystal-clear heart-tuggers.
Everything about the album is pristine, from the distinctive pedal-steel contributions from Lambchop’s Paul Niehaus to the choice of material (including a haunting cover of Lucinda Williams’ ‘Letters’) and the cut-glass power of Cantrell’s voice.
Regarded in isolation, Cantrell’s record is graceful, personable and intermittently lovely (lonely drunks will sway to ‘Khaki And Corduroy’). However, position it alongside Lucinda Williams’ sprawling, slurring, magnificently in-your-face Live At The Fillmore and Humming starts to sink back into the wallpaper.
Williams now has in her locker four albums that any of her creative forbearers (Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Jimmy Miller-era Stones) would be proud to call their own. That she doesn’t enjoy a similar level of acclaim has perhaps more to do with her famously fierce independent streak and reluctance to tour, than any flaw in her art.
For the uninitiated, this breathless live album, recorded over three nights in San Francisco serves as a perfect introduction. The project is by turns licentious (‘Righteously’), defiant (‘Changed The Locks’) and, always, heart-stoppingly gorgeous (‘Reason To Cry’, ‘Blue’). Williams is one of the few performers who reminds you of Patsy Cline on one track and Tom Waits on the next.
Judging by the two CDs here, her Fillmore shows were a master-class in literary songwriting and impassioned delivery. You can imagine Cantrell huddled at the back, scribbling notes.

Humming By The Flowered Vine: 7/10
Live @ The Fillmore: 9.5/10