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T A B L E__T A L K

What's become of noisy electric guitars and pounding drums? Is scary rock 'n' roll dead? Join the requiem in the Music section of Table Talk.

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R E C E N T L Y

Various Artists
Everybody Wants Some
Cherrydisc/Roadrunner
David Lee Roth
The Best
Rhino
(10/27/97)

Edwyn Collins
I'm Not Following you
Setanta/Epic
(10/24/97)

Everclear
So Much for
the Afterglow
Capitol
(10/23/97)

Paul Paray
Joan of Arc Mass
Reference Recordings
(10/22/97)

Divine Comedy
Casanova
Bar/None
(10/21/97)

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V O W E L L

Sound Salvation
By Sarah Vowell
True blue tributes
(09/19/97)

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F E A T U R E

Almost Heaven:
John Denver 1943-1997
Dawn Eden remembers the man whose music left no room for cynicism (10/14/97)

____lucinda williams

LIVE AT THE FILLMORE

SAN FRANCISCO

OCTOBER 24, 1997

It's been five years since Williams, who grew from a country and blues traditionalist on the Smithsonian Folkways label into a great songwriter in her own right, has released a follow-up to her acclaimed 1992 album, "Sweet Old World." Folks are starting to talk: A recent New York Times Magazine article painted her as a demanding, overbearing perfectionist who can't finish her new album, and Newsweek recently dubbed her a "difficult diva."

Twists of fate have constantly hobbled Williams' success. Her eponymous third album, which put her best foot forward in a slew of different genres, essentially disappeared when her label, Rough Trade, closed up shop soon after its release. Its finest moment, the plainspoken demand for respect "Passionate Kisses," won her critical acclaim, but it was Mary Chapin Carpenter's cover version that hit the charts. It's the sort of career people write country songs about -- full of rumors, misunderstandings and ill will. But Williams, to her credit, doesn't care. For an hour and a half at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium last Friday, all that emerged was the beauty of her music -- tough, stark and winning.

After opening with some of her earlier gems, including "Pineola," "Crescent City" and the gorgeously elegiac "Something About What Happens When We Talk," Williams paused for a moment to debunk a few rumors about the new album -- it's completed, she said, though there's no set plan for a release date. Then she proceeded to show off some of the results. Judging from the songs Williams performed in a bare-bones setting -- just her acoustic guitar, with an electric guitarist and acoustic bassist as backup -- the album, called "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," has all the tension and grit the title suggests. "Metal Firecracker" smartly combines country textures with '60s AM pop, and ballads like "Drunken Angel" and "Still I Long For Your Kiss" are sorrowful without being drenched in sentimentality. After opening her set in a style that was polite almost to a fault, Williams' performance slowly gained teeth for the powerfully insistent country vamp "Car Wheels" and particularly "Joy," whose stop-fucking-with-me lyrics gave Williams the opportunity to channel her rage in a way that's both roughshod and infectious. The set-closers capitalized on that emotion, finishing with the new "Can't Let Go" and another one of her striking proclamations of independence, "Changed the Locks."

The three encores, by contrast, were looser and more freewheeling, from "Little Angel, Little Brother" to the inevitable "Passionate Kisses." By that point, however, Williams had finished presenting her case, proving that she's still one of the most bracing songwriters and performers in country music, regardless of whether a new album is missing from the racks. In a way, it makes sense that her performance of "Passionate Kisses" seemed lackluster, forced and obligatory. Perhaps she fears the danger of holding too closely to a hit song or living too much in the past. Or perhaps she's just grown tired of having to beg for what she already deserves.
Oct. 28, 1997