Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams is well-known for digging deep in her lyrics, in a Janis Joplin “Take a little piece of my heart now baby” sorta way.
Williams, who is still recovering from a serious stroke she suffered in 2021, is a captivating force in roots music, unashamed and unafraid to express herself. The singer is coming to Providence’s Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium on November 15th for a special show of stories, songs, and visuals named for her recent book, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets.
“We call those the book shows, the regular shows, we call the rock shows,” she explained in a phone call earlier this week, where I reached her at her home in Nashville. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter shared a lot in our chat, including a little about her upcoming tour.
“Those are fun; it starts out with just me and a microphone; I let the audience know I had a stroke ’cause I’m not playing guitar,” she began. “I have Doug Pettibone and Mark Ford from my band, sitting up there with me, backing me up on acoustic guitars.”
Like her book, the show is organized chronologically. Published in 2023, the book shares her life story through her lyrics, with Williams providing details on what inspired her songs.
“I talk about the music that inspired me at the time – I’ll sing a song connected with that,” she explained. “In 1965, when I first played guitar is when I first heard Bob Dylan, and his album Highway 61 Revisited. So the band joins me in a version of “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry,” a classic from that album.
As the show (and her career) progresses, she works in more of her original music. “Meanwhile, there’s a screen behind me on stage, showing photographs of my father and different people I talk about in some of the songs, so people can put faces with the names. I’ve gotten really good feedback for these book shows; people like the visuals,” she added.
Williams recently recorded an album of Beatles covers at the legendary Abby Road Studios in London. Her husband and personal manager, Tom Overby, arranged for award-winning Nashville producer Ray Kennedy, “a huge Beatles fanatic,” to record the sessions.
“He got in touch with the powers that be and managed to book some time there, which isn’t the easiest thing, as you can imagine,” continued Williams. “We were over there doing some shows. It ended up being about three days at the studio to cut all the songs. Just walking through the door felt like finding the Holy Grail. It’s like, wow, this is where all those iconic songs were recorded.”
Williams is known for writing intense, brutally honest, and sometmes provocative lyrics. Her songs explore the painful side of relationships and breakups in a way that might make Taylor Swift blush. I asked her for her thoughts regarding aspiring songwriters.
“I was at this place in downtown Nashville, in the back of Tootsies, an iconic bar,” she began. “One night, a guy came up to me for advice about writing songs. He was so sweet. I said, well, the number one thing is that you’ve got to be willing to look deep into the well, go down deep into that part of yourself. You might find some darkness there, or you might not.”
“But you need to be able to get in touch with that. You have to be willing to pull back the pages and dig down in there. It’s sort of like going to a therapy session. It was sort of sad; he was brutally honest, he said he wasn’t sure he could do it. I was probably thinking something along the lines of, well, don’t quit your day job.”
“The other question that’s been asked of me a lot is how they can support themselves when they’re just starting out,” continued Williams.” It’s always this DIY thing for a lot of them. They don’t have management or record labels supporting them, so they’re doing it all on their own.”
“The first thing I tell them, depending on where they are living, is you need to get out of town. You can’t just stay in the same town and expect to make a living playing music for that long. There’s only so many venues and so many people. I was always looking for the next good music scene. Like Austin, Texas in 1974.
“You have to be adventurous and jump in your car and drive across the country; there’s a sense of adventure and confidence you have to have!”
Wanna hear more from Lucinda? Tickets are still available for the November 15th show at The Vets. Click here for details.
