Lucinda Williams

"It took singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams eight years to get out her third album, a self-titled affair on the Rough Trade label that featured mostly original songs. But it was worth the wait. Lucinda Williams from 1988 was the kind of recording that makes an impact ... The second disc brings you through the album again, live, with a tight band that lives up to the original even as it covers some older (and newer songs). The treat here, perhaps, is the straight-forward "Crescent City", with nice, heavy guitar work, or the quiet "Something About What Happens When We Talk", a song that would appear on Williams' next studio record, Sweet Old World, featuring a very effective background vocal part".

"The album has been unavailable for a decade, but is now rereleased on Williams' own label, along with 20 live tracks, 14 of them previously unreleased, from a concert in Holland in 1989. And it deserves to be heard again. It includes the rousing country rocker Passionate Kisses, later a hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter, the epic narrative The Night's Too Long, which echoes Springsteen at his best, the gently charming Like a Rose, and some impressive blues tracks, including Howlin' Wolf's I asked for Water (He Gave Me Gasoline). An Americana classic".

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