THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Lucinda Williams’ music has gotten her through her darkest days. It’s been that way since growing up amid family chaos in the Deep South, as she recounts in her candid new memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I told You. Over the past two years, it’s been the force driving her recovery from a debilitating stroke she suffered on Nov. 17, 2020, at age 67. And her masterful, Grammy-winning songwriting has not deserted her. Her stunning 16th studio album, Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart, brims over with some of the best work of her career. And though Williams can no longer play her beloved guitar — a constant companion since age 12 — her distinctive vocals sound better than ever.
Since the beginning of her celebrated four-decade career, Williams has always written her songs on guitar. With that capability halted, she had to alter her songwriting process and lean on those close to her for help fulfilling her vision. She began writing with her husband and manager Tom Overby, as first documented on her Grammy-nominated 2020 album Good Souls Better Angels. On Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart, Williams teamed up with singer-songwriter and dear friend Jesse Malin — now dealing with a health crisis of his own after suffering a spinal stroke that has left him paralyzed from the waist down. Malin co-wrote three tracks on the album and helped her flush out some of the melodies on guitar. Williams also looked to her longtime road manager Travis Stephens, a veteran guitarist and songwriter, to bring her ideas to life as he co-wrote six songs on the album.
The result is a melodic 10-song rock offering that is an inspiring testament to Williams’ fortitude and perseverance to continue to create under any circumstances. The band rocks out on the album’s jubilant opening track, Let’s Get the Band Back Together, which features a gang of background singers, including Margo Price and Buddy Miller. Inspired by “that need for community after all the isolation of the pandemic,” Williams offers, the song is “about getting old friends together again who’d drifted apart.” Price also joins her on the bluesy protest, This Is Not My Town.
The evocative New York Comeback features Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. A Lucinda fan, Springsteen joined her onstage in London a few years back, and he and Scialfa had wanted to contribute to an album for a while. With Reese Wynans on B3 and a twin -guitar attack, the musical setting perfectly matches the theme of Comeback, as well as on the catchy story-song Rock N’ Roll Heart, to which Springsteen and Scialfa also contributed vocals. Says Williams, “Having Bruce and Patti on these songs feels really great. It’s just so cool!” Other tracks find Williams paying tribute to rock legends Tom Petty (Stolen Moments) and Replacements co-founder Bob Stinson (Hum’s Liquor), to whom who she dedicates the album.
It would not be a Williams album without pulling on heartstrings. The moving Last Call for the Truth, the nostalgic ukebox, and the poignant closer Never Gonna Fade Away are Williams at her best. A true highlight of Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart is the epic Where The Song Will Find Me, a hauntingly beautiful piece, orchestrated and arranged by Lawrence Rothman. Throughout the song, Williams expresses that despite everything she has been through, she will never stop seeking, and we are all the better for it.”
