> So what's Lucinda Williams' story, anyway. Father's a "poet," right?
> Is she some sophisticate assuming the white trash personna, to the
> great pleasure of urban intellectuals, or does it come from the
> bones?
Miller Williams is a poet and he runs the U. Ark. Press. He was the poet at Clinton's 2nd inaugural. He was something of an itinerant academic -- worked at a half-dozen different small colleges around the South while Lucinda was growing up. Single dad to three as I recall. Although he moved around a lot, he apparently was good at the academic game because he's had either a Guggenheim or a Fullbright or both (it's been a while since I read this stuff). Spent a while in Chile as a visiting prof and in Mexico city (UNAM?).
Sophisticated poseur? I don't think so. I don't even see her as doing a white trash persona, or even a Southern one particularly, with the exception that she did live most of her youth in the South and currently lives in Nashville, so her music definitely has Southern themes.
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Tom Waters <twaters at usit.net> wrote:
> She comes off as a real pretentious fool in interviews, but on
> record it sounds like it comes from the bones. As for authenticy,
> they do play her a lot on the country station that the country
> people listen to around here (WDVX).
>
> Tom
I've only heard her in one interview and that was on The World Cafe, coincidently while I was driving to New Orleans to see her show. She didn't come off that pretentious, but she did vent about the story they did in NYT Magazine that basically called her a brat. I gather that she is difficult to work with and that seems to come from her own unwillingness to consider a project "done" and her perfectionist tendencies.
Does she really get airplay on commercial country stations there? Around here she only gets played on the Pacifica station that plays a lot of Austin scene type music. (that I loosely categorize her as)
If you think it comes from the bones on record, try her live sometime. I was buzzed for a week after seeing her last summer.
-j
--
Joseph Noonan jfn1 at msc.com