Boston Herald loves Lucinda

Williams sings most ‘Righteously’
By Christopher Blagg/ Music Review
Monday, March 26, 2007

No one makes sounding weary and depressed as sexy as Lucinda Williams. At times raunchy, and other times more gently sensuous, the 54-year-old Louisiana-bred singer-songwriter expertly toed the line between heartbreak and desire in front of a riveted capacity crowd Saturday night at the Orpheum.

With a sympathetic three-piece backing band, a long, wild-haired Williams concentrated most of her set on recent material, including the just-released “West.” A sometimes erratic performer (her stumbling, profanity-riddled 2004 Newport Folk Festival appearance comes to mind), Williams was thankfully on top of her game this night, possibly due to just finishing up a pressure-laden week in New York that included gigs at Radio City and with David Letterman. “Now we can relax and just have some fun,” Williams said.

Relaxed was definitely the case early on. Williams began the night with a string of gorgeous acoustic ballads including the loping, pedal steel-weeping “Ventura,” and the Sam Cooke-inspired country soul of “Fruits of My Labor.”

Despite it being her breakout record, Williams only dipped twice into “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” the album’s childhood reverie-laden title track garnering the night’s biggest response from the devoted crowd.

Things got decidedly steamier as the set wore on. Williams’ bourbon-soaked drawl rambled through sexually suggestive tunes such as the slinky “Essence,” and “Come On” - a bluesy anthem for the sexually dissatisfied woman that had Williams howling, “You didn’t even make me . . . Come on!”

A few missteps crept into the set, notably the tongue-twisting “Righteously” and the awkward spoken-word blues of “Sweet Side,” in which Williams found herself clinging a bit too tightly to the safety net of her music stand and its lyric sheets.

The night ended as it began, with Williams retreating back to acoustic balladry for a quietly powerful encore set that included the lost love lament of “Everything Has Changed.” Williams’ artfully bruised alto managed to suffuse a glimmer of hope in the swaying “West,” before ending the night with a cover of Skip James’ mournful Delta blues standard “Hard Time Killing Floor.”

Cincinnati’s finest power trio Heartless Bastards charmed the pants off the unsuspecting audience with a rather phenomenal opening set of blues-infused garage rock that featured the enormous lungs of pint-sized singer Erika Wennerstrom. Expect big things from this diminutive woman.

LUCINDA WILLIAMS, with HEARTLESS BASTARDS at the Orpheum, Saturday night.