Lucinda Williams

Ten studio albums isn’t a lot to release over 30 years, but Lucinda Williams has always needed a lot of time and space to move around. Accordingly, she has gradually built up a solid reputation as a songwriter while trying to fend off a reputation for being difficult. Of course, some artists have to be that way to avoid getting pinned down, especially when they span rock, folk, and country with such fluid disregard for marketing-friendly genre labels. On albums like 2007’s West, Williams trades the crossover anthems of her classic Car Wheels On A Gravel Road for something starker and straighter. Her latest, Blessed, plays like a more varied (and better) sequel, with plenty of stellar material for those who are now used to the looser approach Williams has favored for the last decade.

Updated 05/10/2011