{"id":8322,"date":"2026-01-26T13:44:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T13:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lucinda-williams-i-didnt-realise-i-was-writing-about-myself-152980\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T13:44:35","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T13:44:35","slug":"lucinda-williams-i-didnt-realise-i-was-writing-about-myself-152980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lucinda-williams-i-didnt-realise-i-was-writing-about-myself-152980\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucinda Williams: \u201cI didn\u2019t realise I was writing about myself\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Originally published in Uncut Take 268 [September 2019 issue], the making of the totemic title track from Lucinda Williams’ 1998 album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road…<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 268 [September 2019 issue], the making of the totemic title track from Lucinda Williams\u2019 1998 album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road\u2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a special song,\u201d says Lucinda Williams. \u201cIt came to me almost like a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making the 1998 album on which \u201cCar Wheels On A Gravel Road\u201d became the totemic title track, however, was something closer to a nightmare. \u201cThe album was a total clusterfuck,\u201d laughs Williams. \u201cLet\u2019s go ahead and say it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Featuring a walk-on cast that includes Steve Earle, E Street Band member Roy Bittan, Rick Rubin and Emmylou Harris, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road burned through six years, four producers, three cities, two record labels, and engendered a bitter split with Williams\u2019 long-term musical partner, Gurf Morlix. Even when it was done, a series of legal tussles delayed its release for a year.<\/p>\n

When it eventually emerged, the album won a Grammy and was almost immediately hailed as a landmark in Americana. An evocative scrapbook of people and places, its reputation has only grown with the years. \u201cThat album brought it all to a head,\u201d says Charlie Sexton, who played guitar on the record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like her first novel, really, where it all came together in the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crunchy blend of country, rock and R&B, the title track provides a lightning rod for the album\u2019s themes. \u201cCar Wheels On A Gravel Road\u201d is a deeply personal Southern Gothic travelogue, humming with memory and loss, the resonances of a transient childhood, the voices of Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams, \u201ccotton fields stretching miles and miles\u2026 telephone poles, trees and wires\u201d. At the centre of it all, a five-year-old sits in the back seat, looking out the car window, \u201cdirt mixed with tears\u201d on her face.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strange thing is that, on a conscious level, I didn\u2019t realise I was writing about myself,\u201d says Williams. \u201cI was living in Nashville at the time and my dad was in town and came along to a show at the Bluebird Caf\u00e9. He came up afterwards and started telling me how sorry he was. I said, \u2018What do you mean?\u2019 He said, \u2018That song you sang? You\u2019re the child in the back seat looking out the window, a little bit of dirt mixed with tears. That\u2019s you. And I wanted to tell you that I\u2019m sorry.\u2019 When he said that I was surprised. I knew on some level it was me, but I wasn\u2019t fully aware of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since last year Williams has been touring the album to mark its 20th anniversary, but she continues to look forwards. She\u2019s working on a book, \u201cand I\u2019ve got a bunch of new songs I\u2019m really excited about\u201d. Thankfully, the wild ride on Car Wheels\u2026 didn\u2019t put her off. \u201cOh, no way,\u201d she drawls. \u201cWe need to get back in the studio!\u201d<\/p>\n

GURF MORLIX: I spent 11 years working with Lucinda. First as bass player, then as lead guitarist and harmony singer, and finally as band leader, producer and touring partner. I produced the Lucinda Williams album and Sweet Old World. I was the designated producer for Car Wheels\u2026 \u2013 until the wheels came off. Lucinda played me the songs, and I knew [the title track] meant a lot to her. I could pick up on those feelings and come up with a sympathetic guitar line.<\/p>\n

LUCINDA WILLIAMS: That song came about in such a strange way. There was a certain amount of stream of consciousness involved. I would wake up and have an idea for it, and jot something down. In the end it was like looking at a photo album. Like a travelogue, moving between the past and the present.<\/p>\n

ROY BITTAN: It\u2019s so evocative. That sound it describes resonates with anyone outside of the urban environment \u2013 somebody pulling up in a pick-up truck, driving on crushed stone. It immediately transports you to a place that sets the stage for the type of memories that she conjures up in the song.<\/p>\n

CHARLIE SEXTON: The album is like a little novel, like Flannery O\u2019Connor, and that song makes sense as the title track, because it encompasses a lot of that. It\u2019s very visual, very poetic, very steeped. It\u2019s almost as if every bug that hit the windshield is represented. It talks about the cotton fields; Louisiana, Macon, Mississippi.<\/p>\n

MORLIX: We cut at Arlyn Studio in Austin. Basic tracks went pretty easily. Overdubs were mostly a breeze. It was when we got into the vocals when things started getting difficult. It became a chore, and she was getting more and more unhappy. I think she lost perspective. It got bogged down in the mud. Finally she decided that she wanted to start over, in Nashville, with Steve Earle producing.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: It\u2019s called growth! I didn\u2019t want Car Wheels\u2026 to sound just like Sweet Old World. At this point we had rough mixes of all the songs. It was close to being ready to go. Then Steve asked me to come in and sing on \u201cYou\u2019re Still Standin\u2019 There\u201d on his new album, I Feel Alright. He was recording with Ray Kennedy at Room & Board at Nashville.<\/p>\n

RAY KENNEDY: She said it was the most fun she\u2019d ever had in the studio. She lived around the corner from me, so it was easy. <\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Steve gave me a copy of his rough mixes, and I liked the sound of his album better than mine; it sounded bigger and better. I played Steve\u2019s mixes for Gurf and he said, \u201cI hate these! This sucks, there\u2019s too much compression.\u201d<\/p>\n

STEVE EARLE: There was a lot of compression: the cheap sunglasses of the \u201990s! We were just trying to make it sound like the music we grew up with.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Steve said, \u201cIf you want, come in with Ray [Kennedy] and me and recut the tracks you\u2019re having trouble with.\u201d We went in with the same band and recut a couple of tracks, and they sounded so great. It just sounded like it sounded in my head, so we recut everything. Gurf was pissed. He left in the middle of everything \u2013 and didn\u2019t come back \u2013 but he\u2019s on there, doing some great work. Nothing survived from the Austin sessions. I don\u2019t even know where they are. Gurf still claims to this day that they\u2019re better.<\/p>\n

MORLIX: About half of what we recorded in Austin is way more beautiful and elegant than the final product, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

KENNEDY: We wanted her to sing live with the band. I told her that the more live the record can be, the better chance there is to catch some magic. She was a little nervous about it, I think. She had never recorded live vocals with the band.<\/p>\n

EARLE: The whole deal about Lu wanting to work with us was about the way her vocal sounded. The problem in Austin had been trying to get final vocals that anyone was happy with, and I didn\u2019t want to stumble over that again. She would go to the bathroom and stay in there for a long time, because it was terrifying for her.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Steve had just gotten out of prison. He was in don\u2019t-fuck-with-me bulldog mode, and I was, Waaaaah! So intimidated. I was still real shy and self-conscious about every little note. It wasn\u2019t that I was a perfectionist, it was just that I was scared. I was driving him crazy because I was so unsure of myself. One time he snapped at me: \u201cLu, when are you going to learn to trust somebody?\u201d Another time he said, \u201cIt\u2019s just a record, get over it!\u201d He had confidence in me, but he was a little brusque about it!<\/p>\n

EARLE: I learned something from that: it\u2019s not your record, it\u2019s the artist\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

KENNEDY: Steve and I work pretty quick. I think it took five or six days, cutting three songs a day.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Steve hadn\u2019t initially planned on doing this, and he had a tour coming up. Everything was pretty much done, but I wanted to bring in Emmylou Harris to sing, I wanted Jim Lauderdale\u2026<\/p>\n

EARLE: I was just a year out a jail, I owed the IRS a lot of money, I had alimony to pay. I had to work, and there was always a deadline to when I had to finish the project because I had a tour coming up \u2013 and we missed it. We didn\u2019t get finished in time. Some political things happened, so they decided they wouldn\u2019t wait for me. Also, I said something in the press. I had just produced a woman called Cheri Knight, and I said I wasn\u2019t going to produce girls any more. It was a joke, and it didn\u2019t really have to do with Lu in particular, but somebody repeated it to Lu. That pissed her off, I think, when she heard it out of context. I think it was done on purpose, because they wanted to move it along and get the record finished. That\u2019s my understanding of what happened.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Steve and I started butting heads. John Ciambotti, the godfather of my band, had a connection with Roy Bittan, because John\u2019s daughter was out singing background with Bruce [Springsteen].<\/p>\n

EARLE: John\u2019s daughter was Roy Bittan\u2019s partner. Read into that what you want!<\/p>\n

BITTAN: At some point, Lucinda wasn\u2019t happy with something that was going on. John Ciambotti called me up and said, \u201cLucinda is having a tough time finishing this record. Maybe you can come in and help move this along?\u201d So I went down to Nashville, packed up all the master reels, and shipped them to LA.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: The meat and potatoes of it was done with Steve and Ray. The soul of it. In LA, we didn\u2019t recut tracks, we just added a few things and fixed some things that Roy didn\u2019t like. Emmylou came in, Lauderdale came in, Charlie Sexton came in.<\/p>\n

SEXTON: I played for Lu the first time when I was 11 years old! We hadn\u2019t really played together at all since that one night in Austin in 1979. In LA, there were just these little bits and pieces to add. There was something she wanted and she just hadn\u2019t got it yet. It\u2019s like the elements of the earth \u2013 she needs to feel or taste a certain something against what she\u2019s singing about. Rumbo was the Captain & Tennille studio, this strange nautical place.<\/p>\n

BITTAN: We went track by track and redid parts; on a couple of occasions we went down to bass and drums and recut. I tried as best I could to realise what her visions of the songs were. We spent quite a bit of time doing that, and got to a point where she was really pretty happy.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: Finally, the album was done, mixed and in the can, and it was held up for an entire year. There were problems with my new label, American Recordings. Rick Rubin was changing distribution and the label had ceased to function. It was insane. Attorneys everywhere. Eventually, my manager Frank Callari just called Rick \u2013 they went back a long way \u2013 and told him, \u201cLook into your third eye, man, and do the right thing!\u201d Lo and behold, it worked. Rick let the album go, we made a deal with Mercury, and it finally came out. In my mind the album didn\u2019t take that long, but of course I\u2019ll never live it down: how it took so long, it\u2019s all my fault, I\u2019m a perfectionist, blah, blah, blah \u2013 but nobody knows all this stuff that went on.<\/p>\n

BITTAN: It was a terribly difficult process for her, but the record is really a masterpiece. It\u2019s a complete, holistic work. I was very lucky and honoured to be involved.<\/p>\n

MORLIX: The experience was so painful that I have a hard time listening to Car Wheels\u2026, even though I stand behind every note I played.<\/p>\n

EARLE: I don\u2019t know whether Gurf\u2019s original version, or my version, or Bittan\u2019s version would have been any more or less important than the version they released. It still would have been these fucking songs. It\u2019s not about producers \u2013 it\u2019s all about Lu and these songs. And the title song is one of her best. She writes her ass off.<\/p>\n

WILLIAMS: On this tour, we\u2019re playing the album in sequence. I talk about the songs, and we have a screen showing video and photographs. \u201cCar Wheels\u2026\u201d starts with a video clip of us travelling somewhere. It\u2019s from about 1969. I would have been 16, with my long hair, big smile, wearing a jacket with protest buttons on it. The car is piled down and we\u2019re pulling a trailer, leaving somewhere again! I\u2019m rolling up a sleeping bag with my dad, we\u2019re putting suitcases in the car, then the car pulls away, loaded down, my brother and sister waving. It really takes me back. That song came from way deep inside, like the inside pages of your diary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post Lucinda Williams: \u201cI didn\u2019t realise I was writing about myself\u201d<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Originally published in Uncut Take 268 [September 2019 issue], the making of the totemic title track from Lucinda Williams’ 1998 album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road… Originally published in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,35,4284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-interviews","category-lucinda-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}