The New Yorker Radio Hour - Lucinda Williams Talks with Ariel Levy

Episode Date: May 21, 2019

Despite winning a Grammy for her song “Passionate Kisses,” which was performed by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucinda Williams spent many years overlooked by the music industry: she was too country for rock, too rock for country. In 1998, American music caught up to her, and her album “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” broke through. The staff writer Ariel Levy sat down with Williams at the New Yorker Festival, in 2012, to talk about God, Flannery O’Connor, and the musician’s path through the industry. Williams topped it all of with a live performance.   New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In 2012, staff writer Ariel Levy sat down with one of the most acclaimed American songwriters of recent years, Lucinda Williams. Williams has released 13 albums, and she's written songs for everyone, from Mary Chapin Carpenter to Tom Petty. She's a winner of three Grammy Awards and now here's Lucinda Williams with Ariel Levy. A lot of your music strikes me as really spiritual

and you've got God on your belt buckle and you told me... Get right with God. Yeah, right with God. Right on your belt buckle, just like your song. Yeah. And you were telling me that you've got... That you had an end of your house naturally

this wall of crosses. Crosses. Different crosses, yeah. Like art, Day of the Dead kind of stuff and Santeria. And both your grandfathers were ministers. Methodist ministers, yeah. So tell us a little bit, if you would, about the role that religion and God have played in your life and in your music. And I'm particularly interested in concepts of sin and redemption, which I think came up in your music a lot.

My dad's father, for instance, was a Methodist minister. But, you know, he was what I liked it, what I described as a Christian in the true sense of the word. you know, he was for women's rights. He was a CEO in World War I and was involved in the Southern Tenet Union's farmer's struggle and all of that, you know. And then my dad, by the time I was born and growing up and everything,

my dad described himself as agnostic. So. What about you? Do you consider yourself agnostic? No. But I don't have, because I don't believe. in original sin.

So I'm not a Christian, you know, I guess. Except I feel like I live my life more like a Christian than a lot of Christians. You know, it's all, everybody knows what I'm talking about. But I just love

the folklore and the mythology and the symbolism of it all, you know. One of the things I really envy about religious people is that they can walk through life with a sense of destiny. And it seems to me that a lot of artists have that same blessing. You know, like at what point in your life did you know or did you feel that music was your calling? Well, probably from the time I was about 12 years old, which is when I started taking guitar lessons. And it was the same year I first heard Bob Dylan.

Highway 61 revisited in 1965. There was always a piano around the house because my mother played, you know. Music books would be laid around and music being played in the house. My dad was listening to

everyone from Hank Williams to John Coltrane at Chet Baker, Lotton Hopkins, you know. So when did you start writing? When did you start doing your own songs? Well, I mean, I was, you know, fooling around with it and everything, but from the age of probably about 13 or 14, you know.

And your father, this is a great poet, Miller Williams. Was he a big influence on you in terms of writing? Yeah, yeah. He encouraged you? Yeah, he encouraged me. I mean, you know, there were other writers, poets, and novelists in the house, you know, a lot. And he taught at different universities. So I grew up in that academic environment, you know,

and it's very, you know, stimulating and just, you know, he'd have people over at the house, and it would just be people like, you know, John Cullen Holmes and John Chardy and James Dickey, and that was the environment. Tell us a little bit about when you first started playing music, singing as a job, you know, in New Orleans, when you were real young and you were playing in bars.

Was that a fun time in your life? Tell us about that a little bit. Well, I mean, you're talking about the first little gig I got in New Orleans. Yeah, I was in between. Well, my dad always wanted me to, you know, get a degree in something so I could have something to fall back on. And we were encouraged to, you know, have a career, whatever it was. So I was at, I got into the University of Arkansas where he was teaching in 1971. And I was going down to the quarter, because we lived there for a while when I was growing up. I went to high school there, everything. So I had some friends there and all.

So I was going down to the French Quarter and hanging out. And there was this little folk club called Andes on Bourbon Street, right in the middle of all the strip joints. It's really odd. And anyway, I got offered a little gig playing there like, you know, three nights a week for tips, which was a huge deal for me. This was in 19702 or something, you know. So I called my dad, and I said, you know, I don't, instead of coming back to school in the fall, I want to stay down here and do this.

And he said, okay. That was probably the biggest turning point in my entire, what became, you know, my career. Because he gave you permission to be an artist, essentially. I needed to have his permission, you know. Uh-huh, uh-huh. And we were talking about that, like, it's important for

kids to have at least one or someone they don't want to disappoint. It doesn't have to be one of your parents but somebody you know that you don't want to disappoint them. Uh-huh. You know, so that was my dad for me,

so, you know. And then another big turning point after that is when you get your first development deal. And you must have thought, and this is when you would tell it, and you must have thought my ship is in. I'm there. I've made it. I was on cloud nine. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there was a guy at RCA at the time,

and he really liked me and, you know, saw something there. So they used to do this back then. They called a development deal. And this was in 1985, I guess. And they give you enough money to live on for six months or something. And so I had enough, for the first time, I didn't have to work a day job. And all I had to do was, you know, write some songs. and then they send you in the studio to do a demo tape, and hopefully they sign you after that. And there were some great songs on that demo tape, weren't there? The same ones that ended up on the Rough Trade album. Passionate Kisses in Crescent City and all.

And Passionate Kisses was the first song that you won a Grammy for. Yeah, that was Mary Chapin' Carper. Years later, not until 1994. But the Grammy, so she recorded it, you win for Best Country. I won for Country Song of the Year. Yeah, that was kind of a funny thing. It was really because Merrick-Taybic Carpenter was being marketed in the country arena.

She picked that song up and recorded it. And at the time, her label or whoever was in charge, you know, said, no, we don't want that to be the single. It's not country enough. And she stood her ground, and they put it out as a single, and then it won a Grammy for Country Song of the Year. And so it wins a Grammy for Country Song in the Year. on that first demo of yours that you did for the development deal,

which they didn't pick up. Right. That's going to be gratifying. I got passed by everybody. Yeah, it's gratifying later on. To win a Grammy for a song they didn't pick up. Yeah. I mean, you could just...

Well, I couldn't get signed for anything. I mean, because at the time, back in the mid-80s, there was no Americana, there was no alternative country, there was no, you know, all of this. So they didn't know. I literally fell in the cracks between. according to them, between country and rock. But in terms of music,

you know, people always give you a lot of credit for having a lot of integrity. Oh, yeah. True to your sound, which I could certainly understand. But you think sometimes that that's been about fear. It was a lot of it was. Just, you know, when I was first starting out, I was, you know, terrified of being overproduced

and all of this, you know. Because I had seen other folk blues heroes kind of of mine who had made these horrible, horrendous albums. Like the 70s, you know, the disco thing came along, and all of a sudden, you know. Uh-huh, uh-huh. So I think of you as one of the great erotic poets of our time. Wow.

And it seems like you're really comfortable and really uninhibited as well as really brilliant writing and singing about sex. Do you feel like... Yes. I like to... The truth is I like to push people's buttons a little bit. I think it's from growing up with my dad, a poet and all the poets and everything. I mean, they didn't censor themselves, and that was one of the things my dad taught me about writing,

don't censor yourself. So that's the way I approach songwriting. Although I like to do it in a sort of elegant somewhat, you know, it's not like a punk thing. That's a whole different thing, you know. So I don't want to like cram it down people's throats. Yeah, you're trying to make people feel something. You're not trying to assault them. Yeah.

But it just made me, it is sort of punk. I was just thinking about, wasn't there a thing where a woman sort of, you were playing essence and there was a woman at a show who sort of spontaneously, oh my God. It busted in sexual. Ferver. This was at the House of Blues in New Orleans. And it was after Hurricane Katrina.

So there is this really odd energy in the, you know, you could feel it in the whole city, really this kind of. sort of kind of subliminal anger or something, you know. Anyway, so I was there with the band. We played essence, and the place was packed, and I didn't see it. I didn't witness it, you know, but apparently there's a woman who was there who was masturbating,

and they called the cops, and apparently she was kicking the policeman because she wasn't finished yet or something. So I could totally understand, you know. So I don't know if she was on ecstasy, I don't know what the hell. It's a very sexy song. I felt this kind of a little pride about that, you know? Like, you know, damn, I mean, that's pretty gutsy, not ballsy.

I hate saying that about when it's a woman. I hate that. Has anything changed about the way you write songs? I feel like I'm more confident now. I feel like I'm actually riding more. I used to just barely have enough songs for one album. But in the beginning, I mean, I was just so painfully shy. And I would just kind of look down like this and, you know.

And I still get nervous, you know, but it helps to have a great band behind you. You know, and have that connection and feel secure. And when I first started out, I really didn't think of myself as terms of being a great singer. I mean, so that's one reason I decided. to learn how to write good songs. Was it Emmylou Harris? Emily Harris was another one. But who said to you...

Oh yeah, she said one time, you know, your limitations or your strength, your limitations become your strength and all. Well, speaking of great songwriting, great vocals. Let's have a big round for Lucinda the person. This is called World is Out Tears. If we live in a world without tears. tear. The bruises fine

Faced a life palm How would scars fine skin To etch themselves in two How I would broken Find the bone If we live In a world

I'll tear I would heartbeats know When to stop How would blood know Which body to flow I us find the gun and if we live in a world how would misery know which back door to walk through how would trouble know which mind to live inside of how it's sorrow find a home and if we live in a world bruises find a pond upon

How would scars find the skin, etched themselves in two. How would broken, find the bone. How would bullets, find the gun. How was sorrow, find a home. Thank you. Ariel Levy talking with singer-songwriter, Lucinda Williams.

I'm David Remnick. Please join me next week. And until then, have a great week. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of W. NYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. Our team includes Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario,

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