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Few artists take the sort of emotional risks that Lucinda Williams does. Pouring her all into songs of hurt, need, and desire, she turns every live performance into an adventure, as the first concert recording of her career attests. Coproduced by Williams, Live at the Fillmore showcases her raw wound of a voice and the rough edges of her band in all their unvarnished glory, as the music cuts across conventional categories of country, blues, folk, rock (and rap) to strike a distinctly personal chord. Even the pacing is risky. Whereas most artists plan their sets to hit hardest at the beginning and end, Williams inverts the dynamic, sustaining a mood of reflective melancholy for extended stretches that open and close the album, while building to an explosive climax in the middle. With the selection dominated by recent material, the first eight numbers are like a sweet ache, as the wistful country of "Ventura" and "Reason to Cry" and the folkish minimalism of "Lonely Girls" explore the fringes of emotional fragility. Then Williams and band flex their musical muscles, shifting into the bluesier side of her artistry on "Change the Locks" and "Atonement," extending the desperate intensity of "Joy" over almost eight minutes, and offering homage to Neil Young's Crazy Horse on "Righteously" and "Essence." Backed by the barbed-wire guitar of Doug Pettitbone over the bare-bones rhythms of bassist Taras Prodaniuk and drummer Jim Christie, Williams tells the crowd, "We got the mojo workin' tonight." --Don McLeese Recommended Lucinda Williams Albums 
Lucinda Williams | 
Sweet Old World | 
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road | 
Essence | 
World Without Tears | 
Ramblin' |
| ARTIST: | Lucinda Williams |
| CATEGORY: | Music |
| MANUFACTURER: | Lost Highway |
| FEATURES: | Live |
| TYPE: | Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative Country-Rock, Alternative Folk, Americana, Heartland Rock, Pop, Rock, Singer/Songwriter, United States of America |
| MEDIA: | Audio CD |
| TRACKS: | Ventura, Reason To Cry, Fruits Of My Labor, Out Of Touch, Sweet Side, Lonely Girls, Overtime, Blue, Change The Locks, Atonement, I Lost It, Pineloa, Righteously, Joy, Essence, Real Live Bleeding Fingers And Broken Guitar Strings, Are You Down, Those Three Days, American Dream, World Without Tears, Bus To Baton Rouge, Words Fell |
| UPC: | 602498621233 |
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Live @ The Fillmore reviews by customers
 I'm With the Folk Who Favor the Studio Albums
Usually I prefer Live shows, but I'm with the folk who favor the studio versions of the songs on this album. Lucinda's vocals wear a bit here and there, and I'm never really taken someplace new. That said. It's Lucinda, and where she takes me is worth 4 stars anyway.
FWIW, that "family friend" referred to in "Pineola" is Frank Stanford, a pretty damn good poet and part of a cadre of good poets who went through the University or Arkansas. He's also the subject of the Indigo Girls' "Three hits to the heart . . ."
Clear your throat, Lucinda
Lucinda is clearly a great song writer who deserves all they laud on her, etc. This is musically a great CD. Earthy, rocking, some wonderful live renditions of her ballads.
But man, her vocals wear on me some every time I listen to it. That hacking up phlegm stretch on many of the songs that wasn't present early in her career and pops up on her last couple of solo albums doesn't do justice to her studio versions and makes her sound like an old drunk who needs to be thrown out of the bar come closing time.
While I don't expect Lucinda to take a "break" from touring to rest her vocal chords or anything, let's tone that angry scratch down some. It mars an otherwise great release from one of our greatest song writers and performers.
 Incendiary Devices
The little blurb by label mate Elvis Costello on the packaging calls Lucinda the closest link we have to Hank Williams recording today. Yes, her honesty as a performer is intense and if each note is not perfect, on a soul level it certainly makes sense. "Ventura" that opens is a slow song where Lucinda's vocals sail peacefully over the lovely melody, "I want to get swallowed up in an ocean of love." "Reason to Cry" is another slow gorgeous melody where Williams' voice seems worn with world-weary worry, "I thought things would stay the same, I thought things were right on, then our sunny days, how could we go wrong?" Lucinda starts to let loose on the emotional belter "Sweet Side" with the talk-sing verses and the wild chorus. The band lets loose on "Changed the Locks" with Lucinda's wild electric lead searing the speakers and her ravaged vocals pouring more power into a lyric than anyone since Janis Joplin, "I changed the kind of car I drive so you can't see me when I go by & you can't chase me in the street & you can't knock me off my feet." Disc 2 must have been re-sequenced since the computer lists the opener as "Essence" rather than her classic "I Lost It." "Pineola," the tale of a suicide, is not the most pleasant of songs, but is ripped to shreds by Lucinda's bloodlust performance that gores the jugular & never lets loose of her grief. Her snarl and vocal fierceness on this track adds new levels to the studio version. Lucinda's electric lead is like an incendiary device in the emotional gasoline of "Righteously," "Be my lover, don't play no games, just play me John Coltrane." "Joy" is another startling assault with the band in crack form and Lucinda's primal vocals violating the musicality to arrive at an apex of desperation. "Are You Down" takes the pedal off the metal as Lucinda's bluesy electric guitar jolts the melody, milking it like a classic Grateful Dead treatment. "These Three Days" is another strong melody where Lucinda explores feelings of being used by a lover. "Bus to Baton Rouge" from the "Essence" album sounds good in this live rendition. Lucinda Williams shows some incredible sides of her talent that come through in a more replete manner than in her studio recordings. We hear her as a guitarist, sometimes as adventurous as Hendrix; and we also hear an incredible vocal performance, rivaling Janis Joplin for sheer no-holes-barred emotion. Bravo!
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