Lucinda Williams with Kacey Chambers - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 7-10-2003

I'm back from my short vacation. Thanks to all of you who wished me well. I had a great time. Here's another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" show. This time, singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams is the star. However, it starts with a short set by another singer-songwriter, Kasey Chambers.

I had never heard of Kasey Chambers before putting this album together. But when I learned about her, I soon understood why this was a logical pairing. Chambers is from Australia, and has often been likened to an Australian Lucinda Williams. Her first album, "The Captain," was released in 1999. To support it, she went on tour as an opening act for Williams. Her second album, "Barricades & Brickwalls," released in 2001, featured a guest appearance by Williams. It was a huge hit in Australia, going to Number One on the album charts there and achieving platinum status seven times over. It was the best selling album of her career. However, it did much less well elsewhere, for instance not quite reaching the top 100 in the U.S. album charts. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about her:

Kasey Chambers - Wikipedia 

The Chambers set is relatively short, only 18 minutes long. The last of the four songs she performed, "Changed the Locks," is actually a Lucinda Williams cover. However, it doesn't appear Chambers and Williams appeared on stage together during this concert. Perhaps they were recorded at different times.

I've posted a bunch of albums by Williams at the blog already, so she doesn't need much of an introduction. Not long before this concert, in April 2003, she released the studio album "World without Tears." It was very well received by critics, and sold about half a million copies. Not surprisingly, she played a few songs from it.

The first song here has "[Edit]" in its title. That's due to a voiceover near the beginning of the song. I got rid of it in the usual way, with the help of the UVR5 audio editing program. I don't know the exact date this concert actually took place. The date in the title is probably the broadcast date.

This unreleased album is 54 minutes long.

01 Barricades and Brick Walls [Edit] (Kasey Chambers)
02 If I Were You (Kasey Chambers)
03 Captain (Kasey Chambers)
04 Changed the Locks (Kasey Chambers)
05 talk (Kasey Chambers)
06 Ventura (Lucinda Williams)
07 World without Tears (Lucinda Williams)
08 Essence (Lucinda Williams)
09 talk (Lucinda Williams)
10 Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings (Lucinda Williams)
11 Joy (Lucinda Williams)
12 Overtime (Lucinda Williams)
13 talk (Lucinda Williams)
14 Righteously (Lucinda Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r8bP8osS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/836bjAK6EkvZU9j/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality.

Lucinda Williams - Got No Home - Non-Album Tracks (2016-2017)

I continue to slowly move forward chronologically with stray tracks albums for Lucinda Williams. This one gets a little closer to the present day, but I currently have two more after this (as I write this at the start of 2024).

By chance, all the songs here are covers of classic songs. I think that makes this a particularly strong album.

Only four of the nine songs are officially released, and only two songs total were done in the studio. I hesitated to post this for a while (my last stray tracks album posting for her was six months ago) because I worried that the sound quality of some of the songs were subpar. But I also had the feeling that they could be improved with some effort, given all the recent advances in audio editing programs. 

So I finally got around to working on this, and I'm pretty pleased with the final results. In particular, some of the unreleased live songs had some annoying crowd noise, like people shouting "woo hoo" in the middle of songs, because these are generally sourced from audience bootlegs. But I was able to wipe most of that out. Now, in my opinion, these sound pretty close to soundboard level of quality.

Regarding the officially released songs, those are tracks 1, 2, 5, and 9. "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad" and "Nobody's Fault but Mine" are from tribute albums. "Hickory Wind" is from an Emmylou Harris box set. "Masters of War" was released as the A-side to a single.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Lucinda Williams)
02 Hickory Wind (Lucinda Williams)
03 A Change Is Gonna Come (Lucinda Williams)
04 I Ain't Got No Home [Trump Version] (Lucinda Williams)
05 Nobody's Fault but Mine (Lucinda Williams)
06 Life during Wartime (Lucinda Williams)
07 Rebel Rebel (Lucinda Williams)
08 Southern Accents (Lucinda Williams)
09 Masters of War (Charles Lloyd & the Marvels with Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16113417/LCNDAWLLMS2016-2017_GtNoHme_atse.zip.html

I was getting a little tired of the same ol' same ol' picture of Lucinda Williams for the album cover. So I used a concert poster instead. As usual, I had to crop the rectangular shape to fit the square space. Otherwise, the only change I made was adding the album title at the bottom.

Rosanne Cash with David Byrne & Lucinda Williams - Columbia Records Radio Hour, New York City, 5-16-1993

Here's a particularly interesting concert by Rosanne Cash. It's rather short, less than an hour, but what makes it special is that David Byrne (of the Talking Heads) and Lucinda Williams take part as well. Both Byrne and Williams sing lead on at least one song, then sing a duet together, and also help Cash with vocals on other songs.

I don't know much about the "Columbia Records Radio Hour." From what little I've gathered, it was a weekly radio show based in New York City. It was run by the radio station WFUV, and was syndicated to about 100 other radio stations across the U.S. I think it only existed in 1993 and 1994 or thereabouts, and then got cancelled. I gather that it featured musical artists who were signed to Columbia Records, as Cash was at the time. 

What's unfortunate is that I've come across very few recording from this show. That's a shame, because lots of great artists had full hour shows, including Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Cockburn, Shawn Colvin, Lou Reed, Toad the Wet Sprocket, etc... There are two "best of" collections that have been officially released, "Columbia Records Radio Hour, Vol. 1," and "Vol, 2." The entire Jeff Buckley show has been officially released. I have the bootleg of the Leonard Cohen show, and I should post that here soon. But other than that, I've had a hard time even finding bootlegs of the other shows. If you have any, please let me know.

As for this show, I had a bootleg of it for many years. The sound is excellent. It was recorded in front of a small audience, so you get some applause, but the sound quality is more like a studio session than a concert. In 2023, five of the songs from this concert were released as bonus tracks on a 30th anniversary edition of Cash's 1993 album "The Wheel," but I didn't use those versions since the bootleg sounded great already.

If you're a Rosanne Cash fan, you should definitely listen to this, but it's good for David Byrne and Lucinda Williams fans too. What's especially great is hearing the rapport between the three of them. It's clear they were all friends, and singing together for fun.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 talk (Rosanne Cash)
02 Seventh Avenue (Rosanne Cash)
03 talk (Rosanne Cash)
04 Roses in the Fire (Rosanne Cash)
05 talk (Rosanne Cash)
06 The Truth about You (Rosanne Cash)
07 talk (David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
08 Roll Back (David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
09 talk (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
10 What We Really Want (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
11 talk (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
12 Wouldn't It Be Loverly (Rosanne Cash with David Byrne)
13 talk (Rosanne Cash)
14 Seven Year Ache (Rosanne Cash)
15 talk (Rosanne Cash)
16 Sleeping in Paris (Rosanne Cash)
17 talk (Lucinda Williams with Rosanne Cash)
18 Something about What Happens (Lucinda Williams with Rosanne Cash)
19 talk (Lucinda Williams & David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
20 Tonight I Think I'm Going to Go Downtown (Lucinda Williams & David Byrne with Rosanne Cash)
21 talk (Rosanne Cash)
22 The Wheel (Rosanne Cash)
23 talk (Rosanne Cash with Lucinda Williams & David Byrne)
24 Wandering (Rosanne Cash with Lucinda Williams & David Byrne)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16082763/ROSANNC1993b_ClumbiRcrdsRdioHrNwYrkC__5-16-1993_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any photos of Cash, Bryne, and Williams together. There are only a few of Cash and Bryne together, and none of them very good. So I went with a photo of Cash and Williams. Unfortunately, it's from waaaaay after this concert. It's from a 2015 concert, in fact. But I honestly don't think they look that different in this picture than how they looked in the 1990s.

Lucinda Williams - I'm Crying - Non-Album Tracks (2015-2016)

Lucinda Williams has a new album out (as I write this in July 2023) called "Stories from a Rock N Roll Heart." To celebrate that, I'm posting another one of her stray tracks albums.

About half of the songs are officially released. Those come from the usual mix of soundtracks, various artists compilations, and appearances on albums by other artists.

There are five unreleased songs, which all are covers of classics: "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash, "Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, "It's Not My Cross to Bear" by the Allman Brothers Band, and "It Makes No Difference" by the Band. Unfortunately, none of these sound really great, meaning soundboard bootleg quality. But they all sound good enough for me not to demote them to bonus tracks. I used some editing tricks to make them sound a bit better. Still, you may well notice the sound quality difference between those and the official tracks.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 So Much Trouble in the World (Lucinda Williams)
02 New York City (G. Love & Special Sauce with Lucinda Williams)
03 The Rising (Lucinda Williams)
04 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Lucinda Williams)
05 Met an Old Friend (Lucinda Williams)
05 Should I Stay or Should I Go (Lucinda Williams)
06 Rockin' in the Free World (Lucinda Williams)
07 It's Not My Cross to Bear (Lucinda Williams)
08 I'm Crying (Lucinda Williams)
09 God Don't Never Change (Lucinda Williams)
10 It Makes No Difference (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15420580/LucndaWllms_2015-2016_ImCryng_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was take at the Azkena Rock Festival in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, on June 17, 2016.

Lucinda Williams - Everything but the Truth - Non-Album Tracks (2013-2014)

This is the eleventh Lucinda Williams stray tracks album that I've posted. And, moving forward chronologically, I'm still only to 2014.

Most of the songs here are from various artists compilations. Four of those are from tribute albums, to John Denver, Slim Dunlop, Levon Helm, and Jackson Browne. Three of the songs are unreleased cover versions, and come from concert bootlegs: "Make the World Go Away," "It Tears Me Up," and "Pale Blue Eyes." However, all of those have really good sound quality comparable to the others.

One bootleg cover version sounded a bit worse, though, "River Man" (originally by Nick Drake). So I've only included that as a bonus track.

This album is 39 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 This Old Guitar (Lucinda Williams)
02 Everything but the Truth (Lucinda Williams)
03 Partners in Crime (Lucinda Williams)
04 Come On [Duet Version] (Lucinda Williams & Max Seymour)
05 Make the World Go Away (Lucinda Williams)
06 Whispering Pines (Lucinda Williams)
07 The Pretender (Lucinda Williams)
08 It Tears Me Up (Lucinda Williams)
09 Pale Blue Eyes (Lucinda Williams)

River Man (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288326/LucndaWllms_2013-2014_EverythngbutTrth_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I did something a little different this time. I found a nice concert poster, though I don't know where or when it's from. As usual with posters, I had to crop it to get the rectangular shape to fit into a square space. I redid the lettering, and added in the album title.

Lucinda Williams - Lay It on the Table - Non-Album Tracks (2012)

It's been a long time since I've posted the next Lucinda Williams stray tracks album - three years! That's a shame, because she'd been prolific. I have five more after this one (and she's still making new music).

Only one song here is unreleased: "Loan Me a Dime." It's from a concert bootleg, and the sound quality isn't quite as good, but it's a great performance.

As for the rest, they're mostly from various artists compilations, such as tribute albums. Several also from appearances on albums by other artists. The vast majority are cover songs.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Tryin' to Get to Heaven (Lucinda Williams)
02 Driving South (Walter Rose with Lucinda Williams)
03 God I'm Missing You (Lucinda Williams)
04 Lay It on the Table (Marvin Etzioni & Lucinda Williams)
05 Mississippi You're on My Mind (Lucinda Williams)
06 I'm Ready (Lil' Band O' Gold with Lucinda Williams)
07 Loan Me a Dime (Lucinda Williams with Jackshit)
08 Hurt (Lucinda Williams)
09 House of Earth (Lucinda Williams)
10 That Time of Night (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15178239/LucndaWllms_2012_LayItonTble_atse.zip.html

The cover is a photo taken at the London Jazz Festival on November 10, 2012.

Various Artists - Big Night at the Museum, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville, TN, 10-28-2020

The other day, I was looking for something Lucinda Williams did, and luckily stumbled upon this interesting concert from a couple of weeks ago (as I write this in November 2020). It's kind of an odd duck, but I really like it. Basically, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee put on a concert to help raise funds for them to keep going during the coronavirus pandemic. It's not exactly a home concert, because they got a bunch of famous country musicians to come to their museum and play music inside it. But there was no audience at all. Instead, the musicians went to various exhibits and played on the actual musical instruments played by country music greats like Jimmy Rodgers and Johnny Cash.

The key, for me, since I really like acoustic music, is that all the performances are solo acoustic. That's very rare for country music these days, but very much needed, since IMHO country music has suffered from bad production for a long time now. Stripping these songs way back, you get the raw essence of the music.

The show this came from was an hour and a half long. More than half of it was filled with talking. A lot of that was promoting the museum and asking for donations. A bit of it was more interesting, with the musicians sometimes talking about their influences and their feelings about playing the instruments once played by their musical heroes. But I cut all that out, since I think this has much greater replay value if it's all music and no talking. As a result, it's only 42 minutes long. That's not much for a show that was an hour and an half, but it's a good length for a typical album.

Even if you're not much of a country music fan, I highly recommend you check it out. Due to its all acoustic nature, it's more like a bunch of singer songwriters who all happen to work in the country genre. And by the way, if you want to catch all the talking parts between songs, I recommend you watch the full show, which is available on YouTube.

01 Buckaroo [Instrumental] (Brad Paisley & Dan Tyminski)
02 That's the Way the World Goes 'Round (Miranda Lambert)
03 Lovin' Arms (Keb Mo)
04 Don't Close Your Eyes (Tim McGraw)
05 Love Hurts (Emmylou Harris & Rodnew Crowell)
06 Heavy Traffic Ahead (Ricky Scaggs with Marty Stuart & Alison Brown)
07 Sweet Dreams (Reba McEntire)
08 I Still Miss Someone (Lucinda Williams)
09 Three Wooden Crosses (Kane Brown)
10 She Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Rodney Crowell)
11 You're Lookin' at Country (Ashley McBryde)
12 I Can't Stop Loving You (War and Treaty)
13 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Carlene Carter & Marty Stuart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15832939/BigNghtatMseumCountryMsicHallFmeMuseumNshvilleTN__10-28-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I took a screenshot at the start of the YouTube video that showed the name of the concert.

Lucinda Williams - Salt of the Earth - Non-Album Tracks (2011)

Here's the next in my series of stray tracks albums for Lucinda Williams. If you like the other ones, you'll be sure to like this one too, because it's a particularly strong one, in my opinion.

Unlike the last album in this series, there aren't many covers of famous songs. The exceptions are "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan,"Dedicated to the One I Love" by the Five Royales, the Mamas and the Papas and many others, "If We Make It through December" by Merle Haggard, and "Salt of the Earth" by the Rolling Stones. "When I Get like This" is another Five Royales cover, but much less well known. Frankly, I'm not sure how many of the others are covers or originals. If you know, please let me know.

Nearly all of the songs have been officially released, usually on various artists compilations or from Williams dueting on other people's albums. The only two unreleased songs are the last two. Both of them are taken from a soundcheck before a concert, so they sound very good and don't have any crowd noise.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 When I Get like This (Lucinda Williams with Steve Cropper)
02 Dedicated to the One I Love (Lucinda Williams with Steve Cropper & Steve Winwood)
03 Undamned (Over the Rhine with Lucinda Williams)
04 I'm So Happy I Found You (Lucinda Williams)
05 Clear Blue Eyes (Amos Lee & Lucinda Williams)
06 If I Can't Have You (Blackie & the Rodeo Kings & Lucinda Williams)
07 Moment of Fame (Lucinda Williams & Son of the Velvet Rat)
08 White Patch of Canvas (Lucinda Williams & Son of the Velvet Rat)
09 A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Tom Russell & Lucinda Williams)
10 If We Make It through December (Lucinda Williams)
11 Salt of the Earth (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191537/LucndaWllms_2011_SltoftheErth_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at a concert in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2011.

Lucinda Williams - Long Way from Home - Non-Album Tracks (2009-2010)

I've been busy for the past week or so, but I hope to make up for that with some more posts in the next few days. Here's the next in my long series of stray tracks albums for Lucinda Williams.

Basically, if you liked the previous albums in this series, you'll like this one too. Five of the songs (tracks 3 through 7) are live performances of rare songs taken from bootlegs. The sound on those are all pretty good. The rest come from the usual mix of songs from soundtracks, tribute albums, duets on other peoples' albums, and the like. 

Nearly all of the songs are covers, including famous songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Hank Williams, Jimi Hendrix, the Kinks, and Jimmy Webb. (What great taste in music she has!) But I believe "Port Arthur (Difficult Child)" is an original, and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" might be one too.

She did the Hank Williams tune "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" on her 1979 album "Ramblin'." But that's a little-known album for her, and this is a differently done version, so I decided to include it.

There's one bonus track, "Ball and Chain." It's a cover of a song Janis Joplin also liked to cover. It actually comes from the exact same concert recording of one of the songs I did include, "Port Arthur (Difficult Child)." But that song was done in a solo acoustic format, which is more forgiving to bad acoustics. This song was played with a full band, and there was a bit too much murk and echo for me.

01 Positively 4th Street (Lucinda Williams)
02 Don't Let Me Down (Susan Marshall & Lucinda Williams)
03 The Things that I Used to Do (Lucinda Williams)
04 Happy (Lucinda Williams)
05 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Lucinda Williams)
06 Angel (Lucinda Williams)
07 Port Arthur [Difficult Child] (Lucinda Williams)
08 Somebody Somewhere [Don't Know What He's Missin' Tonight] (Lucinda Williams)
09 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Lucinda Williams)
10 Long Way from Home (Lucinda Williams & Ray Davies)
11 Galveston (Jimmy Webb & Lucinda Williams)

Ball and Chain (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695523/LUCNDAWLLMS2009-2010_LngWayfrmHme_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo was taken at a concert in Denmark in 2009.

Lucinda Williams - KSUT Virtual Pagosa Folk 'N Bluegrass, Home Concert, Los Angeles, CA, 6-5-2020

I'm very happy to be posting this Lucinda Williams home concert album today for two reasons. First, I've been hopeful that Williams would join the home concert fun, and she finally has.

Second, today has seen the biggest protests yet in response to the murder of George Floyd by four police officers. This concert was just recorded yesterday, and it's clear that the protest situation is very much on Williams' mind, as well as the continuing coronavirus pandemic problem. Most of the songs she chose to play seem relevant, right from the very first line of the first song: "bad news on my TV screen." She even dedicates the song "We've Come Too Far to Turn Around" to "the memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the hundreds of other victims of racial violence in this country." So this album is extremely timely, both literally (since it's from yesterday!) and thematically.

Williams released a new album a month or two ago called "Good Souls Better Angels." I highly recommend it; I think it's her best in years. On it, she's really pissed at President Trump, so if you hate him (as I do), you'll find the album cathartic listening. One of the songs here, and on the new album, "Man without a Soul," directly targets him. More songs here (and from the album) generally deal with the increasing troubles in the US in the Trump Administration years, such as "When the Way Gets Dark."

This album actually comes from two home concerts. The vast majority of it, the first 41 minutes, comes from the "KSUT Virtual Pagosa" show mentioned in the title. The last three songs, for an additional 11 minutes, come from an appearance for a Rolling Stone magazine Internet show that took place about five weeks earlier. The sound quality is similar for both, but maybe a little better for the Rolling Stone songs. I added in those extra songs because they seem to be the only other significant home concert performance she's done so far, as far as I can tell.

Although the sound is excellent overall, I ran into two problems for the KSUT portion. First, I had to increase the volume on the talking between songs so much that sometimes those get a bit hissy. But it's not too bad. The second problem is that Williams had a cell phone nearby, and it rang from time to time. Argh! Very annoying. It rang about eight to ten times through the course of the show. Luckily, I was able to edit out the rings by patching in different parts of the songs. Hopefully you won't notice at all (unless I missed one or two).

In terms of musical performance, this is in solo acoustic format, with the caveat that Williams was joined by Stuart Mathis for the KSUT show. He didn't sing at all, but he did play a lot of nice electric lead guitar to flesh out the sound some.

By the way, Williams also played "You Can't Rule Me" for the Rolling Stone performance, but I didn't include that because it was the only song done there that was also played for the KSUT performance. 

This album is 52 minutes long in total.

01 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
02 Bad News Blues (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
03 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
04 Pray the Devil Back to Hell (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
05 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
06 World without Tears (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
07 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
08 You Can't Rule Me (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
09 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
10 Joy (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
11 Good Souls (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
12 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
13 We've Come Too Far to Turn Around (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
14 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
15 Big Black Train (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
16 talk (Lucinda Williams with Stuart Mathis)
17 talk (Lucinda Williams)
18 Are You Alright (Lucinda Williams)
19 talk (Lucinda Williams)
20 Man without a Soul (Lucinda Williams)
21 talk (Lucinda Williams)
22 When the Way Gets Dark (Lucinda Williams)
23 talk (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15274886/LucndaWllms_2020b_KSTVirtualPagsaFolkBluegrssHomeConcrt__6-5-2020_atse.zip.html

The album cover is a screenshot from the KSUT concert. Stuart Mathis was in the same room, but a fair distance away, probably due to social distancing concerns. I would have liked to include him too, but that would have meant a rectangular shape in which both of them would have been quite small, so I zoomed in just on Williams instead.

Lucinda Williams - Big Road Blues - Non-Album Tracks (1998-2000)

I recently discovered a different way to search for songs, and realized I'd missed a bunch of songs for my Lucinda Williams stray tracks collections. I'll write more about that below, but one result is that I found so many songs that I've created this new album, in addition to updating some other albums.

The songs here are a mix of songs that I've moved from other stray tracks albums as well as some new ones I found. The new ones are: "Down the Big Road Blues," "Wings of a Dove," "Wedding Bells - Let's Turn Back the Years," "Down to the Well," and "The Ship."

By the way, "Down the Big Road Blues" is a blues cover that Bonnie Raitt also did on one of her early albums, expect Raitt simply called it "Big Road." So I've added that in as an alternate title. To further confound matters, I decided to name this album "Big Road Blues" instead of the other two names. I just thought it sounded better.

Looking at this album as a whole, every song has been officially released and all of them are studio versions, so the sound quality is great. It's the usual stray tracks mix of bonus tracks, various artists compilations songs, and songs (usually duets) from other people's albums. The vast majority of the songs are cover versions.

By the way, I'm aware that the song "Lines Around Your Eyes" appeared on her 1992 album "Sweet Old World." But this version with the band Leftover Salmon has a significantly different, and more lively, arrangement, so I figured it was worth including.

01 Here in California (Lucinda Williams)
02 Down the Big Road Blues [Big Road] (Lucinda Williams)
03 Wings of a Dove (Nanci Griffith & Lucinda Williams)
04 Out of Touch (Lucinda Williams)
05 Come to Me Baby (Lucinda Williams)
06 If I Don't Know Love (Chip Taylor & Lucinda Williams)
07 Lines Around Your Eyes (Leftover Salmon & Lucinda Williams)
08 Return of the Grievous Angel (Lucinda Williams with David Crosby)
09 Love Hurts (Little Milton & Lucinda Williams)
10 Cool Blues Story (Evie Sands & Lucinda Williams)
11 Wedding Bells - Let's Turn Back the Years (John Prine & Lucinda Williams)
12 Down to the Well (Kevin Gordon & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376578/LUCNDWLLMS1998-2000BgRadBlus_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 2001.

Lucinda Williams - Bone of Contention - Non-Album Tracks (2007-2009)

Someone posted a comment complimenting my Lucinda Williams stray tracks albums. I'm glad to hear at least one person is enjoying them. So here's the next one in my chronological series.

All but three of the songs here were officially released, from the usual various artists compilations and appearances on other people's albums. The other three come from concert bootlegs, but they sound just fine.

The centerpiece of this album is probably the four songs from an official 2008 EP, called "Lu in '08." All three are covers of anti-war songs. I suspect that theme has something to do with her opposition to the war in Iraq raging at the time, as well as having a mind to the US presidential elections later that year. (The EP was released about a week before the election.)

I think all the songs on this album are covers, except for "Bone of Contention," and most of them are of famous songs. I like the chutzpah of a country-sounding singer-songwriter who does a version of "Riders on the Storm." She also seemed to have been in a Bob Dylan mood, because two of the covers were written by Dylan: "Queen Jane Approximately" and "Masters of War."

01 Honey Chile (Lucinda Williams)
02 Riders on the Storm (Lucinda Williams)
03 I Live My Life (Lucinda Williams)
04 Queen Jane Approximately (Lucinda Williams)
05 Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys (Lucinda Williams)
06 The Ghost of Phil Sinclair (Chip Taylor & Lucinda Williams)
07 For What It's Worth (Lucinda Williams)
08 Bone of Contention (Lucinda Williams)
09 Masters of War (Lucinda Williams)
10 Marching the Hate Machines [Into the Sun] (Lucinda Williams)
11 Oh Lonesome Me (M. Ward & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191376/LucndaWllms_2007-2009_BneContntion_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a concert in Boston in 2007.

Lucinda Williams - Pyramid of Tears - Non-Album Tracks (2004-2006)

Here's the latest stray tracks album for Lucinda Williams. This is a particularly good bunch of non-album tracks.

All of the songs come from official sources, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent. A majority of songs are duets that Williams performed for other people's albums. It also includes three songs from tribute albums and a song from a soundtrack. Some of these are covers of famous songs, such as "A Song for You," "Sleepless Nights," and "Gentle on my Mind." I don't know who wrote the others, but I presume they mostly weren't written by Williams.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Pyramid of Tears (Lucinda Williams)
02 Factory Girls (Flogging Molly & Lucinda Williams)
03 Sleepless Nights (Lucinda Williams)
04 A Song for You (Lucinda Williams)
05 There's a Story in Your Voice (Elvis Costello & Lucinda Williams)
06 Overtime (Lucinda Williams & Willie Nelson)
07 Sins of a Family (P. F. Sloan & Lucinda Williams)
08 A Cut So Deep (John Brannen & Lucinda Williams)
09 Hurry Up Sunrise (North Mississippi Allstars with Lucinda Williams)
10 Gentle on My Mind (Lucinda Williams)
11 Careless Darling (Ramblin' Jack Elliott & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16695517/LUCNDAWLLMS2004-2006_PyramdofTers_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a 2004 concert.

Lucinda Williams - Don't Tell Me - Non-Album Tracks (2001-2004)

Here's the next stray tracks collection from Lucinda Williams, covering 2001 to 2004.

By this point in her career, Williams had established a name for herself. As a result, she was invited to take part in a lot of various artists compilations, mostly tribute albums. Four of the songs here are from such albums (where she naturally does cover versions of the artists who are subject of the tribute). For most of the rest, she duets on other people's studio albums. Only one song is unreleased, and that also is a duet ("Poisoned Rose" with Elvis Costello).

Since nearly all the songs are officially released, it's no surprise that the sound is excellent. The one exception, that duet with Costello, comes from a TV show, so the sound is very good there as well.

Basically, if you liked the previous Williams stray tracks albums I've made, you're sure to like this one.

01 Nothin' (Lucinda Williams)
02 Cold, Cold Heart (Lucinda Williams)
03 The Ship (Chip Taylor & Lucinda Williams)
04 Angels Laid Him Away (Lucinda Williams)
05 Farther Along (Ralph Stanley & Lucinda Williams)
06 Poisoned Rose (Lucinda Williams & Elvis Costello)
07 Lately (Lucinda Williams)
08 Buick Blues (Lucinda Williams)
09 Don't Tell Me (Colin Linden & Lucinda Williams)
10 Hard Time Killing Floor Blues (Lucinda Williams)
11 Hang Down Your Head (Lucinda Williams)
12 Closing In on the Fire (Tony Joe White & Lucinda Williams)
13 Two of Us (Doug Pettibone & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376585/LUCNDWLLMS2001-2004DntTllMe_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo is from a 2003 concert.

Lucinda Williams - Pretty Little Poison - Non-Album Tracks (1994-1998)

In 1992, Lucinda Williams released her acclaimed album "Sweet Old World," and in 1998 she released her even more acclaimed album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." The six years between albums was a very long time for someone still in the early arc of their career. This album shows she still recorded a lot of good music in those "missing years." If you enjoy "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," you should enjoy this.

All but one song is officially released, and that one song was recorded for radio, so the sound quality is uniformly excellent. Most songs come from tribute albums and other various artists collections, as well as duets that appeared on other people's albums. Two of the songs are bonus tracks from "Car Wheels."

A majority of the songs are covers, including: "You Don't Have Very Far to Go" (Merle Haggard), "Positively 4th Street" (Bob Dylan), "Cowboys to Girls" (The Intruders), "Apartment No. 9" (Tammy Wynette), "You're Still Standin' There" (Steve Earle), "Here in California" (Kate Wolf), and "Come to Me Baby" (Howlin' Wolf).

I thought the song "Blaze" was merely an early version of the song "Drunken Angel" found on her 1998 album "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." But after listening to this new version carefully, I realized that although the songs are about the same person and the phrase "drunken angel" is mentioned in "Blaze," they're really different songs.

01 All I Want (Lucinda Williams)
02 Pancakes (Lucinda Williams)
03 Main Road (Lucinda Williams)
04 You Don't Have Very Far to Go (Lucinda Williams)
05 Positively 4th Street [Acoustic Version] (Lucinda Williams)
06 How Can I Sleep without You (Julian Dawson & Lucinda Williams)
07 Blaze (Lucinda Williams)
08 Cowboys to Girls (Chris Gaffney & Lucinda Williams)
09 You're Still Standin' There (Steve Earle & Lucinda Williams)
10 Breakfast in Bed (Donnie Fritts & Lucinda Williams)
11 The Farm (Lucinda Williams)
12 Apartment No. 9 (Lucinda Williams)
13 Pretty Little Poison (Robbie Fulks & Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376593/LUCNDWLLMS1993-1998PrttyLittlPisn_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo of Williams in concert from either 1998 or 1999, I'm not sure.

Lucinda Williams - McCabe's Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA, August 9, 1991

So far, I've generally avoided posting entire concerts here. I've got a lot of good ones to post, but there are lots of other websites that do that, and I'm trying to prioritize getting out my many stray tracks collections first. But I was listening to this concert today, and decided to post it anyway.

This is a great concert for several reasons. One, it's acoustic, and I love acoustic music. Lucinda Williams plays an acoustic guitar, and is backed up only by a second guitarist named Gurf Molix, who also does some backing vocals.

Two, it's a excellent sounding soundboard. The one problem with it is that Williams speaks very quietly when talking between songs. But I think this was just her shyness, not the recording, since she sounds just fine whenever singing. I've boosted the volume for all of her talking, but I could only do so much of that before it sounded too hissy. Then, in a 2026 revision, I used the MVSEP program's "denoise" function to further reduce the hiss on those tracks.

Three, there are a great bunch of songs here. This concert happened in 1991, a year prior to the release of her classic "Sweet Old World" album. But it's as if it happened after that album was released, because she plays a majority of the songs from it. There also are lots of songs from her equally classic 1988 album "Lucinda Williams," plus a smattering of songs from even earlier in her career, and some covers (including ending the concert with songs done by the Rolling Stones, Nick Drake, and Bob Dylan).

Williams has only played acoustic concerts very rarely. So it's a treat to hear many songs from early in her career in acoustic format. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

UPDATE: On January 26, 2026, I updated the mp3 download file. As mentioned above, I used the MVSEP "denoise" filter, to get rid of hiss on some tracks. I think they sound better now.

01 Crescent City (Lucinda Williams)
02 Big Red Sun Blues (Lucinda Williams)
03 Am I Too Blue (Lucinda Williams)
04 Prove My Love (Lucinda Williams)
05 talk (Lucinda Williams)
06 Sidewalks of the City (Lucinda Williams)
07 Pineola (Lucinda Williams)
08 Side of the Road (Lucinda Williams)
09 talk (Lucinda Williams)
10 I Just Wanted to See You So Bad (Lucinda Williams)
11 Little Angel, Little Brother (Lucinda Williams)
12 Passionate Kisses (Lucinda Williams)
13 Sweet Old World (Lucinda Williams)
14 talk (Lucinda Williams)
15 Six Blocks Away (Lucinda Williams)
16 Like a Rose (Lucinda Williams)
17 Something about What Happens When We Talk (Lucinda Williams)
18 talk (Lucinda Williams)
19 Happy Woman Blues (Lucinda Williams)
20 Disgusted (Lucinda Williams)
21 Nothing in Rambling (Lucinda Williams)
22 talk (Lucinda Williams)
23 Hot Blood (Lucinda Williams)
24 talk (Lucinda Williams)
25 Changed the Locks (Lucinda Williams)
26 talk (Lucinda Williams)
27 Stop Breaking Down (Lucinda Williams)
28 talk (Lucinda Williams)
29 Which Will (Lucinda Williams)
30 Positively 4th Street (Lucinda Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oBau1pXh 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/jeEr1K7hcycBUf5/file

For the cover art, I couldn't find any good photos of Williams in concert from 1991, so I've used one of her from 1992 instead.

Lucinda Williams - What You Don't Know - Non-Album Tracks (1989-1993)

Lucinda Williams was criticized for the slow pace of her releases in the 1980s and 1990s, putting out a new album about once every six or seven years. (She's picked up the pace since then.) But I've happily discovered she had lots of stray tracks. For instance, it turns out she had enough material between 1989 and 1993 to release another solid album of mostly original material.

The first five songs here have been released as bonus tracks on some editions of the 1989 album "Lucinda Williams." But they deserve more exposure than that. They all come from in studio radio appearances. I included one of them, "Sundays," on my previous stray tracks collection, "In My Girlish Days." But that version was a full-band performance, and this one is a significantly different acoustic one.

Six of the remaining eight songs are still officially unreleased. This is a shame, because they're all fine songs, and the sound quality is very good too. Three of them, "Motherless Children," "Stop Breaking Down," and "Tonight I Think I'm Going to Go Downtown," are covers, with the last one of those being a duet with David Byrne of Talking Heads fame. Most of these unreleased songs come from concert bootlegs, with the audience noise removed.

One of the remaining songs that has been officially released, "Pancakes," is also a song I put on the "In my Girlish Days" album. But this version and that one are drastically different, as suggested by the fact that this version is three and a half minutes shorter.

In short, in the late 1980s and 1990s, Williams was peaking with the most acclaimed albums of her career. If you like those albums, you should definitely like this one too.

01 Goin' Back Home (Lucinda Williams)
02 Dark Side of Life (Lucinda Williams)
03 Nothing in Rambling (Lucinda Williams)
04 Disgusted (Lucinda Williams)
05 Side of the Road (Lucinda Williams)
06 Factory Blues (Lucinda Williams)
07 Wild and Blue (Lucinda Williams)
08 Motherless Children (Lucinda Williams)
09 Burning Desire (Band of Blacky Ranchette & Lucinda Williams)
10 Drivin’ Down a Dead End Street [Early Version of He Never Got Enough Love] (Lucinda Williams)
11 What You Don’t Know (Lucinda Williams)
12 Stop Breaking Down (Lucinda Williams)
13 Deportees [Plane Wreck at Los Gatos] (David Rodriguez & Lucinda Williams)
14 Tonight I Think I'm Going to Go Downtown (David Byrne & Lucinda Williams)

Sundays (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376584/LUCNDWLLMS1989-1993WhtYuDntKnw_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo of Williams in concert in 1992.

Lucinda Williams - In My Girlish Days - Non-Album Tracks (1981-1986)

Lucinda Williams is another musician I really like. I plan on posting a lot of her music here.

Williams' career got off to a rather unusual start. She put out an acoustic all-covers album in 1979 called "Ramblin'" then an album of originals called "Happy Woman Blues" in 1980. So far, so good. But then she didn't release anything else all the way until 1988. That delay would have killed off the careers of most musicians. But her 1988 album, simply titled "Lucinda Williams," was so strong that it put her  on the map as a serious artist.

So what's the deal with that eight year gap between her second and third albums? Partially, it turned out she had a very tough time getting a record contract that she was satisfied with. But also, it turned out that she was a perfectionist. Her next two albums in particular also were delayed for years while she labored to get things exactly as she wanted them.

However, as it turned out, those eight years weren't wasted in terms of songwriting. I'm not a big fan of her 1980 album of originals. It's okay, but not great. However, her 1988 album is fantastic. Clearly, in the years in between, she made great strides in her songwriting. In fact, it turns out that many of the songs on her later albums, including at least half of her acclaimed 1992 album "Sweet Old World" were actually written during this eight-year period.

Furthermore, it turns out that she wrote even more songs during that period that fell by the wayside and were never officially released. Who knows just how many such songs there are, but we know some of them due to songs that have been made public through bootlegs. This album is a compilation of all the unreleased songs I could find.

The songs here come from four sources. The first three are from a 1981 radio show. One of the songs there, "Pancakes," was released on a various artists compilation in 1993, but that was a very different arrangement. The next five songs are from 1984 acoustic studio demos. One of those, "Out of Touch," was released on her 2001 album "Essence." But again it's a different arrangement, with somewhat different lyrics. The next three songs are from a 1985 radio show. The last song is from a 1986 studio session. A live version of that song, "Sundays," would be released on the 25th anniversary edition of the 1988 "Lucinda Williams" album. But again, that very is significantly different.

So, all in all, most of these songs are totally unreleased, but three of them have appeared elsewhere in other forms. All the songs are acoustic in nature, with a couple of musicians joining Williams for the first three songs and the last one. I'm not entirely sure, but as far as I know, the only song that wasn't written by Williams is "In My Girlish Days," which is a cover of a Memphis Minnie song.

I don't think this album is as great as the great 1988 album "Lucinda Williams." But I like it more than her 1980 album "Happy Woman Blues." It's quite different from both of those albums too, since the 1988 one is a lively mix of country, blues, and rock, and the 1980 one has a strong country feel, but this one is mellow and acoustic. If you're a Lucinda Williams fan, you should definitely give it a listen.

01 All I Want (Lucinda Williams)
02 Song for a Jewelry Maker (Lucinda Williams)
03 Pancakes (Lucinda Williams)
04 Out of Touch (Lucinda Williams)
05 Venetian Blinds (Lucinda Williams)
06 I Bet It (Lucinda Williams)
07 What I'm Living For (Lucinda Williams)
08 Hard Times (Lucinda Williams)
09 In My Girlish Days (Lucinda Williams)
10 This Is Not My Town (Lucinda Williams)
11 Lover of the Hour (Lucinda Williams)
12 Sundays (Lucinda Williams)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15191371/LucndaWllms_1981-1986_InMyGirlishDys_atse.zip.html

I figured "In My Girlish Days" is a good time, since the mid-1980s are "girlish days" when compared to the length of Williams' musical career since then. I'm not sure where the photo for the cover art comes from, or what year it's from, but I can guess her general age. It was damn hard for me to find any photos of Williams from the early to mid-1980s. I settled on a black and white one. But, over a year later, I colorized it.