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.
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