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Review of TV show taped on 2001-11-06 with Lucinda Williams;
CMT, Crossroads; recording of session
Costello, Williams Tape Crossroads Session for CMT
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Lucinda Williams, bassist Taras Prodaniuk and Elvis Costello (l to r) performing in New York City on Nov. 5, 2001, for the taping of CMT Crossroads. |
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The CMT Crossroads series seeks to demonstrate the intersection
of country music and other genres such as rock, rap and pop, by bringing
together artists who come from diverse musical backgrounds. Hank Williams
Jr. and rap-rock star Kid Rock will collaborate in mid-December in Nashville
for a future episode.
Lucinda Williams is best known to mainstream country fans for writing
Mary Chapin Carpenters Passionate Kisses, which earned
Williams a Grammy for best country song in 1993. She also has penned
songs for Patty Loveless (The Nights Too Long), Emmylou
Harris (Sweet Old World, Crescent City) and
Tom Petty (Changed the Locks). As a recording artist, Williams
won the Grammy for best contemporary folk album for her breakthrough
1998 CD, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.
Highly respected in roots and rock music circles, Williams mostly has
been a Music Row outsider. Her sound is too raw and edgy for todays
refined country airwaves.
Elvis Costello and Lucinda Williams make for an interesting pairing for the debut episode of CMT Crossroads. |
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I do write country songs, she insisted at the taping,
following a performance of Blue, a quiet weeper from her
current album, Essence. I just dont write country
songs that get played on country radio.
Costello jumped in with his own assessment of contemporary country radio:
Yeah, they sort of have forgotten what they are.
See, thats the whole point of [this show], Williams
replied, how you define country music. In my mind its Hank
Williams [Sr.] and Loretta Lynn.
During the shoot, Williams cited Bobbie Gentry as an early influence.
Gentry is the writer and performer of the 1967 country-pop smash Ode
to Billie Joe, which features vivid, haunting Southern imagery,
a characteristic that also has become a trademark of Williams
work.
It was really original stuff, the stuff she was doing, Williams
said of Gentry. She was writing her own songs. She was one of
the first female singers I was influenced by who sang in a lower register.
I felt real comfortable with that, because before that I was listening
to singers like Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez. They all
had these beautiful high voices. Then here comes Bobbie Gentry, and
she had this lower, kind of smoky voice. It was kind of country, but
it wasnt typical country. It was a blend. I just really identified
with it.
Lucinda Williams and Elvis Costello pictured with Kaye Zusmann, Vice President, Program Development and Production, CMT. |
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Costello, a native of Liverpool, England, lives in Ireland and is hardly
a country artist. The singer-songwriter long has had an affinity with
Nashville, however. He recorded his 1981 country covers album, Almost
Blue, there with legendary country producer Billy Sherrill.
During the taping, Costello also recalled meeting and working with Johnny
Cash and George Jones, who have recorded his songs, and he talked about
his own admiration for Hank Willams Sr., praising the economy
of expression in his songs and the true, soulful feeling that comes
in them.
Costello covered Wild Horses, a country-flavored Rolling
Stones number, for possible inclusion in the show. He also treated the
New York audience to a pair of his own songs -- Indoor Fireworks
and Poisoned Rose -- from his rootsy 1986 album, King
of America, and he debuted a new, unfinished song that he said he
is writing for Lucinda Williams to sing someday.
Inevitably, however, not all performances will make it into the shows
final cut. More details about the actual contents of CMT Crossroads
first installment will be available closer to air date.
©2001 country.com Inc., a Viacom Company
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