Lucinda Williams LIVE @ THE FILLMORE

Personnel: Lucinda Williams (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Lucinda Williams; Doug Pettibone (guitar, lap steel guitar, pedal steel guitar, mandolin, harmonica, background vocals); Jim Christie (keyboards, drums, percussion); Taras Prodaniuk (bass guitar, background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Michael Dumas.
Recording information: The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA (11/20/2003/11/22/2003).
Never one to tread the expected path, Lucinda Williams followed her big breakthrough album, CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD, with a pair of low-key records full of sad, quiet, fragile songs (interrupted by the occasional barn-burner). LIVE @ THE FILLMORE concentrates heavily on those latter two releases, unleashing all the intense, burning emotions that lay at their core, making plain the inherent frisson lurking below the surface of such ostensibly laconic tunes as "Lonely Girls" and "Righteously." Meanwhile, songs that already had plenty of bite in their studio versions are pumped up to an even more electrifying, visceral level (a bold, crunching "Changed the Locks;" the roaring, bluesy "Joy"). The debt Williams and her band owe to Neil Young & Crazy Horse is illuminated on "Are You Down," and, elsewhere, a spoken intro finds the singer laying bare her affection for ZZ Top. Clearly, revelations of all kinds abound on this double-disc concert document.

• Format: CD
• Genre: Rock