Lucinda Williams has a new fan. Before attending her show at the Tivoli TheaterI thought she was nothing more than an artist on the periphery of my musical awareness - a singer-songwriter with two Grammy awards to her credit. That awareness changed the moment the lithe Louisianan ambled out onto the stage. Williams' fans were different than the average country music fan and more akin to the sub-cultural Grateful Dead and Phish fans from the rock genre. Though not as legion, they are every bit as ravenous in affection for their star. To try and pigeon-hole Lucinda as a "country" artist would do her injustice. Backed by her Love Band (Doug Pettibon on lead guitar, Tee Ross on bass and Jimmy Christy on drums) Williams' repertoire this particular evening ran a gamut of styles, which included country, blues, jazz and rock.
   Sauntering up to the microphone, Williams began the evening with a mainstream country number, "Drunken Angel." Her gravelly voice gave each and every song a rich powerful honesty, at times sounding like sandpaper on wood, and all the more potent because of it. Williams paused between each number, changing guitars, talking to the audience and introducing each song. Throughout the 16 song opening set she interspersed several of her new songs. The first, "Jailhouse Tears," she wrote as a duet and hopes to record with someone - possibly Hank Williams III, a choice that met with obvious approval by the audience. People magazine called the song "Righteously" a "hip billy" tune in deference to its hip-hop talking quality and rock-a-billy groove. Tempering the new songs with the older and more familiar ones, Lucinda acknowledged that the audience held an emotional attachment to the older songs. She graciously appeased them with songs like "I Lost It," "Sweetside," the lively "Real Love," and "Change The Locks."
   After a brief respite the ensemble returned for the encore. Once again Williams' raspy voice edged with twang, delivered a soulful rendition of "I Envy The Rain." The powerful and sultry "Where Is My Love" followed, a tune that brings to mind a smoke-filled juke joint in a dime novel film noir. Two more numbers followed, then Lucinda voiced an appeal to the audience to "Question authority at all times," and launched the group into "Get Right With God" bringing the evening to a crescendo with this foot-stomping and forceful proclamation.
   As I turned to file to the aisle and leave an excited fan turned to me and exclaimed with the bubbly exuberance of a child at Christmas "That was one helluva show!" "Yes," I replied smiling broadly, "yes it was that!"

-Wynn Hayden*