This wonderful artist gets both the calendar post and the video of the day on Johanna’s Visions since it’s her 60th birthday.
Lucinda Williams with the Bob Dylan cover “Tryin To Get To Heaven” from the Amnesty International tribute album “Chimes of Freedom” celebrating Amnesty International’s 50th year advocating for human rights, here in two audience recorded live performances and the one from the Amnesty album.
Trying to get to heaven (live, 2011), a bit of chatter on the sound, but still great:
Like som many, I discovered Lucinda Williams when she released the fantastic album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. I went to the record store (yes, we actually did that in the old days) and bought as many of her albums as I could find. There were four albums before Car Wheels.., great albums, I love them all. Since then I’ve awaited all Lucinda Williams albums with great exitement. She’s always good, most of the time she’s great.
Today she’s 60, happy birthdayLucinda Williams!
Lucinda Williams (born January 26, 1953) is an American rock, folk, blues, and country music singer and songwriter.
She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams. This release featured “Passionate Kisses,” a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter which garnered Lucinda her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994.
Car Wheels ON A Gravel Road (live):
Known for working slowly, Lucinda recorded and released only one other album in the next several years (Sweet Old World in 1992) before her greatest success came in 1998 with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. This album presented a broader scope of songs that fused rock, blues, country, and Americana into a more distinctive style that still managed to remain consistent and commercial in sound. It went gold and earned Lucinda another Grammy while being universally acclaimed by critics. Since Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she has released a string of albums that have also been critically acclaimed, though none have sold in the numbers of her 1998 breakthrough. She was also named “America’s best songwriter” by TIME magazine in 2002. (Wikipedia, READ MORE)
Her wonderful song about Blaze Foley, Drunken Angel:
I could have chosen Car Wheels as today’s album, but insted I’ve made a playlist of my top 20 Lucinda Williams songs. It was easy to find 20 songs, but it was hard to limit myself to just 25. Anyway here it is.
Hallgeir’s top 25 Lucinda Williams songs:
PS: I have a confession, Car wheels is no longer my favourite Lucinda Williams album, that honor goes to World Without Tears.
Dolly Parton’s 20 best songs according to Hallgeir.
This was hard. It was supposed to be a top 10 list, but I just couldn’t cut the list down to just ten songs.
15 songs written by Dolly Parton, 1 by W. Guthrie and 4 traditional songs. The first 15 are orginal Parton compositions.
Dolly Parton and Mick Jagger:
Take away the glitz and the bling, what’s left is a tremendous artist. Dolly Parton is one of the best performers out there and she is one of the all time best songwriters. 20 songs from a singer and songwriter that I consider to be world class.
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
― Dolly Parton
“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”
― Dolly Parton
“I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.”
― Dolly Parton
Here’s a nice tribute video – Gospel Music Hall of Fame 2009:
Jolene – live 1974:
In her productivity and devotion to writing Parton is like a nineteenth-century woman novelist–a hillbilly Louisa May Alcott. What’s best about her is her spunkiness and prettiness (Jo crossed with Amy); what’s worst is her sentimentality and failures of imagination (Beth crossed with Meg).
~Robert Christgau (Christgau – Dolly Parton albums)
From Wikipedia:
Birth name
Dolly Rebecca Parton
Born
January 19, 1946 (age 67)
Sevierville, Tennessee, United States
Genres
Country, country pop, pop, bluegrass, gospel
Occupations
Singer-songwriter, record producer, actress, author, musician, businesswoman
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, author, and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music.
Beginning her career as a child performer, Parton issued a few modestly successful singles in the mid-1960s, showcasing her distinctive soprano voice. She came to greater prominence in 1967 as a featured performer on singer Porter Wagoner’s weekly television program; their first duet single “The Last Thing on My Mind” was a hit on the country charts and led to several successful albums before they ended their partnership in 1974. Moving towards mainstream pop music, Parton’s 1977 single “Here You Come Again” was a success on both the country and pop charts. A string of pop-country hits followed into the mid-1980s, notably recording a pair of successful albums with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, along with the creation of the Dollywood amusement park. In the late 1990s, Parton returned to classic country/bluegrass with a series of acclaimed recordings.
Coat Of My Colors – live 1974:
She has composed over 3,000 songs, the best known of which include “I Will Always Love You” (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper for Parton, as well as an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), “Jolene”, “Coat of Many Colors”, “Here You Come Again” (Parton’s first significant crossover hit, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100), “9 to 5”, and “My Tennessee Mountain Home”. Parton is one of the most successful female country artists of all time, and with an estimated 100 million in album sales, she is also one of the best selling artists of all time in any genre.
As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, Gnomeo & Juliet, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel, and Joyful Noise.
I Will Always Love You – live 1974:
Album of the day:
The Essential Dolly Parton (2005):
There have been many, many Dolly Parton compilations over the years, but RCA/Legacy’s 2005 set The Essential Dolly Parton is one of the handful that gets it right. Spanning two discs and 37 tracks, this set covers her entire career, from her 1967 debut, Hello, I’m Dolly, to her 2001 bluegrass comeback album, Little Sparrow, but the bulk of this set concentrates on her hitmaking years for RCA in the ’70s and ’80s. Since Dolly had so many hits, not all of them can be included even on a double-disc collection, but this does a tremendous job of picking the biggest and the best of them.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)
We are very excited about this new EP from Lily & Madeleine and so should you all be! I do not know the complete tracklist but we will include the three songs we have heard here.
