Lucinda Williams’ 15th studio album, Stories From a Rock N Roll Heart, releases June 30. Ahead of the release, Williams connected with Bill DeVille to talk about the new record and about her many ties to Minneapolis, including her friendship with the Replacements’ Tommy Stinson and her song tribute to Stinson’s late brother and bandmate, Bob Stinson.

You can watch and listen to the complete interview above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Edited for length and clarity.

Bill DeVille: Hey, I'm Bill DeVille, and I'm here with Lucinda Williams. So nice to see you, Lucinda.

Lucinda Williams: Hi, thank you. Good to see you, too.

Bill DeVille: So since the last we spoke, you had a stroke. And that was about two years ago. First and foremost, how you feeling?

Lucinda Williams: I feel fine. It's just — I try to take it day to day. I've had a lot of rehab and physical therapy and all of that. So that's helped a lot.

Bill DeVille: You're certainly staying busy. I mean, you have a brand-new album on the way in June, and you have a brand-new book, too, called Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You. So was it therapeutic to write a book?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, it was kind of therapeutic. I'd never done one before. So I was a little nervous about it at first, just because I didn't know how to get started with it, really. But it's kind of like writing in a journal, except you have to make sure it's well written because other people are going to read it.

Bill DeVille: Did you keep a diary over the years?

Lucinda Williams: I used to when I was younger, when I was in my teens. But this stands apart from that. Mainly, the biggest difference I think for me was having to decide what you're going to include in the book and what you're going to leave out, because you don't want to put every single detail in there.

Bill DeVille: How do you make the decision about what stays? Or decide, "No, I don't really want to go there."

Lucinda Williams: Well, that's part of the challenge of doing a book, is making those decisions. I guess I just looked at it as if I were reading it, how would I feel if I read a certain thing? And who else might be reading the book? What age might this person be? Someone in their teens? Or, you know, maybe one of my aunts might read it; how am I going to feel? What would she feel like if she read a particular thing? And I didn't want to offend anyone.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. Do you think you've succeeded?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, I think I did.

Bill DeVille: Now, in the book, you mentioned that you recorded Essence here in the Twin Cities. What do you remember about the whole process of the Essence album and recording it here in the Twin Cities?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, the first thing that comes to mind always — of course, when I think about Minneapolis and St. Paul — is the weather: the snow, the cold. I'd never been there before. And I actually drove up there from Nashville.

Bill DeVille: In your Silverado, you mentioned in the book.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, my Silverado pickup truck. I had just met and was getting to know the artist Bo Ramsey, and he was working with me on the Essence album and co-producing. And we were trying to decide what studio we were going to go into, and where we wanted to work, and who we wanted to work with and all that. And he had done a lot of work with Tom Tucker at Mastermix Studios up there. And so Bo Ramsey actually was the one who suggested working at Tom Tucker's studio in Minneapolis. And we brought in Charlie Sexton, who came in to help out on it, and I was really lucky because I got to use some of the guys who were working with Bob Dylan and Neil Young — like Jim Keltner came in and played drums, and Tony Garnier was on bass, and Charlie Sexton on guitar and Bo Ramsey on guitar also.

Bill DeVille: That's quite a band!

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, it was quite a band! When I first got there, I stayed at — Peter Jesperson was kind of the host of the project — so he put me up at his house. And so I became friends with Peter Jesperson. And I just remember when I first got out of the car — when I very first got there and how cold it was — I wasn't really prepared. But then I adjusted to it over time.

Bill DeVille: It wasn't on on the Essence album, but you wrote a song called "Minneapolis," and it seems like it was written about a cold day in the Twin Cities.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, I wrote that shortly after I'd been there recording.

Bill DeVille: Well, let's talk about the new album. I'm so curious about the new album Stories From A Rock N Roll Heart. Did it feel good to be back in the recording studio and making a new album?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, it did. I mean, I just kept going after my stroke. It didn't occur to me to slow down or stop, because I was still able to sing. And I felt like I've made enough progress, physically, to be able to get into the studio. And we started doing a few shows, and it worked out fine. But I wasn't able to play guitar, which was real drag. 

Bill DeVille: Yeah.

Lucinda Williams:  But the band, I still have a really good band. I always manage to get good musicians around me!

Bill DeVille: You've never had a problem with that, have you?

Lucinda Williams: Right! I know. I've been lucky in that regard. So I've got some good guys now I'm working with, and they've got my back.

Bill DeVille: So who are you playing with now? I saw Buddy Miller, Tommy Stinson and Angel Olsen all appeared on your album.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, Angel Olsen came in as a guest artist and did some vocals on one song. And the same with Tommy Stinson; he came in as a guest artist on a song. And some of the guys who are on the album play in my touring band, like Stuart Mathis is on guitar, and he was a guitarist in the Wallflowers with Jakob Dylan. And my drummer Butch Norton, who is also my touring drummer, he was in the studio with me, and David Sutton, the bass player, also tours with me. So it was good to have some of the guys who are on the road with me also recording in the studio. It's good to have that, I think.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. So has your songwriting process changed since the stroke?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, it has. It actually opened me up to collaborating with other people, which has been kind of fun for me. I never really wanted to get into to doing that too much. It's the co-writing thing; ever since I first moved to Nashville, everybody was just trying to set me up with someone to write with.

Bill DeVille: Well, that's how they do it in Nashville.

Lucinda Williams: That's how they do it, yeah. And sometimes they'll have five or six people working on one song, which always kind of amazed me, because it's hard to write that personal of a song if there are that many people working on it. And most of the songs I was hearing that were being written that way I didn't think were that good! So I was really leery of it. But then after I tried it with the right people, I realized that the big issue with it is it's got to be the right people you're working with, you know?

So my husband, Tom Overby, who's from Minneapolis, we started working on stuff together, and it was just kind of an organic process. We didn't really sit down and say, "OK, let's write a song together." It was more like, I would be working on something, and then he would come up with some ideas for a song and show me — he'd write these lines down, and then I would read them and they were good, so I would either use them in a song I was working on or I'd start a new song with them. And I would edit the lyrics a little bit maybe, and I'd come up with the melody and the arrangement and all that. But a lot of the ideas for different songs came from Tom, like the "Hum's Liquor" song, and "Let's Get the Band Back Together."

And then the other person who got involved in writing with me was Jesse Malin. He's based in New York, and he really helped to add this rock and roll element to things, because that's what he does; he's a New York, East Coast rock ‘n’ roller. So he would fly in from New York and stay with us for a few days, and Jesse and I would work on some stuff, or Jesse and Tom and I would work on stuff.

Bill DeVille: So was it the three of you, then, who did the song "New York Comeback"?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah.

Bill DeVille: Tell me about that song. I love the track. It's amazing!

Lucinda Williams:  Yeah, thank you. I really like that one, too. And now I can't remember who brought that in initially, but I think it was Jesse, being the New Yorker that he is, you know? Or might have been Tom initially, and then Jesse added a bunch of stuff to it. I'm not sure — I'm sorry, I can't remember. But that's how close we were working together! It's actually a good thing that I'm not sure who brought that in. But Jesse definitely helped on that one with the general vibe of it, and I think I wrote the melody, or I wrote it with Jesse, maybe.

Bill DeVille: Whose idea was it to call Bruce Springsteen and Patt Scialfa?

Lucinda Williams: OK, I'm pretty sure Tom brought that up, because he's always been a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. Initially, he thought it was just kind of a dream to have Bruce come in; he said, "Wow, wouldn't that be great?" And Jesse said something like, "I think I can get a hold of him. I think I can get a hold of his people." Because Jesse knows everybody. He's just one of these movers and shakers. People informally call Jesse Malin "the mayor of Greenwich Village" or "the mayor of the East Side," because he's always got something going on, and he knows everybody! So he jumped in and he managed to track down Bruce and his wife, Patti, and they said yes, that they would love to do it. They weren't able to come into the studio with us, but we sent them the tracks, and they put their vocals on.

Bill DeVille: Oh, the wonders of modern technology, right?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah.

Bill DeVille: The other song title that really caught my eye, because I lived right by there, was “Hum's Liquor.”

Lucinda Williams: Really?

Bill DeVille: Yeah. Hum's Liquor is on the corner of Lyndale and 22nd, and I lived at Aldrich and 22nd, so basically the parking lot was in between my apartment and Hum's Liquors.

Lucinda Williams: Well, that's interesting that you say that, because it leads right to the inspiration for the song. And the inspiration was that Tom Overby lived right — I mean, y'all could have been next door neighbors, I don't know!

Bill DeVille: Yeah, we could have been. So I’m really curious about the inspiration for the song.

Lucinda Williams: The way Tom has described it is, every morning he would get up to go to work, and he would look out his window and he could see [late Replacements guitarist] Bob Stinson walking to this liquor store, and that became the inspiration for that song. It's really kind of an ode to Bob Stinson. It's not meant to be judgmental or anything like that. Tommy [Stinson, Bob’s brother and former bandmate] came in and sang and contributed to the track, and he was really moved. 

Bill DeVille: Yeah, we love Tommy around here. He's been a good friend of the station for years. He's an awesome guy.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, he's great.

Bill DeVille: Now, I notice so many of your songs — you have a song called "Minneapolis," you have "Hum's Liquor," and there's “New York Comeback” — so many of your songs are about a place or have a sense of place. Why is it that way in your music?

Lucinda Williams: I guess it’s because I think that it gives the song more color. To mention the name of a town or the name of a city, it's like a photograph. If you say the name of a certain town or place people automatically know what that means. Especially if they've been there before. Like Minneapolis, you mention that, and immediately a photograph pops up in people's heads. So it helps set the stage for the rest of the song, I think. It just makes it more interesting. 

Bill DeVille: And you have a song called "Lake Charles." That's where you grew up, huh?

Lucinda Williams: That's where I was born. I didn't actually grow up there; I didn't spend all of my childhood there. But I was born in Lake Charles, and then I grew up mostly in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I spent my teenage years in New Orleans.

Bill DeVille: So you've had a long career, you just wrote a book, you got another album coming out, and I heard you’ve got another batch of songs that you started for another possible new album in 2024.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah. We didn't want to cram too many songs on one album, but the songs get written, and then we go in and record and then sit and look at them and decide which ones are going to make the album. It depends on how they come out. You don't always know that until after you've already recorded them. So a lot of times we end up with extra tracks, and we save those for the next release.

Bill DeVille: Here's one for you: Willie Nelson just turned 90 years of age.

Lucinda Williams: Wow! That's right! 

Bill DeVille: Yeah, isn’t that crazy? 

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, that's amazing.

Bill DeVille: So tell me about Willie. I bet you've been a fan forever, haven't you?

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, and I've done some shows with him. I've met with him and talked with him a little bit. He's real quiet, though. He's kind of almost kind of shy when you meet him. But he always has this gentle way about him. Very kind, very gentle. Very youthful, speaking of 90! That's a good way to start it off when you said he just turned 90. and then asked me about Willie, and that says a lot right there that he just turned 90. That's Willie right there. He's out there still, doing what he's always done. At the age of 90. That speaks volumes about who he is, you know?

Bill DeVille: What was it like recording that Billy Joe Shaver song "Live Forever" with Willie, the song you guys recorded about a year and a half ago?

Lucinda Williams: Well, the track was recorded already and I added my vocal to it. I worked on that with Charlie Sexton. Charlie was the one who contacted me, and I was going to be in Austin, Texas, anyway, so Charlie set it up, and I went in the studio and added my vocal to that track. And it was great. I mean, I love Billy Joe Shaver. I really enjoyed doing that.

Bill DeVille: Yeah, I bet. So what haven't you done in your career yet? You've done so many things.

Lucinda Williams: Well, I haven't been in a movie, but I don't really want to; I'm not interested in that. I'm too shy! I'm way too shy to think about acting. I mean, I've been asked to do a couple of those kinds of things, but I'm always very reticent and very shy about it, so nothing like that has ever come to fruition. I guess I mention that because there's a handful of actors who also have bands, and at least try to be musicians, and then there's a handful of musicians who try to be actors. So it kind of crosses over, it's been overlapping a lot. 

Bill DeVille: Well, so nice chatting with you, Lucinda.

Lucinda Williams:  Yeah, you too.

Bill DeVille: Lucinda Williams will be in the Twin Cities for some shows. I see you have four dates at the Dakota: the 25th, 26th, 28th, and 29th of July. We'll see you at at least one of them.

Lucinda Williams: Yeah, and I love the Dakota. I like going there to see artists.

Bill DeVille: It's nice place.

Lucinda Williams: It's very artist oriented.

Bill DeVille: Yeah, it's a good spot. Take care.

Lucinda Williams: You too. Take care.

Credits

Guest – Lucinda Williams
Host – Bill DeVille
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video Producer – Erik Stromstad
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Lucinda Williams - official site