When I first put Lucinda Williams' self-titled album in my CD player, I fell in love. Every word in these songs, every note that carries and supports the lyrical message, rings with a sense of honesty and soulfulness that penetrates straight to my heart. This is a woman who has felt the things I have felt, the same passions, the same joys, the same sorrows; and more than that, she is able to express all that feeling, that lifetime of being here on this snake-bit planet, in songs that ring as true as the sunrise.

Lucinda Williams is, for my money, the songstress of this age. She has written and recorded five albums, so far, which contain a collection of some of the very best that American music has to offer. These are songs from the heart, from the soul. Songs that carry the life of a struggling, feeling human being. How she is able to stuff all of that into three- and four-minute tunes, I don't know, but she does it. The musicianship is superb and the song writing top-notch.

Her more recent album, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, is one of my picks for 1998's album of the year. Produced by Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy (the infamous "Twang Trust"), two of Nashville's (in the broadest sense of the term) shining lights, it is a gem of an album. Fortunately for the rest of us, Koch International has chosen to re-release her eponymous album (which was actually her third effort, originally released on Rough Trade). Included on the re-release are six bonus tracks, all but one live recordings.

The album starts with "Just Wanted to See You so Bad," a tune about a midnight ride to see someone the singer has been unable to get out of her mind. "Drove my car in the middle of the night / Just wanted to see you so bad / the road was dark but the stars were bright / just wanted to see you so bad...." Nothing is gonna stop this woman, she wants to see this man and she will. And nothing could stop the tune -- it rocks.

"The Night's Too Long" is a song about a waitress who wants more out of life than her small town existence has to offer. Tired of small-town boys, she determines to find one who wears a leather jacket ... and likes his livin' rough. When she gets to where she's goin' she's gonna buy all new clothes. Well, she gets there, and buys those new clothes but maybe her new life is not quite what she thought it might be. See what you think.

Many of Lucinda's songs have been covered by first-rate artists; "Abandoned" the next song, was redone by Linda Thompson. Lucinda does an excellent job on it herself. She credits The Sir Douglas Quintet with being the inspiration for the next tune, "Big Red Sun Blues" (which, by the way, Molly O'Brien has just done an excellent cover of on her album of the same name, released by Sugar Hill). "Big Red Sun" deals with the singer's sense of nostalgia, as she gazes out at the setting sun and reminisces about a fading love affair. This song is a personal favorite, as the setting sun often brings up similar feelings for me. The sun goes down, the light fades and here we are thinking about past loves and the joy/sorrow which is all we are left with.

"Like a Rose" and "Changed the Locks" (covered by Tom Petty) precede "Passionate Kisses," which was covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter and is one of the songs that really brought Lucinda to a lot of people's attention. "Passionate Kisses" is a great tune. The singer lets it be known that she knows what she deserves: warm clothes, a comfortable bed, food to fill her up, a full house and a rock 'n' roll band ... and passionate kisses. That's what she wants and that is what she will settle for and nothing less.

"Am I Too Blue," a short tune in which the singer queries her lover about just what he wants and can handle, is followed by "Crescent City," a cool, autobiographical song about growing up in Louisiana. "My brother knows where the best bars are...." I bet he does, Lucinda, and I wish I was there with y'all hangin' out. The next song is "Side of the Road," a wistful tune in which the singer wants a little space to connect with herself again. She asks her lover to park and let her out for a walk -- "I wanna know you're there, but I wanna be alone / If only for a minute or two / I wanna see what it feels like to be without you / I wanna know the touch of my own skin / against the sun, against the wind."

"Price to Pay" and "I Asked for Water (He Gave me Gasoline)" round out the original album. The latter is a Howling Wolf song, which Lucinda gives a treatment all of her own. Speaking of covers of other people's songs, Lucinda does one of the greatest versions I have ever heard of Bob Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street," which is available on Dark Side of Life: The Loose Ends & Scattered Songs of Lucinda Williams, an import on a no-label CD I picked up from Village Records. It also contains a collection of various duets with Steve Earle ("You're Still Standing There"), Terry Allen ("Room to Room" and "Back to Black"), Chris Gaffney ("Cowboys to Girls") and David Rodriguez ("Deportee"), among others, in addition to several other singles and elsewhere un-released tunes she has cut over the years.

The six bonus tracks which round out the rerelease of Lucinda Williams are "Nothing in Rambling," a folk song penned by Joe McCoy; "Disgusted," a Lil' Son Jackson blues tune; "Side of the Road" (live version), "Goin' Back Home," a traditional tune arranged by Lucinda; and "Something About What Happens When We Talk," wherein Lucinda discusses the varieties of attraction: "It wasn't your face so much as it was your words / 'Cause there's something about what happens when we talk...." A song she brings to a close saying: "I can't stick around I'm going back South / All I regret is I never kissed your mouth...." The final tune on this disc is "Sundays," a tune that she says isn't finished, but it seems finished to me, expressing that dragging, hard-to-make-it-through-the-day feeling some of us get sometimes, especially on Sundays.

If you are a fan of the new music that is coming out of the old, the country/folk kind of sound that seems to be happening all over the musical landscape, you should check out Lucinda Williams. It is an excellent album and combined with her current Mercury release, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, contains some of her very best work. Her other albums are well worth checking out too, especially This Sweet Old World, which is out of print but still widely available. Better get a copy before they are all gone, as it, falling in between this, her first really successful release, and Car Wheels, demonstrates the progression of her writing and also happens to contain some great tunes such as "Sweet Old World" covered by Emmy Lou Harris on Wrecking Ball.

I would like to end this review with a note about the music and musicians. The players are Gurf Morlix on guitars, mandolin, dobro, pedal steel, lap steel and six-string bass, Dr. John Ciambotti on bass and Donald Lindley on drums. Lucinda plays a mean rhythm guitar and there are also additional guests who help round out the sound of her excellent band. As a whole, the sound is tasty and clean. The musicians work together to create a sound which perfectly supports Lucinda's tunes and places the sound of this album squarely in the real country tradition, yet also is as modern as anything on the charts. Well produced and recorded, this album is a definite must for any fan of the new country, folk, alternative country that is fast becoming the center of American music. I highly recommend it.