Lucinda Williams: Little Honey

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Josh Tyrangiel wrote in Time: "While assured of her status as a great American singer, Lucinda Williams has never been most people's idea of an easy one … which is why the first track on her ninth album, Little Honey, is such a shock. It's called 'Real Love,' and it's not about losing real love or a tortured glimpse of real love but about finding it once and for all. Williams is too sophisticated to song-write her own bio, but she's also too shrewd to ignore it, and her engagement to manager Tom Overby … seems to have inspired a challenge: say something new about love and happiness. … But the glory of Little Honey is less its poetry than its ability to sustain happiness as a mood. There is Williams' glorious voice, of course — cracking in the verses and lubricating the choruses of 'Tears of Joy'; drolly channeling Tammy Wynette to Elvis Costello's George Jones on 'Jailhouse Tears' — but the critical decision was to make this a guitar-dominated album. It's not just that it's the warmest instrument in rock, country and blues … but that Doug Pettibone is the best unknown guitarist in all three" ("Music," 10/27/08).