Lucinda Williams limped to the stage with an escort Monday night to begin her record five-night, sold-out run at the Dakota in Minneapolis. The revered singer-songwriter doesn't play guitar anymore. She simply stood in place for the next 110 minutes or so, gripping the mic stand, and singing.
"I haven't been able to play guitar because of that dad-blamed stroke I had," she said after a few selections.
Williams suffered a stroke in November 2020 but that hasn't prevented her from authoring a captivating memoir this spring, releasing another impressive album this month and treating her fans to a rewarding night of poetic rock 'n' roll on Monday.
"YOU CAN'T RULE ME" declared her T-shirt in all capital letters. It's the name of a Memphis Minnie country blues that Williams performed Monday. But it also defined her mind-set. She was determined, a little defiant, a little rebellious, true to her rock 'n' roll heart. In short, she lifted a middle-finger to the stroke.
Delivered as a sweet Southern stroll, "People Talking," from 2003, implored you to stop listening to the noise around you and lead your own life. And Williams is doing that herself.
The 70-year-old found a different voice on Monday. There was less of her slurring, Louisiana drawl and more clarity in her words. She's always about her words. And she had plenty of them to say between songs.
Perhaps inspired by her raw and revelatory memoir, "Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You," she peeled back layers about her life and songs on Monday more than in previous Twin Cities performances.
She explained that "Lake Charles" chronicled her wild-child friend Charles Joseph Woodward III who was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, but liked to stop at a gas station in Lakes Charles, La, where Williams was born. "Bus to Baton Rouge" was filled with memories of trips to Williams' maternal grandparents such as banana pudding with a vanilla wafer and grandpa spitting chewing tobacco into a can. "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," the title track of her Grammy winning 1998 breakthrough, revisited her childhood views from the car's backseat.