'Essence' of the South

Sparse songs of longing and wanderlust infused with mystery

(CNN) -- For almost 30 years, Lucinda Williams -- a Southern girl if ever there was one -- has been writing and singing her unique brand of music, a mixture of folk, rock and country that is nearly impossible to categorize.

Williams uses a sparse writing style to create her own language of song. Despite its simplicity, her music carries intense emotion and tantalizing mystery.

She has just released a new collection of songs called "Essence," her first recording since the critically acclaimed "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road." That recording propelled Williams into the spotlight in 1998, winning a Grammy for best contemporary folk album and selling 500,000 copies.

"Essence" is only her sixth recording, and it was a long time brewing. She said she had not written a song in five years, the longest dry spell she had ever endured.

"And then, I came out of -- I went through a breakup -- and came out of a five- or almost a six-year relationship," she said. "And so, I think it was a combination of -- having come out of the relationship, I was by myself -- not only physically, but emotionally, alone -- which is where ... I have to be in order to write.

"The songs just came out in a torrent of -- flood of songwriting," she said. "I wrote 14 new songs in about a six- or eight-week period of time."

Success didn't come easily

Three years after winning a Grammy, Williams is still getting used to the notion of success.

"I don't think of myself, in terms of being a star, and other people have to remind me, you know? And they say, you know, 'Well, you're a star now,'" she said.

In a music business somewhat anesthetized by the likes of boys bands and a slick overproduced Nashville sound, Williams has always followed her own rules, like never doing a music video.

"I don't really like them much to tell you the truth. I'm not really a big video person," she said. "I just miss the old days of music and rock 'n' roll before they had videos and people used to just imagine more and I don't know. It just seems to commercialize things a bit more."

For Williams, the old days of music were when she was living in Austin, Texas, in the early 1970s. She was a 17-year-old college professor's daughter who dropped out of college to play on the street for quarters.

Her first record, "Ramblin' on My Mind," a collection of folk and blues covers, was released in 1979. She followed this debut in 1980 with "Happy Woman Blues," which included her own songs. In 1988, she released "Lucinda Williams," gaining even more attention. It included "Passionate Kisses," which won her a songwriting Grammy in 1993 when it was a hit for Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The long time between recordings stemmed mainly from Williams' desire to maintain creative control, which led to battles with record labels and producers. Courted by one major label, she declined, preferring the independence of a smaller label for her 1992 release, "Sweet Old World."

She is now signed to Lost Highway, an imprint of Mercury Records that focuses on artists collectively known as "alternative country." Williams' audience and record sales have been growing along with the critical acclaim. On a recent night in New Jersey, fans in the audience included fellow songwriter Elvis Costello, who joined Williams onstage.

Worlds of music and literature

Her love of words and the arrangement of them so as to convey powerful emotions appear to be something of a family tradition. Williams' father is poet Miller Williams, who read a poem at President Bill Clinton's second inauguration.

"Over the years, I would just show him my songs," she said. "And he would critique them and make suggestions. And that's how I learned."

Miller Williams is not only a poet but an editor and a professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. A music fan as well as a literary scholar, he said he likes to surround himself with the worlds of jazz, country and literature when he writes in his study.

His friends have included musicians like jazz artist Dave Brubeck and country singer George Jones, and he has counted among his writing colleagues people like Robert Frost, Flannery O'Connor and James Dickey. His daughter was immersed in this world of music and literature growing up.

"Lucinda played around the feet of some of these people," Miller Williams said, "and as she grew older through her teens and preteens sat around and listened to our conversation."

She said she was aware of the brilliant minds around her in her youth.

"I soaked it up, yeah," she said. "I just think being around it and hearing them talk and hearing their poetry."

While her father provided her with a legacy of words, her mother, Lucy Morgan, a onetime concert pianist, passed along the gift of music.

So Williams was raised amidst lovers of language, surrounded by the South's country and folk music. Those two worlds suddenly jelled into one when a teen-age Williams heard Bob Dylan's classic 1965 album "Highway 61 Revisited," featuring "Like a Rolling Stone."

"And I remembered listening to it and just being, just blown away, because here was someone who had taken both of the worlds that I was from -- the traditional folk music world that I had come out of -- and the writing world, the literary world -- and brought the two things together for the first time," she said. "And I decided right then and there that I -- that's what I wanted to do -- even at the age of 12."

'Bumpy life' fuels songwriting

Now 48 and unmarried, Williams sings of love lost and of love desired. In "Envy the Wind," she describes a longing so intense, it could never be satisfied.

"I deal with that, that subject matter, I guess, that sense of longing. And its sheer frustration, desperation you know," she said.

Williams said all her songs are autobiographical, but she declined to share the subject of "Envy the Wind."

"You have to sort of read between the lines, yeah. I don't like to give away all my secrets you know," she said.

When she's not singing about the woes of love, she sings about a childhood marked by the divorce of her parents and a family always on the move, including time spent in Louisiana, Chile, Mexico City and Arkansas.

Williams was raised by an 18-year-old nanny who eventually married her father and whom she credits with saving the family. When he first heard the song, "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," her father apologized to her.

"That song describes a pretty bumpy life," Miller Williams said. "And although even the bumpiness of the life contributed to the success of the singer-songwriter, I still felt a little guilty for having given her the life that song describes."

For Lucinda Williams, however, that "bumpy life" has led to the creation of a remarkable songwriting collection, which is likely to continue growing.

"I have a wealth of material that I can draw from, you know? I have enough to last me the rest of my life. I don't have to suffer anymore, you know?" she said, laughing.