Whats playing on your system today?

Hey @boxer12, a coupla days ago I received notification of the Lucinda Williams "Car Wheels On A Gravel Road" 20th Anniversary Tour. It’s coming to Portland Oregon, and general admission tickets are only 30 bucks, I believe it was. There were also tickets about twice and three times that price, so even the best seats are reasonably priced, unlike some shows these days.

Too bad she doesn’t have the original "CWOAGR" tour band (Jim Lauderdale on acoustic rhythm guitar/harmony vocals/bandleader, Jim Christie---fresh off his stint with Dwight Yoakam---on drums, Kenny Vaughan---now a member of Marty Stuart’s band The Fabulous Superlatives---on guitar) to take on the road with her, but I’m sure she’ll have a good one. Everyone wants to work with Lucinda!

I saw Lucinda on that original "CWOAGR" tour (at The Wiltern Theater, I believe), and it was then I realized I would never again be able to see her in a small room again. My girlfriend and I always went out to see her play around L.A. at the time of her s/t Rough Trade album and Sweet Old World on Chameleon (late-80’s/early-90’s), before she got her Warners deal. She played at little dives around town; one time I saw her and her original band perform in a pizza parlor, on a stage so small drummer Donald Lindley was playing a rub board rather than a drumset. There were about a half dozen people in the place, including the bar maids!

A few years earlier (mid-80’s), I had gone to see The Long Ryders at Club Lingerie on Sunset, and before they started their set I saw a guy I knew (The Long Ryders fan club president), so I went over to say hi. He introduced me to this lanky blonde woman standing next to him, telling me she too was a songwriter. She looked down at the floor, seemingly embarrassed to be the center of attention. It was Lucinda. I didn’t know it at the time, but Lucinda was then married to Long Ryders’ drummer Greg Sowders (she's been through a few more since then ;-). A while later my woman and I were looking through the LP’s at Moby Disc on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks (we lived a few blocks away) when she said to me "Hey, there’s Lucinda". She was standing behind the cash register, staring off into space, probably writing lyrics. She was putting in her time being a record store clerk. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat ;-) .