Whats playing on your system today?

Yeah pops, Springsteen’s heart is in the right place. I just wish he (and Elvis Costello, whose vibrato is WAAAY out of control) would calm the Hell down. Bruce is just "trying" to sing way too hard---his throat all tight, squeezing the lyrics through clenched teeth and jaw. I’m usually just ambivalent about him, but actively disliked him when he just couldn’t help himself during the all-star tribute show to Roy Orbison, behaving like he was the star of the show. Bruce, dude, this isn’t about you. Show some respect, stay back where you belong, as part of Roy’s accompaniment.

As a songwriter, there’s not much to say. Pedestrian chord sequences, not much in the way of melodies, very little harmony singing. His songs have verses and choruses, but rarely a bridge/middle 8. Yawn.

His band on the 1st and 2nd albums was just awful, especially drummer Vini Lopez. What a sloppy, amateur mess. After that it was only mediocre. THE most boring, stock drum and keyboard playing of any band achieving their level of success I’ve heard. No character, no style, no personality. No imagination, no creativity, no humor, no nuthin’.

As I said, I don’t get it.

Drinking with Lucinda! I met her only once, at a Long Ryders' show in the mid-80's at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd. I didn't know it at the time, but she was married to LR drummer Greg Sowders. I was slightly acquainted with their manager, whom I bumped into on the floor in front of the stage. After our salutations, he introduced me to the provocative yet shy, lanky blonde who was standing with him, saying to me "This is Lucinda, she's a singer too". I also didn't know she had already recorded two albums that had been put out on the Folkways label, performing traditional Folk Blues material, nor that she was about to start on what would turn out to be her s/t Rough Trade album. Her marriage to Greg was the first of many; she's on about her fifth, I believe. Good for songwriting material ;-).

Joan Osborne: Pretty Little Stranger. Two thumbs way up!

Joan Osborne: Songs Of Bob Dylan. Sorry JO, don’t care for it. Yet. I’ll give it a few more spins.

Lee Ann Womack: The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone. Lee described it’s Genesis as her wanting to make an album having a rural, back-to-her Texas roots quality to it. So I gave her the benefit of my doubt, and bought a copy. My doubts were confirmed; over-produced, showbizzy slick, very non-rural. It’s what an Americana-style songwriter I worked with in the 90’s (Steve Tagliere, himself now back in Texas) calls Housewife Country.

Lucinda Williams: Her entire catalog. One of the couple of greatest living artists, she’s the real deal. I can’t believe how many songs she’s written in the past 30 years, nor what a great singer she has grown into. Yes, I hear what some others have complained of in her singing---the inarticulate, slurred delivery. To me, she sometimes kind of sounds like her tongue is maybe slightly swollen. She delivers the lyrics in a rather laconic, very relaxed manner. I dig it! But beyond that, she sings them with an honest, heartfelt quality, like she has lived every word. I’m absolutely in awe of her talent.