Where the Spirit Meets the Bone..

First listen here.

First thoughts (of mine), to come.

This crispness in the air is deliciously invigorating.

Lucinda Memories:

• St. Andrews Hall, Detroit, May 1999.  Driving up from Toledo on impulse and walking into a tiny room where she blew me away.  I remember her guitar player..  sinister, bluesy, menacing.  Fresh off Car Wheels and in fine form.  Encores.  I asked for water, you gave me gasoline. 

• Stubbs, Austin, March 2006.  A bigger room, outdoors.  Lots of friends and family in the audience and Austin stories.  But not nearly as intense.  

I went backwards and fell in love with Lucinda Williams and Happy Woman Blues and  Ramblin.  And paid vague attention to her later albums.  Get Right With God.  Essence.  West.  But my interest has been fading..  I'm curious how this new album works (or doesn't).

In book notes:

• In Angle of Repose there's now a move from California (New Almaden, near Santa Cruz) to the Dakotas.  She's headed east while he gets set up again.  Have I mentioned I need some time to just.. read. 

• I also finished In Search of the Blues - which was interesting, but not as helpful as I'd have liked for my purposes.  I do have some names and leads to run down.  

• And I picked up Eat, Pray, Love on the theory it could work as a model for a memoir based on my Arizona-California trip (which, over lunch at Le Pain Q the other day, fellow prof JC suggested I write..)  so far it's..  interesting.  Also Hiking Los Angeles..