Lucinda Williams bringing Springsteen-tinged ‘Rock n Roll Heart’ to White Eagle Hall in JC Nov. 10th

Just ahead of the Dec. 6 release of "Lucinda Williams Sings the Beatles from Abbey Road," Williams and her band are making a stop at White Eagle Hall in Jersey City on Sunday, Nov. 10.

The tour continues surfing the wave of last year's release of "Rock n Roll Heart," Williams' fifteenth album and the first since she had a stroke on Nov. 17, 2020 which left her unable to play guitar, something the 71-year-old icon of folksy blues-rock has had as a companion for most of her life. But she still has a key instrument in her distinct, emotive voice.

New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen counts himself as a fan and appears on two tracks on "Rock n Roll Heart:" the title track and "New York Comeback" with fellow E-Street Band member and wife Patti Scialfa.

Early this week, Williams talked to The Jersey Journal about her own comeback via "Rock n Roll Heart" and "This Is Not My Town," her ode to the Doors' song "People Are Strange."

This writer believes it's a song some residents of Jersey City, with its one-sided influx of relative wealth, will particularly relate to with lyrics like, "I don't even know this place / Where no one looks in your face."

"It's just kind of a 'stranger in a strange town' kind of thing. That Doors song always made an impression on me," Williams said. "('This Is Not My Town') is kind of just about that just sort of feeling like a stranger in the town you're in and, you know, you feel like you're alone and alone in your belief system and your thoughts and everything; you just feel like an outsider."

With Williams being unable to play her guitar now, in some ways "Rock n Roll Heart" is a journey back to the inside of the creative process – finding a new way to express that rock 'n' roll heart of hers.

The main thing not being able to play guitar led to was collaboration, Williams said.

"It led to collaborating on several of the songs because I wasn't able to play guitar, but I would come up with ideas and melodies in my head. Then a friend of mine, Travis Stevens – he's actually my tour manager, he's also a singer-songwriter in his own right – he started coming over to the house and just playing along on guitar with what I was trying to do. I would throw my ideas out and then he would start playing what I sang."

Williams' husband, Tom Overby, also her manager, turned out to be a really good lyricist, she said. "He started coming up with lyrical ideas, which I then look at and come up with a melody for, so this whole thing kind of happened organically. It started mainly because I couldn't play guitar, so something good actually came out of it. Several of the songs on that album were a collaborative effort between Travis and Tom and myself; and sometimes my guitar player, Doug Pettibone would join in and play also. And that's basically how a lot of the songs are written."

Williams found the recording process challenging because she's used to playing guitar while singing in the studio, with the band following her.

"So I have to have somebody playing, 'cause I'm usually playing rhythm acoustic, which is a big part of (my process). And now I have to have somebody else like Marc Ford – maybe he's in the band on guitar; he's been able to play acoustic rhythm behind me and does a pretty good job of playing more like the way I would play. But we've had to just kind of stumble through trying to put all this stuff together like that. Since I hadn't been able to play, it's been a challenge."

As frustrating as the process has been for Williams, it's also stretched her to grow in new ways.

"Sometimes when you have those limitations then you know you discover something else that was kind of hidden away that you didn't know you had. And it comes forward when the other stuff is, you feel, held back in one way, but then sometimes you get surprised by something else," she said.