The Ghosts of Highway 20 Lucinda Williams

• 1 Dust 06:19
• 2 House of Earth 05:28
• 3 I Know All About It 05:46
• 4 Place in My Heart 05:13
• 5 Death Came 06:14
• 6 Doors of Heaven 05:33
• 7 Louisiana Story 09:05
• 8 The Ghosts of Highway 20 07:20
• 9 Bitter Memory 04:07
• 10 Factory 04:01
• 11 Can't Close the Door on Love 05:36
• 12 If My Love Could Kill 05:09
• 13 If There's a Heaven 03:34
• 14 Faith and Grace 12:42
• Total Runtime 01:26:07

Info for The Ghosts of Highway 20

'The Ghosts of Highway 20' features a common thread running through the songs, uniting them under one collective theme as the haunting title track illustrates. 12 of the 14 songs were inspired by various periods and experiences throughout Williams' life that all tie into Highway 20 (aka Interstate 20), which runs in part from Georgia to Texas. Whether it is cities she has resided in (Atlanta, GA, Macon, GA), has family ties to (Shreveport, LA, Monroe, LA) or previously written about (Jackson, LA, Vicksburg, MS), Williams' personal experiences and connections to these areas inform the narratives as songs and stories inspired by people, place and time. After 11 highly acclaimed studio albums, Williams is in the most prolific period of her nearly four-decade career (this being her second album in 18 months), as she continues to challenge herself creatively. 'The Ghosts of Highway 20' was co-produced by Williams, Greg Leisz and Tom Overby and recorded with Williams' rhythm section of Butch Norton (drums) and David Sutton (bass). Guitarist Val McCallum guests on two tracks. Revered guitarists Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz provide incredible sonic textures and ethereal tones that enhance Williams' brilliant writing and wise and weathered vocals.

"Calling her own shots seems to agree with Lucinda Williams. While the singer/songwriter has long had a reputation for taking her time between albums, she's back with another double-disc set, The Ghosts of Highway 20, just a year-and-a-half later. She launched her own label with Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone in the fall of 2014. In many ways, The Ghosts of Highway 20 feels like a companion piece to Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone in its emotionally direct approach and willingness to let the songs play themselves out at their own pace. -- they drift with the current, but they don't meander, and they get where they're going in their own sweet time. Most of the performances on Highway 20 are anchored by the guitar interplay of Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz (the latter also co-produced the album with Williams and Tom Overby), and while their performances seem low on flash, especially given the estimable talents of these players, they have a faultless instinct for the moods and rhythms of these songs, and this is an album where nuance truly takes center stage. However, while Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone was an album that covered a wide variety of themes, the 14 songs on The Ghosts of Highway 20 all seem to turn on some sort of struggle -- against depression ("Dust"), against the limitations of our lives on Earth ("Doors of Heaven"), against the past ("Bitter Memory" and the title song), and against betrayal ("I Know All About It"). Even as Williams calls up nostalgic images of life in Louisiana ("Louisiana Story"), she's still trying to free herself from memories of hurts inflicted by her loved ones, and her appeals to the Lord for guidance and peace ("If There's a Heaven" and "Faith & Grace") sound and feel sincere, as if the shackles of her physical being are just too much for her. Williams' vocal performances here represent a remarkable high-wire act, as she brings her emotions to the surface without resorting to histrionics. Her musical adaptation of Woody Guthrie's "House of Earth," a curiously erotic dialogue between a whore and a customer, is all the more striking for its refusal to play broad. After releasing one of the best and boldest albums of her career with Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, Williams goes from strength to strength with The Ghosts of Highway 20, and it seems like a welcome surprise that she's moving into one of the most fruitful periods of her recording career as she approaches her fourth decade as a musician." (Mark Deming, AMG)

Lucinda Williams, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, lead vocals, background vocals
Carlton "Santa" Davis, drums
Bill Frisell, electric guitar
Greg Leisz, acoustic guitar, electric guitar
Val McCallum, electric guitar
Butch Norton, drums, percussion, background vocals
Ras Michael, hand drums, background vocals
David Sutton, bass, background vocals

Lucinda Williams
was born in 1953 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to a professor of literature and a pianist. Lucinda’s earliest influences in music encouraged her to learn to play the guitar and sing, and by the time she was in her early twenties, she was performing in bars and clubs in the Houston area. Williams’s debut album, Ramblin’, was recorded and released in the late 1970’s, but it did not garner much attention. Neither did the follow-up, Happy Woman Blues, but Lucinda Williams was not discouraged.

Lucinda moved to California in the early 1980’s and began performing around the Los Angeles area. By the latter part of the decade, she’d signed with a record label and released Lucinda Williams, which spawned the single “Changed the Locks,” the song for Lucinda to earn some major radio play. On the strength of this single, Williams began to build a fan base and by the time she released Sweet Old World in 1992, she’d become far more established. Another single from her record label debut, “Passionate Kisses,” actually became one of her biggest achievements, not for Lucinda’s recording of it herself, but after Mary Chapin Carpenter covered it, the song earned Lucinda Williams a Grammy for Best Country Song in 1994.

Since then, Lucinda Williams has continued to release a number of successful albums, including: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998), Essence (2001), World Without Tears (2003), West (2007), and Little Honey (2008.) In addition to her Grammy for “Passionate Kisses,” she has also earned Grammys for the albums Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Essence, World Without Tears, and Little Honey, and for the singles “Can’t Let Go,” “Essence,” “Get Right with God,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Lately,” and “Come On.” Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is considered to be Lucinda Williams’s mainstream breakthrough, in part due to the song “Still I Long for Your Kiss,” which was featured in the blockbuster hit The Horse Whisperer.

Most recently, Lucinda Williams released the album Blessed in 2011. She continues to record and perform.

This album contains no booklet.