Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Mercury) Never heard of Lucinda Williams? You're not alone, although the ranks of the ignorant will diminish after this.
Williams is a guitarist-singer-songwriter from Texas, California and Nashville, among other places, peddling a brand of literate country-rock which should have long since marked her out as one to watch.
But like all diamonds in the waste, she had to struggle: Williams stumbled from one small-beer record label to another, attracting attention then slipping through the A&M 'talent' net, so that it's taken her 20 years to get this far.
Still, the wait might prove worthwhile, because although Car Wheels is affected in places by a droning repetitiveness, it remains a solid work, with overtones of urban dissatisfaction.
Catchy melody and poignant lyrics meet and spark off each other to issue a howl against the horrors of isolation.
But you don't make an album as good as this without a little help from your friends, and when your friends include Roy Bittan and Steve Earle, the pair being responsible variously for keyboards, accordion, guitar and production, that gravel road becomes a little wider and a little straighter.
