NEW FROM BLurT: How well do you two know each other? LuCINDA: We didn’t know each other… we still don’t know each other. We bumped into each other a couple of times, but I’ve been admiring her work from afar. mIA: I’m so honored you wrote a song about me. I don’t believe it! LuCINDA: Actually the song was planned about six years ago when I was in Nashville and a friend of mine discovered that CD you put out. It was an independent thing. I think it was the first one. mIA: I think you have my third one. I have a lot of records. LuCINDA: Really? Okay. Well, he gave me a copy and said, “You have to listen to this!” And I just spent a lot of time with it and I fell madly in love with your music. I don’t know if it talked to me or in the third per- son. I just loved it. I mean, all the words… It was just so fantastic the way you combined all those words inside the music. I was just so impressed with the lyrical quality, plus the voice and the presentation. So I had that one, and I was in a record store and I picked up another one. mIA: I think that’s Golden State… That was the next one. It came out on a major label. LuCINDA: It’s kind of like I’m rooting for the underdog. I was just kind of glad and happy that someone else was seeing what I was seeing. And then the next thing I know, I was reading in L.A. Weekly where you weren’t on that label anymore. I don’t know what happened, but I saw that and it reminded me of some of the stuff I’ve been through. And it was just a combina- tion of having already admired your work and being struck by the whole sensitivity of it and delicacy of it. I understood and do understand how hard it is to get that across to people. mIA: Yeah… LuCINDA: It just struck me, and that’s what caused me to write that song. Something I felt and I’ve been through too. I wouldn’t be able to write about someone else’s experi- ence if I hadn’t been through that. mIA: Your work and your career have been very inspiring to me. You’ve managed to keep going, and keep writing songs, and you’ve been through different circum- stances. LuCINDA: It just kind of made me angry, to tell you the truth. You know, it’s just so hard dealing with the music business. mIA: I know, the music business. I’ve never really been a very angry person, and I didn’t really get angry at that time. But I was still making my very esoteric heartfelt, soulful music and the mood was changing and nobody understood… LuCINDA: That’s kind of what happened to me, because I was out here playing and doing what you’re doing now all through the mid ‘70s to the mid ‘80s, and they didn’t have Americana or anything like that. I lived in L.A. at that time, in ’84, ’85, ’86, and I’d run into these people from the record labels and they didn’t know what to do with me. mIA: I knew your work because a friend of mine in college was from Arkansas, and he shared that with me, so I knew your work a little before you blew up. You are a role model for me. LuCINDA: I’m an exception. I mean, I never felt like having kids until I was in my late 40s and 50s because I was such a late bloomer, you know. mia, how did you discover that Lucinda had put a song on her record dedicated to you? mIA: She played a show here at Spaceland maybe three or four years ago. There was a mutual friend and it was a benefit for his child’s nursery school. That night you played it and you invited me into the studio to listen to it. LuCINDA: Those were the demos for the West record. But it didn’t make it on the West album. We re-recorded it and put it on the Little Honey album. mia, you must have been bowled over when you heard it. mIA: I couldn’t believe it. My mom is a big fan of yours. And she plays that song in her car and keeps it on repeat! LuCINDA: Thank you. I’m grinning from ear to ear. mIA: I feel so fortunate to have music in my life and my life in music. I’ve done what I wanted to do. It’s a miracle. Maybe I haven’t been enabled to do the extent of what I could do if I wanted to, do it but I have not compromised very much. LuCINDA: I don’t think you’ve compromised much at all. I’ve had to compromise too, more than I wanted to do, but I just had to wait until the time was right. For a long time it was just me and my guitar, and I didn’t even have a band. mIA: People are always asking me to define myself… LuCINDA: Urgh, yeah. “What kind of music do you play?” mIA: I sometimes say “folksinger.” When people ask you, what do you say? “Rock?” LuCINDA: I don’t know. I just kind of say Rock. Folk, Country, Blues. And then I’ll say, it’s kind of like a female Bob Dylan or Tom Petty or Neil Young kind of thing. And then they’ll go, “Oh, okay, okay.” It’s often easier just to give them something to compare yourself to. But you’re so original. Consider yourself blessed. You can’t really think of someone to compare yourself to. • www.lucindawilliams.com www.miadoitodd.com To see more of this interview go to blurt-online.com. COMPASS RECORDS THE WAIFS Live from the Union of Soul 1/3 ALISON BROWN The Company You Keep 4482 4513 BEARFOOT Doors and Windows 4504 THE GIBSON BROTHERS Ring the Bell www.compassrecords.com BLURT-ONLINE.COM 49 4506
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