Steve Shark Dept. - Gurf Gets Ditched On A Gravel Road

Foam-O-Graph© - "Gee! It's like not being there!"

Th' IoF© [asserts Steve Shark - Ed.] is a great place for discovering new artists and their music. I can get a taste from the loadups and then hunt around to hear more, so I often find myself heading off to discogs to see what else is available.

Quite frequently I'm amazed by the sheer quantity on offer by people I've never heard of - sometimes a dozen or more releases - with not one shot at wider recognition paying off for them.

Why do some people just languish in obscurity?

Well, it could be lots of things...they just plain suck...more of the same old same old...people haven't caught up with them yet (and possibly never will)...poor promotion...no commercial potential...happy to make music without getting famous...

Who knows?

For the fortunate few, however, there's The Breakthrough Album. Sometimes it can be a gentle nudge into the big time - sometimes a rocket to global prominence.

Here's one of the former variety: now almost a quarter of a century old, and with its expanded deluxe reissue already fading into the distance.

Lucinda Williams had already released four albums and was slowly making a name for herself, but it wasn't until the release of "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" that she became far better known. It was a critical and commercial success and remains her best-selling album to date.

However, the album had a difficult birth, to say the least.

After her record label folded, she was fortunate enough to get a new deal. Album #5 was well under way, when Williams decided to ditch not only producer Gurf Morlix, but also all the recorded material and start from scratch. She was unhappy with her vocals, apparently. She was then invited to contribute vocals to Steve Earle's new album and liked the way that Earle and his producer Ray Kennedy worked. This led to the pair working on the material Williams had abandoned earlier.

Very soon, however, Williams' and Earle's working relationship became rather fraught. Moreover, Kennedy was boosting Earle's backing vocals in the mix and also adding lots of instruments, neither of which was to Williams' liking. Once again, Williams wasn't too happy with the way her vocals sounded, either. Then Earle went on tour, leaving the album unfinished and expecting to resume work on it later.

But Williams had other ideas when Earle departed.

She hired Roy Bittan of the E Street Band as producer to work on the tapes and he added new backing vocalists - including Emmylou Harris and Jim Lauderdale - as well as his own keyboard overdubs. Ace producer Jim Scott was then brought in and gave Williams' guitar and vocals more prominence in the mix. The album was then mastered by Kennedy - who somehow managed to survive the album's tortuous journey towards its eventual release.

After all this, it's amazing that the album sounds as cohesive as it does. It seems to work best as a sort of primer of American roots music with touches of blues, country, soul, alt country, folk rock and even a bit of 12 string jangle. Throughout, Williams' vocals tie it all together with their naive, occasionally frail, and often subtly world-weary qualities. The instrumentation is broadly rock orientated, with electric guitars well forward in the mix on most tracks. I can detect a hint of the Stones' "Exile" in the overall feel and she'd go on to explore that murky style more fully later in her career.

Anyway, see what you think to this culmination of false starts and the determination on Williams' part to capture exactly the sound she wanted. Here's the deluxe reissue with bonus tracks added to the original album - worth hearing in this case - and a bonus disc of a live radio performance, with the set list lifted mostly from the album.

We're big on aperos here. So, to win a copy of this fine album, just say what your fave pre-dinner drink/snack combo is.