Happy Woman Blues | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1980 | |||
Recorded | April–June 1980 | |||
Studio | Sugar Hill Studios, Houston, Texas | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 35:13 | |||
Label | Smithsonian Folkways | |||
Producer | Mickey White, Lucinda Williams | |||
Lucinda Williams chronology | ||||
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Alternative cover | ||||
Happy Woman Blues is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released in 1980 by Smithsonian Folkways.
While her debut album, Ramblin' on My Mind (1979), consisted entirely of cover recordings, all of Happy Woman Blues was written solely by Williams. [1] She also produced the album, alongside Mickey White. [2] Supported by a six-member band, the songs are a mix of traditional and alternative country, folk, and blues that reflect her Louisiana roots. [3]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
The Village Voice | A− [1] |
Happy Woman Blues was met with critical acclaim. Robert Christgau, writing for The Village Voice , gave the album an "A−", and called Williams a "guileless throwback to the days of the acoustic blues mamas" who "means what she says and says what she means". [1] Trouser Press felt the record was more "rock-oriented" than Williams' debut album, writing that she used timeworn ideas such as "smoke-stained bars, open roads and a heart that never learns" but reimagined them "in a way that is both contemporary and uncynical". [5]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Kurt Wolff wrote that "King of Hearts", "Sharp Cutting Wings", and "Lafayette" are well composed, emotionally powerful classics on an album that was bold, refreshing, and "stunning for its mixture of blues, folk, and country traditions with [Williams'] captivating, complex, and visceral approach to writing and singing". [4]
All tracks written by Lucinda Williams. [6]
Side one
Side two
Lucinda Gayl Williams is an American singer-songwriter and a solo guitarist. She recorded her first two albums, Ramblin' on My Mind (1979) and Happy Woman Blues (1980), in a traditional country and blues style that received critical praise but little public or radio attention. In 1988, she released her third album, Lucinda Williams, to widespread critical acclaim. Regarded as "an Americana classic", the album also features "Passionate Kisses", a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter for her 1992 album Come On Come On, which garnered Williams her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994. Known for working slowly, Williams released her fourth album, Sweet Old World, four years later in 1992. Sweet Old World was met with further critical acclaim, and was voted the 11th best album of 1992 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 6th on his own year-end list, later writing that the album, as well as Lucinda Williams, were "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant".
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