Lucinda Williams
SXSW 1995 Complete Edition

Austin Music Hall, Austin, TX
March 16, 1995
01 Metal Firecracker (audience)
02 Greenville
03 Right In Time
04 Car Wheels on a Gravel Road
05 2 Cool 2 Be 4-Gotten
06 Still I Long For Your Kiss
07 Joy
08 Changed the Locks

Audience recording by JEMS; Soundboard recording by Calrust

Studios of KGSR, Bastrop, TX
March 17, 1995
09 Drunken Angel
10 Can't Let Go
11 Lake Charles (false start)
12 Lake Charles ("take two")

Broadcast recording by JEMS

In the interminable wait for Lucinda's breakthrough masterpiece, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, she played annually at SXSW, debuting material that would eventually appear on the album as far back as 1994. In 1995, she took the stage fully convinced that the album was nearly done, though it would take almost three years and two additional production teams to finish the effort. But on this night, Lucinda, Gurf Morlix and the band, joined by Ian McLagan on keyboards, played seven songs from the as-yet-unreleased album; the following day, Lu and Gurf went to KGSR, played another three and talked about the record and the show the night before.

For my money these performances, especially songs like "Car Wheels" that feature McLagan, are nothing short of brilliant and some of these have never sounded fresher or, arguably, better.

'Round about 1997 I grew so frustrated with the wait for the new album that I cobbled together a compilation CD featuring new songs from Lucinda's SXSW appearances 1994-96 and dubbed it Junebug Vs. Hurricane. It made the rounds then, still shows up on a Google search, and even merited a small mention in early press for Car Wheels as a example of the fans' desire for a new album.

Junebug Vs. Hurricane drew heavily on the material above, and the board tape is well circulated. However, the board was missing the first song of the night, "Metal Firecracker," and I have long meant to do a proper reconstruction of the show from both sources and tag on the KGSR set to make it a complete overview of Lucinda circa 1995. The board, by the way, was one channel and has a few non-musical cuts in it. This version fixes the channel problem by doubling up the good one. I elected not to add 40 seconds of audience between a couple of songs where the board cuts figuring no one will really miss it. The board is from a DAT clone of the master. The audience and FM portions are off DAT masters.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Butterking (for JEMS)