Robert Christgau:
Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album that Mercury bought from American Recordings' Rick Rubin (who mixed all but one track), was a legendary six years in the making. Williams is such a perfectionist that she recorded it from scratch twice and then folded in more guest solos and recut vocals than even long-suffering co-producer Roy Bittan could fully digest – always with the perverse goal of making it sound less produced. And, astoundingly, that's what has happened. Not only is Car Wheels on a Gravel Road more perfect than the two albums that preceded it, but it achieves its perfection by being more imperfect.
Williams hasn't just perfected a style, she's mastered a subject. She doesn't just write realistically and music traditionally, she describes and evokes Southerners for whom realism and traditionalism are givens. She writes for them, too - not exclusively, she hopes, but in the first instance. They are her people and her neighbors, with damn few media-savvy professionals among them. Situated in a subculture far removed from both Manhattan and Alternia, these indelible melodies and well-turned lyrics constitute a dazzling proof of the viability of her world and a robust argument for its values. Emotion makes you smirk? Local color has no place in your global mall? Well, you have Lucinda Williams to answer to. Because this is where she establishes herself as the most accomplished record-maker of the age.
