Album Review: ‘Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road’
During the pandemic, Lucinda Williams and her band found a way to release their creative energy; they produced a series of livestreams and records with Williams interpreting other people’s songs with the title Lu’s Jukebox. On the first volume of Lu’s Jukebox, Williams delivered her down-to-the-bone versions of Tom Petty’s songs, and, by the end of 2020, Williams had recorded six volumes of the project with the final album devoted to the songs of the Rolling Stones. Following her recovery from her stroke, Williams turned her attention to a volume seven of Lu’s Jukebox that would focus on the songs of the Beatles. In early 2024, she and her band traveled to England to record the album at Abbey Road studios, becoming the first artist ever to go into the studios to record Beatles’ songs.
Williams covers a wide range of the Fab Four’s storied catalog spanning from early hits like “Can’t Buy Me Love” to later gems like “Let It Be.” The album opens with a straight-ahead version of “Don’t Let Me Down” on which William’s vocals plead, conveying the emotional urgency of the song. Cascading guitar strums flow under Williams’ take on “Rain,” which shimmers with background vocals by Siobhan M. Kennedy and guitarist Doug Pettibone, while Williams strips down “Can’t Buy Me Love” so that it’s less frenetic and more a rootsy sing-along. “Let It Be” opens sparely with Williams singing over an electric guitar before layers of a Hammond B3, drums, and background vocals carry the song into the sonic stratosphere. It’s the centerpiece of the album, and as with the original, Williams’ version unfolds slowly and sparsely and then spirals into a crescendo of sound. Williams take on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” captures the song’s emotional depths set against a blaring wall of sound created by Pettibone’s and Marc Ford’s guitars. On her delivery of “Something,” Williams conveys the song’s languid elegance. Layers of steel guitar chords create a resigned melancholy on her take on “The Long and Winding Road,” creating an orchestral atmosphere that evokes the emptiness and anticipation at the heart of the song; in its own way it’s better than the original.
On Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road, Williams doesn’t stray too far from the originals, preserving the sonic structure of each track on the album. She does, however, work within those spaces to innovate and to convey the depths of the songs in inventive ways, showcasing her distinct talents as an interpreter of the songs of others.
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