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| Little Honey | 
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| Artist: Lucinda Williams
Label: Lost Highway
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
Buy New: $9.49
You Save: $4.49 (32%)
New (46) Used (7) Collectible (1) from $8.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.5 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 001143402
UPC: 602517741737
EAN: 0602517741737
ASIN: B001DXF9JU
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Real Love | | • | Circles And X's | | • | Tears Of Joy | | • | Little Rock Star | | • | Honey Bee | | • | Well Well Well | | • | If Wishes Were Horses | | • | Jailhouse Tears | | • | Knowing | | • | Heaven Blues | | • | Rarity | | • | Plan To Marry | | • | It's A Long Way To The Top |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Lucinda Williams has always been adept at painting landscapes of the soul, illuminating the spirit's shadowy nooks and shimmering crannies -- but she's never captured the sun breaking through the clouds as purely as on her new Lost Highway release, Little Honey The album features a duet with Elvis Costello "Jailhouse Tears" Other guest vocalists include Matthew Sweet, Susanna Hoffs, Jim Lauderdale, Tim Easton and Charlie Louvin. The first single "Real Love" is available for download in the Amazon MP3 store.
Album Description
Lucinda Williams has always been adept at painting landscapes of the soul, illuminating the spirit's shadowy nooks and shimmering crannies -- but she's never captured the sun breaking through the clouds as purely as on her new Lost Highway release, Little Honey. The album features a duet with Elvis Costello "Jailhouse Tears" Other guest vocalists include Matthew Sweet, Susanna Hoffs, Jim Lauderdale, Tim Easton and Charlie Louvin.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
Really inspired. October 16, 2008
39 out of 43 found this review helpful
Lucinda's ninth album contrasts with the downbeat nature of "West" in being a generally a more upbeat collection; it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that most of its songs were originally written for "West" (though "Circles And Xs" dates back to 1985 and "Well Well Well" to the Sweet Old World days of 1992).
"Little Honey", however, stretches Lucinda's already eclectic musical envelope even further beyond the approved boundaries of country and Americana.
She's retained West's engineer Eric Liljestrand as co-producer (with Tom Overby) for Little Honey, and there's real high-octane chemistry in the support crew, which mostly comprises her latest crack road band (now collectively known as Buick 6), including among its ranks guitarists Chet Lyster and Doug Pettibone, bassist David Sutton and drummer Butch Norton; additionally, keyboardist Rob Burger (who'd played on the "West" sessions) returns to gently fill out the textures some more.
In the 30 years since her first album, Lucinda Williams has become known as one of the most expressive, emotive singers around, her country-blues voice cracked through with heartbreak. She's still crying, but this time it's tears of joy over her marriage to manager Tom Overby. Yet this is no saccharine outpouring: "Honey Bee" is a stomping, fearsome ode to her lover, while gorgeous lament "If Wishes Were Horses" recalls earlier pains.
"Little Honey" is a very physical album, though it still keenly (and sensually) expresses that quality of introspective spiritual heartache that has made Lucinda one of country music's most enduring songwriters of our time.
It kicks off with the rock power of "Real Love". That's followed by "Circles and Xs": It's classic country blues as is the next track "Tears Of Joy", a soulful groove, a gorgeous stately stroll.
Williams is also a great lyricist and on "Little Rock Star", she offers a stark warning on the wasting of talent.
Warm fuzzy horns and distant guitars gently wash over the eight-minute sprawl of "Rarity", a prolonged low-key assault on the senses, leading into "Plan To Marry", a Joan Baez-tinged reflection on love's vagaries.
Having lulled us into the mood of these melancholy musings, Lucinda then lurches off down a rockier road with a swaying and strutting take on AC/DC's "It's A Long Way To The Top".
Strangely less so is the duet with the ubiquitous Elvis Costello.
The song "Jailhouse Tears" - two quirky voices in perfect symmetry -
is perhaps just too campy and obvious.
Highlights :"If Wishes Were Horses", "Tears of Joy" and "It's A Long Way To The Top".
Another winning number. It jumps at # 9 of the Billboard 200 chart. October 15, 2008
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
"The object of cultish adoration for years, the American singer/songwriter is universally hailed as a major talent by both critics and fellow musicians, but it took quite some time for her to parlay that respect into a measure of attention from the general public. Part of the reason was her legendary perfectionism: she released records only infrequently, often taking years to hone both the material and the recordings thereof. Plus, her early catalog was issued on smaller labels that agreed to her insistence on creative control but didn't have the resources or staying power to fully promote her music. Yet her meticulous attention to detail and staunch adherence to her own vision were exactly what helped build her reputation".-Steve Huey/AMG
At 56, after 30 years in the music business, a string of critically acclaimed albums and three Grammys, she is still something of an acquired taste.
Maybe it's her voice - red raw with passion - or maybe her songs are sometimes just too intense for many listeners.
Her ninth studio album is another masterclass of soulful country blues, but it finds her in more upbeat mood than last year's excellent "West".
For someone whose music is a byword for heartbreak, it's disconcerting that Lucinda Williams's latest album should open with a boisterous, bluesy paean to the joys of love.
On "Real Love", the sense of abandon is fuelled by the electric guitar that she loves but, before the suggestion takes hold that "Little Honey" is the rock album she's always threatened to make, the tone shifts into the more familiar territory of sadness and regret.
"Tears Of Joy" is accompanied by softly throbbing blues guitar and an emphasis on the word 'crying'; while Williams never conceals the fissures of experience running through her fabulous husky voice.
Yet it's emotional ambiguity that Williams excels at, and "Little Honey" drips with it.
This album is notable for its lightness of touch. Whether that's the campy, honky-tonk jam with Elvis Costello ("Jailhouse Tears") or the sparse ballad for her fiancé ("The Knowing), she wraps her honeysuckle voice around them all.
Little Rock Star's sweet tale of redemption through music could be the story of Williams's own life.
Lucinda is happier on more wistful subject matter, particularly "If Wishes Were Horses" and "Circles and Xs"; but not even some superior guitar-playing and an intriguing collection of backing singers (Matthew Sweet, Susanna Hoffs and Charlie Louvin) can hide a certain kind of mediocrity of most of the second half of the album.
All in all, it's a bittersweet treat of soulful country blues.
It is not a bad outing at all, it's great album but not her best.
My favourite tracks: "Jailhouse Tears","If Wishes Were Horses" and "It's A Long Way To The Top".
It debuts at # 9 of The Billboard 200 Chart; at # 1 of the Top Internet Albums and at # 1 of the Top Tastemakers Chart.
Issue Date: 2008-11-01
West
 Yes, it's a Real Love! October 16, 2008
17 out of 24 found this review helpful
Little Honey is a much happier album the Lucinda's last album, West, although I'm not sure it's better, it's just as good just the same.
The album kicks off with "Real Love" a rocking, happy tune. It's something we've never heard from Lucinda, then it goes into the country-tinged ballad "Circles and X's" which was actually written over twenty years ago and I'm not sure why she hadn't used it before, and she slips into a very bluesy "Tears Of Joy" talking about playing games but now she has met a man to whom she loves, then comes the loud, beautiful "Little Rock Star", now this is one of the highlights, most definitley, it may even be the best song on the album. "Honey Bee" is a fast raunchy rocker, it is fun although a bit silly.
"Well Well Well" comes next and I must say, it's a bit too country for my taste. It's an okay song, but again just not my taste. If "Well Well Well" was a disappointment, "If Wishes Were Horses" made up for it and then some! This is my second favorite next to "Little Rock Star". But then things take a turn downward when we get to "Jailhouse Tears", which again is an okay song but I think adding Elvis Costello's vocals wasn't a great idea, but the song itself is okay. So now we're on "Knowing" and I must say, it's a beautiful little love song and "Heaven Blues" is a wonderful little blues song about going to Heaven, the music is almost too happy for lyrics that are so sad. "I'm gonna see my mother up in Heaven..."
"Rarity" is another beautiful love song and "Plan To Marry" is about how "love is a sword" and a song for those who love, believe in love and why people marry.
"It's A Long Way To The Top" is a cover and it's a great rock n' roll closer to an awesome Lucinda Williams album! 5 stars.
Fantastic...Nothing Else Like It October 16, 2008
12 out of 25 found this review helpful
Lucinda Williams has within the last decade become a master of diverse musical expression. Little Honey is in my opinion one of the best examples of her work in this regard. Listen to Tears of Joy, and you'd think this was a dyed-in-the-wool blues/rock album; listen to Circles and X's and you'd think this was pure country in its best incarnation - and the examples go on. That's the beauty of Lucinda - she's can be everything and a master of all, and this album doesn't once fall short of that lofty aspiration. There is nothing else out there that is so visceral, so real, and so poetic. And here Lucinda is even playing with her own model - songs that begin in slow tempo like Little Rock Star, you'd think they are going to stay that way, as they have before, but then out of no where she blows your mind with a new (and refreshing) alteration of her classic approach...listen, and you will be amazed.
A Fantastic, Ecclectic Mix From "America's Best Songwriter" October 17, 2008
11 out of 16 found this review helpful
In 2002, Time Magazine proclaimed Lucinda Williams "America's Best Songwriter", and this new collection from Ms. Williams further solidifies her legitimate claim to this honor. After her emotional, introspective release of 2006, "West", Lucinda's 10th album during her 30-year career finds her full of the joy of a new love in her life, and her poetry and music show it.
"Little Honey" opens with the hard-rocking single "Real Love", showcasing the voice that won Lucinda the Best Female Rock Vocalist Grammy in 2001 (and additional nominations in Rock categories in 2003 & 2007). True to her well-known form, however, she refuses to be pigeon-holed in one genre and follows up with the "torch and twang" of "Circles And X's". But she's only just begun showing the breadth and depth of her enormous talent - next up is the smoky, slow blues of "Tears of Joy". Next is a soaring rock ballad about the tragic excesses sometimes found in the music business, "Little Rock Star". Next, another rocker, "Honey Bee", a song that she and her band, Buick 6, particularly enjoy playing live.
Then, she and the band are back in a back roads honky-tonk of her native South with the old-time country swing of "Well, Well, Well" (with the legendary 81 year-old Charlie Louvin singing background vocals). Next up, a classic Lucinda Williams song of heart-rending regret (and perhaps my favorite song on the album), "If Wishes Were Horses".
And so it goes through the rest of the album, with Lucinda & Buick 6 expertly genre-hopping from more honky-tonk country ("Jailhouse Tears", a duet with Elvis Costello), delta blues ("Heaven Blues"), then a beautiful ballad condemning the music industry for ignoring a rare talent ("Rarity"), a folk / protest song ("Plan to Marry") and wrapping up the set with a rocking cover of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top" that she somehow makes all her own.
I was left in awe after my first listen to this album, and continue to be more & more impressed with (many) repeated plays. The production is top-notch, with Doug Pettibone's wailing guitar & Lucinda's powerful vocals "out and front" in the mix.
This album is a pure joy. I honestly believe it ranks right up there with "World Without Tears" and perhaps even "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" her seminal work which won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1999. I just hope the Grammy committee is listening to Lucinda again this year.
Bottom line - buy this album. You will not be disappointed.
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