Its doesnt seem like its been 8 and a half years since Lucinda Williams became the preeminent voice of Alternative Country music with her release Car Wheels on A Gravel Road. The album, which was released 6 years after its predecessor “Sweet Old World” In the years since that wonderful release, Lucinda has dropped many memorable tunes on us but in my opinion, he has not been able to best the album that is Car Wheels.

And now we have a Deluxe Edition reissue of Car Wheels, released recently under the Universal “Deluxe Edition” series. The pack is complete with a second disc that features Ms. Williams doing a live set on WXPN’s World Cafe way back in July of 1998, during a singer songwriter festival. The reissue sounds great, but I’m not certain a re-mastering was necessary for an album that isn’t even a decade old. Even so, I’m sure its an improvement. And the live disc sounds really amazing, and has some choice tunes as well. For the Lucinda completeist, there are also a couple previously unreleased tunes of note, “Down the Big Road Blues” and “Out Of Touch” and also the inclusion of her tune from The Horse Whisperer soundtrack, “Stilll I Long For Your Kiss”, though it is an alternate version. And, as is usually the case with this type of release, the packaging is a big upgrade. I grabbed my copy of the original album just to compare and not only does the digipack fold out nicely to house the two discs but the linear notes booklet is 23 pages long, while the original only listed the song lyrics.

Obviously, as with most re-issues and remastered albums, this is mostly for the hardcore fans. But its also nice for those folks that may have been meaning to pick the disc up and now have a great reason to do so.

Lucinda Williams – 2 Kool To Be 4 Gotten

Technorati Tags: Lucinda Williams, Alternative Country, Car Wheels on A Gravel Road, World Cafe, The Horse Whisperer