Lucinda Williams steering beyond ‘Car Wheels’

The album's themes are dominated by the death in 2004 of Williams' mother, and the dissolution of yet another ill-advised relationship. On her best new song, "Are You Alright," it's easy to imagine Williams putting that question either to her mom or an ex-lover. It was actually neither: she was addressing a brother who has become estranged from the family since their mother's death.

Williams' father, poet Miller Williams, gets the bulk of attention when her family is brought up. While she inherited his literary sense, her piano-playing mother instilled a love for music.

"Genetically, I guess I got my musical talent from her," she said.

The album's title and optimistic last song is a reflection of Williams' mood since moving to the Los Angeles area from Nashville. Although most of the songs on "West" tread deep and disturbing topics, she's actually quite happy now. She's engaged to a man, Tom Overby, who works in the business side of the music industry, meeting him after all the songs on this album had been written. She had recorded them with her band but was interested in finding a new producer. Overby encouraged her to work with Willner.

Most of the producers she had worked with previously were musicians first, people like Steve Earle and Charlie Sexton. She felt comfortable with that shared language, even turning down an overture a few years ago from Rick Rubin, who won a Grammy Sunday for producer of the year and is known for his sympathetic handling of Johnny Cash.

Willner stripped off everything from Williams' original recordings except her voice and guitar, and they built from there.

"I'm not sure if it was the right move on my part, but I'd always shied aways from working with a quote-unquote producer for fear that I might be over-produced or whatever," she said. "Now that I've gone in and worked with Hal Willner, the difference is remarkable. I was listening to this record and saying, ‘Why didn't we do this before?'"

She feels that "it's absolutely the best album, sonically, I've ever made."

Confident and happy with her work, Williams did run into one unexpected hurdle. Her former company released a deluxe version of "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" late last year packed with extra tracks.

"Rolling Stone gave it five stars and I thought, ‘Oh, great, now I'm going to be competing with myself,'" she said. (The same magazine gave "West" four stars). "What are you going to do? You can't please all the people all the time."

MORE FROM COUNTRY

CD ‘Fall’ signals rise of Walker amid MS

CD ‘Fall’ signals rise of Walker amid MS Carrie Underwood wins three CMT awards   Add Country headlines to your news reader: