Includes FREE MP3
version
of this album.
or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Color:
Image not available

To view this video download Flash Player

 

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Lucinda WilliamsAudio CD
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (319 customer reviews)

Price: $11.26 & FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
  Special Offers Available
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
 : Includes FREE MP3 version of this album.
   Provided by Amazon Digital Services, Inc. Terms and Conditions. Does not apply to gift orders.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it Wednesday, May 29? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
Complete your purchase to save the MP3 version to Cloud Player.

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
MP3 Music, 29 Songs, 2006 $17.49  
Audio CD, 1998 $11.26  
Audio Cassette, 1998 --  

Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s

Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or view the MP3 Album.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Samples
Song Title Time Price
listen  1. Right In Time 4:36$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  2. Car Wheels On A Gravel Road 4:44$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  3. 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten 4:42$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  4. Drunken Angel 3:20$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  5. Concrete And Barbed Wire 3:08$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  6. Lake Charles 5:28$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  7. Can't Let Go 3:28$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen  8. I Lost It 3:31$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen  9. Metal Firecracker 3:30$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen10. Greenville 3:23$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen11. Still I Long For Your Kiss 4:09$0.99  Buy MP3 
listen12. Joy 4:01$1.29  Buy MP3 
listen13. Jackson 3:42$0.99  Buy MP3 


Amazon's Lucinda Williams Store

Music

Image of album by Lucinda Williams

Photos

Image of Lucinda Williams

Videos

Lucinda Williams - Blessed video #1

Biography

LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Blessed

It’s not all that hard to find an artist who’s capable of offering a guided tour of life’s dark clouds – nor is it rare to come into contact with one who can hone in on the silver lining. But the ability to do both with equal grace, well, that’s an altogether rarer gift – and it’s one that Lucinda Williams displays ... Read more in Amazon's Lucinda Williams Store

Visit Amazon's Lucinda Williams Store
for 15 albums, 7 photos, 5 videos, discussions, and more.

Special Offers and Product Promotions

  • Buy a CD or a vinyl record, get a $1 Amazon MP3 Credit. Limit one promotional credit per customer. Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Includes FREE MP3 version of this album Here's how (restrictions apply)
  • Lucinda Williams shares her favorite music with Amazon customers. See all artists' picks on our Music You Should Hear page.


Frequently Bought Together

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road + Sweet Old World + World Without Tears
Price for all three: $27.53

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Buy the selected items together
  • Sweet Old World $4.99
  • World Without Tears $11.28


Product Details

  • Audio CD (June 30, 1998)
  • Original Release Date: June 30, 1998
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Island / Mercury
  • ASIN: B000007Q8J
  • Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Music
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (319 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,567 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Lucinda Williams makes this whole music thing seem so simple: Write in plain language about the people and places that crowd your memory; add subtle flavors of a mandolin here, a Dobro there, perhaps an accordion or slide guitar; above all, sing as honestly and naturally as you can. Of course, it took her six years to achieve this simplicity, an amazing achievement considering the number of knobs that were turned. Her exquisite voice moans and groans and slips and slides--she delivers a polished tone in a coarse manner. On the superb "Concrete and Barbed Wire," soft acoustic guitars are punctuated by electric slide, accordion, mandolin, and Steve Earle's harmony. Williams's deeply personal stories are matched with bluesy rumbles, raunchy grooves, and plaintive whispers. The entire Deep South is reduced to a sleepy small town filled with ex-lovers, dive bars, and endless gravel roads. --Marc Greilsamer

Product Description

This is in my all-time top twenty albums! Original 13 track release. Scuffs on disc will not affect play

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 53 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific, Evocative Music October 25, 2004
Format:Audio CD
Lucinda William's "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" was released in 1998, her first record in six years. Her music is somewhat difficult to classify - part rock, part country, part Bonnie Raitt, with a dash of Louisiana. Many people identify Lucinda with the alt-country or "No Depression" group, which seems to fit as well as any label. I think she sounds like a more rock version of Mary-Chapin Carpenter.

Regardless of the label, her music is very good, and she wrote or co-wrote all but one of these songs (Randy Week's "Can't Let Go"). The music is obviously finely-tuned and done with care, with a nice mixture of easy-paced rockers and ballads. Perhaps the best selection is "Jackson" - an extraordinarily beautiful song about driving through the South and missing (or not missing?) a lover. "Lake Charles" is another interesting song, with a nice, under-stated zydeco feel and dobro guitar. Anyone who has lived in the deep south will be particularly likely to appreciate this CD, if not only for the frequent mentions of Southern towns, including Jackson, Macon, Lafayette, Rosedale, Greenville, Nacodoches, Baton Rouge, and Vicksburg. The CD is like a musical travelogue, with each song an evocative post card sent from Lucinda's soul.

When it was released, "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" was heralded with some of the best reviews of the year. Indeed, Lucinda even received a Grammy nomination for the CD - Rock Female Vocalist for "Can't Let Go;" sadly, she lost to Alanis Morissette's wailing "Uninvited." However, all of the acclaim perhaps set expectations too high for some listeners, as witnessed by some reviews here. I don't have any other Lucinda CDs, so I can't assert whether this CD is her best. Either way, however, you can't miss with this CD: filled with excellent music. And the cover photo is one of my all-time favorites! Most highly recommended.
Was this review helpful to you?
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Musical poetry December 29, 2001
Format:Audio CD
"Poetry" is a word much too often used when it comes to describing the lyrics for popular tunes. Frequently, words set to music suffer badly when they are taken away from the musical setting. The lyrics of Lucinda Williams, however, deserve the description. "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" offers streams of inspired imagery from one of the best popular songwriters of our time.

The landscape for much of Williams's poetry is, of course, the Deep South. The album is filled with observations of rural and small-town life: bars, fields, bridges, rivers, kitchens, small children, old men and women. The title cut shows what a writer can do when she turns a keen eye on the life around her. In the space of a few minutes, we get vivid images of bacon cooking in a kitchen, screen doors slamming, mothers chiding their children to pick up their toys, vistas of cottonfields and yards with old wrecks. If one of the goals of poetry is to hold a mirror up to life, the song succeeds brilliantly.

Lest someone new to the album (I'm not sure how many could be, with 211 reviews!) think that it's just a collection of pretty words, let it be said that the music in "Car Wheels" is absolutely essential to the life of the language. Another great song, "2 Kool To Be 4-Gotten," has a haunting guitar behind it that provides just the right amount of illumination for the dark lyrics. "Can't Let Go" and "Joy" are stompers that give Lucinda a chance to show off her great voice.

And what a voice it is. I think "intoxicating" might be the right word, but it probably doesn't do justice to it. She can growl (as on the last two songs mentioned), but she can purr as well, as on "Right in Time." She even gives a hint of a yodel on "Concrete and Barbed Wire."

If you think you're afraid of country music, don't use that as an excuse to avoid this record. It would be quite an injustice to label Lucinda Williams as a country singer, not because there's anything wrong with country singers, but because she could never be limited to one sound or style. Like all great singer/songwriters, she's a synthesizer. She uses styles to fit the needs of each song.

My voice may be lost among the many others singing the praises of this album, but don't let Lucinda's voice remain silent to you. If you are a music lover of any stripe, do yourself a favor and add "Car Wheels" to your collection.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Bayou Blues-Rock and Images of Lost Love February 6, 2000
Format:Audio CD
On this CD, Lucinda Williams continues the pattern of superb songwriting and fine arrangements she established with her 1992 masterpiece, SWEET OLD WORLD. That the follow-up CD took so long to complete bespeaks both the emotional struggles Williams draws from in her material and the sense of perfectionism she brings to her work. CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD is a steamy portrait of Williams' native Louisiana. It is lush with swampy images of small towns, which wind their way through moving songs of lost love, whether the mood is sad ("Jackson") or just plain disgusted ("Greenville"). Williams offers a travel guide to bayou country in "Lake Charles": an epitaph to a man who finally returns home in the freedom that death brings. She reveals her gutsy, bluesy side in "Can't Let Go" and the raw, angry swamp rock of "Joy". Some of her finest images of Southern squalor can be found in songs like the title track, "Car Wheels," "Metal Firecracker" and her tribute to blues legend Robert Johnson, "2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten". Perhaps the strongest songs musically are the hit-bound rocker "I Lost It" and the opening track, "Right In Time": a deep, erotic moan with a catchy, rocking chorus. The CD is propelled by the crisp rhythm section of drummer Donald Lindley and bassist John Ciambotti, with help from Williams' steadfast multi-instrumentalist, Gurf Morlix. The tight production is a collaboration between Williams and her band. Although Lucinda Williams' vocals may not be as well-developed as those of some of her contemporaries, her honest, poetic lyrics and authentic blues stylings make her one of today's most noteworthy singer-songwriters.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent cd
Very good music and vocals. Lucinda Williams is a unique artist and a talented one. I never heard much of her music until I purchased this cd and I will check out some of her other... Read more
Published 1 day ago by Bob
5.0 out of 5 stars This is great
Disclainer: I love her. Voice, lyrics, drive, what more is there to ask for. The material is even better live, so go see her if you haven't already
Published 6 days ago by Runar
5.0 out of 5 stars Lucinda is the real deal!
The puzzle here is why Lucinda Williams is not on top of the show business/music world,her soulful vocals and rich writing deserve no less. Read more
Published 3 months ago by PS
5.0 out of 5 stars With the best recommendations for the salesclerk.
Date of delivery, quality of the product and packaging without objections. Price / achievement satisfactory. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Günter Meyer
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Very well done. Good, raw and very unique. I would definitely recommend to anyone that likes blues/rock. Good musicians with her.
Published 6 months ago by Randy Underhill
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
Just love it; been listening to the title song on a complilation CD for a few years, and finally bought the CD. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Boston Legal
5.0 out of 5 stars worth the purchase...for sure!
I believe this is the best of Lucinda! Great bluesy sound. All of the songs are really great! You won't regret this purchase.
Published 8 months ago by Arkansas Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful once again
As most fans have already testified, this is a great, great album. One of the best of the 90s, or any decade. Country-Folk-Rock-Blue made with passion and soul, grit and grins. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Donald E. Gilliland
5.0 out of 5 stars great song writing
I love the song writing on this record. It's impressive how sophisticated the songs can be while using very simple elements. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Benjamin Crowell
5.0 out of 5 stars Oustanding Album
Nobody sounds like Lucinda Williams. Nobody. Start with this one and do what I did: leave it in your car and just listen to it over and over and over on a loop. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Beowulf
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Forums

Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions

Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 





What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?



Look for Similar Items by Category