砾石路上的车轮 (1998)

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released on June 30, 1998, by Mercury Records. The album was recorded and co-produced by Williams in Nashville, Tennessee and Canoga Park, California, and features guest appearances by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris.

Universally acclaimed by critics, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was voted as the best album of 1998 in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, and ranked No. 98 on the 2020 revision of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1999, and earned Williams an additional nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Can't Let Go". The album peaked at No. 68 on the Billboard 200, and remained on the chart for over five months, eventually becoming Williams' first album to be certified Gold by the RIAA. It remains Williams' best-selling album to date, with 872,000 copies sold in the US alone, as of October 2014. Additionally, it was certified Silver in the UK on July 22, 2013.

Background

In 1992, Lucinda Williams released her fourth album, Sweet Old World, on Chameleon Records. To support the album, Williams went on an Australian concert tour with Rosanne Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter. While on tour, Carpenter recorded a cover of Williams' 1988 song "Passionate Kisses". The cover reached number four on the Hot Country Songs chart and won a Grammy Award for Best Country Song. The popularity of "Passionate Kisses" and subsequent covers of Williams' other songs from musicians like Emmylou Harris and Tom Petty brought Williams a newfound level of attention, and her next album became highly anticipated within the country music scene.

Recording

Chameleon Records folded after the release of Sweet Old World, so Williams signed with American Recordings. The initial recording sessions for Car Wheels on a Gravel Road lasted from February to March 1995 in Austin, Texas, with longtime producer Gurf Morlix. Williams was unhappy with her vocals in these sessions, and decided to start the entire album from scratch. "I was trying to grow. I didn't want to make another Sweet Old World" said Williams. Morlix believes ninety percent of the album was finished when Williams made her decision. Recording sessions resumed later that year in Nashville, Tennessee.

During this period, Williams was invited to sing backing vocals for the Steve Earle song "You're Still Standing There". Earle was working with producer Ray Kennedy, who accentuated Earle's vocals. Williams liked this style of production, and asked Earle and Kennedy to rerecord several of the songs she was unhappy with. Morlix was infuriated by this decision, and resented the two new producers. According to Williams, "Those guys all started vibin' each other, and I'm goin', 'Can we just get this record made, please?" By this point, the relationship between Williams and Morlix was irremediable, and Morlix stepped down as producer. Morlix remained on the project as a guitarist, but was not credited as a producer.