Lucinda Williams – Car Wheels On A Gravel Road

Lucinda Williams’ fifth album, released in the summer of 1998, not only cemented the artist as a bonafide songwriting juggernaut, but it solidified her place among America’s best storytellers. “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” would go on to be named The Village Voice’s Pazz & Jop (critics) Album of the Year, and to date it is among Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time. And for good reason. Williams bemoans (and even moans) about love and loss in songs like “Right In Time,” Lake Charles” and “Can’t Let Go.” And she brilliantly illustrates pain in the title track and also on tunes like “Drunken Angel,” “Concrete and Barbed Wire” and more. Williams also captures the Deep South about as good anybody before or since. And because of that, this album is truly “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten.”