POP MUSIC REVIEW : Williams Is Country With Rock Attitude

At the Troubadour on Sunday, the indefatigable Lucinda Williams sang compositions that have been recorded lately by Mary-Chapin Carpenter (“Passionate Kisses”), Patty Loveless (“The Night’s Too Long”) and, just recently, Emmylou Harris (“Am I Too Blue”). And occasionally you got to thinking how she might not make a bad country star herself: Williams has the sturdy, purty voice, the good looks, an accent, the right kind of boots, certainly the material for the job . . .

Everything but the attitude, in fact. But that’s definitively rock ‘n’ roll. Williams isn’t a terribly expressive performer, and she doesn’t spend a lot of stage time chatting or smiling unnecessarily. But if her somewhat distanced, no-nonsense approach kills her chances in the work-ethic country world, it does lend her lovely ballads of romantic woe a self-contained grit you might not get with a more self-consciously ingratiating singer.

The first half of Williams’ set revealed the tender craftswoman, with drummer Donald Lindley especially among the four-piece backup adding an extra kick to the gentle material. In the second half, she not only acted like a rocker but sang like one too, trading in the singer-songwriter tones that have been her recent stock in trade for some bluesy excursions of the sort she started out with.

By the time she sang Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” as an encore, this cult figure of long standing had proven she’s pretty much the one who’s “got a lot of nerve.” And a great future farming out material to more effusive, user-friendly crooners.