Soulful Williams Finds Larger Audience

Lucinda Williams is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter who finds such inspiration and comfort in music that it’s no wonder she often refers to other musicians in her own anxious tales of loneliness and loss.

In the moody title tune from her wildly acclaimed new album, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” the song’s narrator starts off in the kitchen listening to the frequently upbeat Loretta Lynn and later in the car turns on the usually heartbroken Hank Williams.

Similarly, “Lake Charles” tells of someone so numbed by the death of a friend that she tries to draw strength by remembering the times they drove the back roads of Louisiana together listening to the sexy, mysterious Howlin’ Wolf on the radio.

Williams, who headlined the Wiltern Theatre on Friday, captures these moments of disappointment and despair with such literary grace and such soulful musical textures that other writers someday surely will refer to her music in their own lyrics.

And that tribute song won’t be a happy one.

Williams is a perfectionist whose work over nearly two decades has been championed by some of country rock’s most celebrated figures, including Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle. A cheering k.d. lang was part of the enthusiastic crowd Friday that saluted Williams, who only now is beginning to reach beyond a cult audience.

The danger in coming to Williams’ music at this point is in expecting too much--which isn’t hard after Rolling Stone has just branded her new album a “masterpiece” two issues in a row.

As she and her spirited, guitar-driven band showed Friday, there is plenty to enjoy in her music--though she tends as a writer to be better at expressing what we already know about situations than giving us insights to them.

If the sparse “Car Wheels” were a movie, it would win raves for its grainy photography and set design. It’s the atmosphere in these songs that hits you the hardest.

The tunes are especially rich musically, drawing from the familiar but flavorful country, rock and blues traditions. It’s a lonesome, yearning sound that feels like it oozes from the very Southern soil that Williams so often cites in her lyrics.

She adds to the conviction of the best songs with understated vocals that heighten rather than overplay the drama. When she cut loose Friday on an upbeat tune, notably Randy Weeks’ delightful blues-rocker “Can’t Let Go,” you see how artful her restraint is elsewhere.

Yet Williams’ work is uneven--even on the new album. She tends to state the obvious--however honestly--rather than join the elite group of writers who take us to the next step by helping us see experiences in new and revealing ways.

In some moments Friday, the atmosphere of her songs was enough. You feel the loss in “Lake Charles” even if you’re not sure what the point is about her friend feeling more comfortable in Louisiana than his native Texas.

At the same time, you understand the woman’s longing in “Concrete and Barbed Wire” even though the references to various prison locales seem more repetitive than enlightening.

To point out Williams’ limitations shouldn’t deny her accomplishments. It’s been a long, sometimes heroic struggle for Williams to reach this level of acceptance and perhaps the best thing about the newfound success is that it could inspire her to add that final dimension of revelation to what is already a haunting and valuable body of work.