I was afraid of that, reubent. When I saw and heard her singing with Steve Earle recently on TV, Lucinda was a mess, and sounded drunk. Which is a shame; I like the band sound she had developed since the time of the original SOW. The sound on that album is, as you characterized it, very thin and lightweight, far too "Poppy". Donald Lindley was just an okay drummer, and unfortunately tensioned his snare drum rather tight, giving it that piccolo snare drum sound that I despise (Chad Smith’s piccolo snare drum sound ruined for me the Dixie Chick’s fine Taking The Long Way album). And whoever mixed her s/t Rough Trade and SOW albums put that drum WAY too high in stew, imo. It doesn’t "sit" down in the music the way Jim Keltner’s snare does on the Essence album, for instance. And while Gurf Morlix was and is a fantastic guitarist, his playing on those two albums being great, I think the thicker, fuller sound of the guitars on more recent albums serves Lucinda’s voice and songs better than did Gurf’s Telecaster. She’s more a Blues singer than a Country one.
