Lucinda Williams @ UEA

Who knows what the reasons were for the low turnout for Lucinda Williams’ first Norwich gig, but it seems a shame that a seasoned, experienced performer, had 300 people max in a seated show at the largest indoor venue in town. Midweek, post Brexit, end of term and a grown up country music artist could have contributed to the quiet, overly polite audience.

Support came from Matt Blake, a solo singer songwriter with a marvellous voice, reminiscent of Kurt Wagner from Lambchop, picked and strummed his way through a selection of folk blues in a country style. While no one “warmed up” during this period, the quality of the performance was clear and Matt was endearing with a vibe that laid a path to the darker sound to come.

Lucinda Williams suffers with Spina Bifida, as did her father the published poet Miller Williams, and her shuffling gait and slightly wonky speech, which at first steered my imagination towards a trailer filled with empty wine bottles, almost certainly owes much to this. At 63 she is in fine voice and tonight she was accompanied by virtuoso Stuart Mathis, his playing an intuitive masterclass of subtlly nuanced lead guitar complementing her bruised, ravaged, beautifully unique tones. Hearing the honky tonk heartbreak of Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, Drunken Angel & Lake Charles felt like we were missing a trick in not being in a redneck bar in Louisiana, being jabbed by pool cues and wearing sleeveless denim. The Southern Gothic of The Ghosts Of Highway 20 perfectly recreated the aural landscape of True Detective. Willie Nelson had dueted and covered Lucinda’s Overtime, which has that wonderful waltz time you associate with the ponytailed guru of gentle contemporary western swing, but her version of it was a delightful rendering of the post breakup period that never seems to end. Stuart’s harmonising on songs provided an extra dimension, his higher key and seemingly improvised arrangements called to mind the Robert Plant and Alison Kraus Raising Sand collaboration, without ever diminishing Lucinda Williams’ lead role. Compassion had some philosophical advice drawn directly from an interpretation of one of her fathers poems; “Have compassion, for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it” is a sentiment we can all learn from in these testing times of a society split in apparently irreconcilable ways, “You do not know what wars are going on, down there, where the spirit meets the bone”. Innit.

Covering Skip James’ Killing Floor and Mississippi Fred McDowell’s You’ve Gotta Move made famous by the Rolling Stones on Sticky Fingers as encores allowed Mathis to show his blues soloing flair and we were reminded again how dextrous and textural his playing is. Finishing with Jimi Hendrix’s Angel in tribute to a colleague who died unexpectedly was a touching, sensitive way to send us on our way. Almost two hours had passed in a flash, and my only regret is that the crowd had not given back what had been wrung out of Lucinda’s heart in front of us. If Tammy Wynette had been born ten years later and had embraced Americana this could be her, with a biker jacket and her emotion turmoil all too visible.

Truly a night of broken hearts and Rye smiles, storytelling and southern sadness making this regret-filled show one not to have missed.