Lucinda Williams, “Stories From a Rock N Roll Heart.” Lucinda Williams had a tough 2020. The 67-year old Grammy-winner lost her home in a tornado and later had a stroke. It impaired her motor skills on her left side, which interfered with her ability to play guitar. Williams has…

The best albums of 2020 include (clockwise from top left): Benny the Butcher, Sault, The Soft Pink Truth, Jacob Collier, Lucinda Williams, Jahari Massamba Unit, Bruce Springsteen, Loyal Lobos, Soccer Mommy and Crack Cloud. Welcome back to RIFF’s year-end album roundup! If you’re joining us just now, you’re here…

Lucinda Williams, “Good Souls Better Angels.” Perhaps stoicism is the price of singularity. The eminently hard-to-categorize Lucinda Williams is the rare mainstream artist who maintains street cred in both country and rock. But establishing herself entailed a grueling campaign. During the 1970s and ’80s, the Louisiana native romped around…

OAKLAND — It took some time for Lucinda Williams‘ style to gain widespread recognition. Williams was 45 years old when her breakthrough album, Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, wowed critics and earned her a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. She performed Saturday at the Fox Theater as part…

In 1968, American singer-songwriter Bobbie Gentry recorded her sophomore album, The Delta Sweete. It dropped a year after her no. 1 single, “Ode to Billy Joe,” but never took off. The album became a hard-to-find talisman for the few lucky musicians and music lovers who happened upon it in obscure…

Cheap Trick. Photos: Chloe Catajan and Paige K. Parsons SAN FRANCISCO — The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival brought out the “golden” in Golden Gate Park last weekend. Following a sullen week marked by the massacre at a Las Vegas country music festival and the death of rock icon Tom Petty,…