As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Monday, August 14, 2017

Mary Chapin Carpenter with Lucinda Williams – Wolf Trap, 8/12/2017


Row H, Seats 32-33
 
It was certainly not a night to be on the Filene Center lawn, as shortly after Lucinda Williams started her set at 7:30 the skies opened up, with torrential rain and enough wind that we felt a few drops, although we were sitting right in the middle of our row. Despite the weather, the two women (and their excellent bands) combined for almost three hours of top-notch musical entertainment.
 
Williams referenced the violence in Charlottesville earlier in the day both in her intro to “World Without Tears” and with “We’ve Come To Far To Turn Around”, which despite being a new song has a chorus that makes it sound like a classic from the early 1960s Civil Rights movement. Other than that, she ranged from previous-century classics such as “Joy” (her finale), “Drunken Angel”, and “Lake Charles” to “Protection”, “West Memphis”, and “Foolishness” from 2014’s Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone. The not-unexpected high point, of course, came midway through her set, when she brought Mary Chapin out to duet with her on “Passionate Kisses”.
 
Carpenter also had her share of topicality, opening with a one-two punch of “The Times They Are A-Changin'” and “Stones In The Road” (with a clever lyrical alteration referencing tweets), and then including “The Age Of Miracles” a few songs later. Most of the highlights came from her longtime uptempo favorites, most notably with a blistering version of “The Bug” that let her bandmembers stretch out, and her first two encores, “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” and “Down At The Twist And Shout”. Following that, she thanked the crowd for continuing to support live music and general and her in particular, mentioning that once again she was ending her summer tour at Wolf Trap. She then noted that this was the 30th anniversary of her first album, Hometown Girl, and concluded by performing the title track. There couldn’t have been a better way to end the evening.
 
Setlist (Lucinda Williams) 
Setlist (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

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