Bill Buford’s “Delta Nights”

From The New Yorker's archive: a ruminative profile of the country blues singer Lucinda Williams, published in 2000.

From The New Yorker's archive: a ruminative profile of the country-blues singer Lucinda Williams, published in 2000.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌   View in browser | Update your preferences     Profiles Lucinda Williams's Moods The singer has a knack for both tantrum and wonder, and her songs—about love and loss—are painfully autobiographical. By Bill Buford The musician David Byrne once compared the intuitive writing of Bill Buford to the work of the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński. Since 1995, Buford has contributed nearly fifty pieces to The New Yorker. He has written about a wide array of subjects, including his butchery apprenticeship in Tuscany, the connoisseurs who seek the perfect dark chocolate, and the art of breadmaking in Lyon, France. The New Yorker's former fiction editor, he has also published three books, including "Among the Thugs" and "Heat." One of my favorite pieces by Buford is "Delta Nights," a ruminative Profile of the country-blues singer Lucinda Williams, published in 2000. Williams, Buford observes, is an amalgam—a musician capable of working in a multitude of genres and conveying a variety of keen emotions. Like some of her musical influences, she's gifted with a voice so rough and husky that the singer Emmylou Harris once described it, in Buford's paraphrasing, as "capable of peeling the chrome off a trailer hitch." Her music often calls upon, and simultaneously subverts, Southern narratives. Her work, Buford writes, "is more poem than song, a surrealistic invocation of Southernness not unlike the kitschy religious shrines and turquoise serpents and bottle-cap Christs in Lucinda's own house. It's a bit of mythmaking, by a poet of loss, about a place that's receding from experience, and that might never have been there in the first place." Williams's explorations of the Delta in her music echo Buford's own childhood recollections of the South. At the core of the region's mythos, he notes, in languorous ripples of prose, is a love affair with the notion of loss and dispossession. Williams's earthy musical tones and biting verses exquisitely capture this sense of loss. It is her ability to transform personal melancholia into vibrant, evocative strains, Buford discovers, that captivates listeners—and offers a raw glimpse into the genesis of a singular musician's artistic journey.   —Erin Overbey, archive editor More from the Archive     Notes of a Gastronome Carnal Knowledge How I became a Tuscan butcher. By Bill Buford     Jazz The Life and Work of Charlie Parker He lived outside convention, and was one of the wonders of twentieth-century music. By Whitney Balliett This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery, we recommend adding newyorker@newsletters.newyorker.com to your contacts, while noting that it is a no-reply address. Please send all newsletter feedback to tnyinbox@newyorker.com.    For more from The New Yorker, sign up for our newsletters, shop the store, and sign in to newyorker.com, where subscribers always have unlimited access. Contact us with questions.   View our Privacy Policy. Unsubscribe.   Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.