Refuse drive: Singer Lucinda Williams data copy of Beatles songs at famed Abbey Highway


Lucinda Williams isn’t simply intimidated, however it might be sun-baked for any musician to not shudder on the activity prior to her.

The venture? File an copy of Beatles songs — most effective one of the vital best-known catalogs in frequent track — in the similar London studio the place many of the originals have been made. She and her band had simply 3 days.

The outcome, “Lucinda Williams sings the Beatles from Abbey Road,” turns into society on Friday. It’s the 7th in her form of “Lu’s Jukebox” tasks and the primary person who will probably be made to be had on streaming products and services.

The Nashville-based singer-songwriter delivers her tackle 12 Beatles songs, maximum of them from the band’s upcoming duration. She takes on hits just like the Paul McCartney ballads “Let it Be” and “The Lengthy and Winding Highway,” while also choosing the more obscure “White Album” cuts “Yer Blues” and “I’m So Tired.”

“It felt like the Holy Grail,” she said. “This is where the Beatles recorded. And we’re going to go in there where they made all of these majestic, classic, amazing songs?”

Abbey Road was the idea of her manager-husband, Tom Overby, and they blocked out a small amount of time before a British tour earlier this year. Her Beatles fan producer, Ray Kennedy, said he believed Williams was the first major artist to use the London studio to remake the band’s work.

And, yes, it was intimidating. Fortunately, it was a modern, working studio and did not feel like working in a museum. One quirk was the control room was on a different floor than where the musicians were, and Williams repeatedly climbed the stairs to hear playbacks. “The engineers all looked at me, like, ‘what are you doing here,’” she said.

Stripping ill songs for the band to develop up once more detectable complexities they hadn’t expected. She specifically loved John Lennon’s “Yer Blues.” “The depth and the edginess and the grittiness of it kind of surprised me,” she said.

They stuck to the basics of her rock band’s sound. The orchestral flourishes of “The Long and Winding Road,” for instance, are changed by means of an organ and pedal-steel guitar.

“My greatest fear was, I didn’t want to sound like a cover band doing Beatles songs,” she mentioned. “And everyone I’ve talked to about it said you don’t have to worry about that, that you achieved your goal of staying true to the songs while still sounding like you.”

All the way through the pandemic, Williams made six “Lu’s Jukebox” tasks, themed in-studio live shows. They integrated Tom Petty and Bob Dylan songs, albums of Southern soul, ’60s nation classics and bliss track. She made a disc of Rolling Stones subject material most effective days prior to having a stroke in November 2020.

Bought in large part by means of mail layout, they haven’t been to be had to flow, even supposing a spokesperson mentioned they’re more likely to be made to be had in that layout going forward.


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