Lucinda Williams’ influence on a couple of generations of songwriters is immense. Just ask ISMAY. The singer-songwriter and filmmaker created the documentary Finding Lucinda that traces the roots of Williams’ life, including her time in Fayetteville when she lived with her father, the poet Miller Williams.
On the film’s soundtrack, ISMAY and other musicians like Charlie Sexton and Mary Gauthier perform some of Williams’ songs. They will show the film and perform Saturday night at the Fayetteville Folk School beginning at 6:30 p.m.
It turns out ISMAY’s father started a Lucinda Williams tribute band, The Lake Charlatans, and that started ISMAY’s exploration of the artist.
ISMAY: I think that what’s most relatable for me about Lucinda’s work is really the lyrics to her songs and the poeticness of it. I’m always looking for art that I feel like has multiple layers and depth to it, and that’s what Lucinda’s music has. And I think when I started this project, I don’t think I really understood how deep it went. It was really sort of, oh, this is interesting, but I must have had some kind of intuition that the depth of her lyrics and her storytelling was really something to learn from.
Kyle Kellams: When you’re embarking on a project that’s going to eventually be called Finding Lucinda, where do you go?
ISMAY: Well, when I embarked on the project, I really started with a lot of research. I started with talking to people that I knew that knew her — people like Chuck Prophet, people like Steve Earle — and just trying to get a sense of like, what was her story? And the tricky thing is that actually, when we started the project, she hadn’t had her memoirs. So I was piecing together her early life from all these different interviews, and I even did a bunch of research into archival newspapers. I was kind of sleuthing through the internet to find obscure recordings.
And so it really started with trying to understand, like, what did she do when she started? Where did she play? What were her first songs like? So it’s been a long road to figure that out, but I feel like I’ve gotten, you know, maybe a master’s degree in the studies at this point.
Kellams: And of course, if you’re going to discover Lucinda and try to figure out, roads lead to Miller as well.
ISMAY: Exactly. And that’s why Arkansas is such an important part of this story, is that after doing a little bit of research, realizing the role of her father, Miller Williams, the celebrated poet, as an influence and trying to also not just understand Lucinda but understand Miller’s history, Lucinda’s mother’s history as well. And it’s just been so fascinating because Miller has a really interesting story, but he also has such a great body of work, and he has such a legacy as a community builder and as a teacher.
And so having this sort of relationship of a teacher-poet that has a daughter who’s also an artist is really interesting because it allowed me to dive into Miller’s influence as a writer, but also as a mentor to other people.
Kellams: On the accompanying soundtrack to Finding Lucinda, we hear Miller Williams reading The Caterpillar.
“This is Miller Williams. I’m recording in the recording studio of the Library of Congress, January 4, 1980.
The caterpillar. Today on the lip of a bowl in the backyard, we watched a caterpillar caught in the circle of his larval assumptions. My daughter counted 27 times he went around before rolling back and laughing, ‘I’m a caterpillar, look...’”
ISMAY: And the most incredible thing about this poem, The Caterpillar, that’s on the soundtrack — but I talk about it in a lot of the elements of this Finding Lucinda project — is that it’s written about Lucinda back when she was a child. So I just think to find a poem that’s so fantastic about a subject of a documentary is like a pretty rare find. And it’s a beautiful poem.
“Landlord leaves, then when he somehow fell to his private circle. Later, I followed bare feet and door clicks of my daughter to the yard, The bowl of milk, white moonlight, I and the black grass.
It died. I said, ‘Honey, they don’t live very long.’In bed again recovered and re-kissed, she locked her arms and mumbling love to mind until turning she slipped into the deep bone-bottomed dish of sleep.
Stumbling drunk around the rim, I hold the words she said to me across the dark.I think he thought he was going in a straight line.”
Kellams: Working on something like this — is there a line between, I don’t know, documentarian and just sort of obsession?
ISMAY: Yeah. I mean, I try not to get into the obsession side. And there are a lot of people who are really obsessed with Lucinda, and I try to really understand her and respect her, but also see her as a person and a person in a culture of many gifted, unique, diverse artists. And so I do try to understand her as a person.
And also, I think a big part of the story of the project is that you can obsess over someone else’s work and learn from it. But ultimately, if you’re an artist, it’s important to turn back to your own heart and your own vision and just create your own work.
Kellams: How did you select the songs that you would include on the accompanying soundtrack?
ISMAY: The process of making the soundtrack was really, really long. It went all the way back to when we started filming in 2020. So it’s been a long process and a lot of selection. And basically I wanted to convey sort of a, I don’t know, field recording style — like archival discovery, documentarian approach. I didn’t want to make a soundtrack that was sort of like a studio sound. I wanted to make something that tries to explore Lucinda’s legacy and really have these tangible connections with places where she was connected with. For example, I recorded several of the songs in the Cactus Café in Austin, Texas.
“Am I too blue for you? Am I too blue when I cry like the sky? Like the sky, sometimes. Am I too blue? Is the night too black? Is the wind too rough?”
Which is where she recorded a session on KUT-FM in 1981. So it’s really more than what I would typically do for an album. It’s really supposed to be a story and also sort of show the influences that she had, including Tex-Mex music, including figures like Charlie Sexton, the guitar player. And so yeah, it’s supposed to be almost sort of like influenced by an Alan Lomax kind of style, holistic look at the project like this.
Kellams: Your date at the Ozark Folk School in Fayetteville is November 8. You don’t have another date until the 13th, when you’re going to be at the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn. Are you going to be able to spend some time in Fayetteville? I mean, this is where, of course, Miller lived for a long time, and Lucinda, you know, lived here for a bit.
ISMAY: I hope to spend a little bit of time. I mean, I really hope that if anybody’s out there listening and they knew Miller or they were involved in the culture of poetry at the University of Arkansas, I’d love to meet them and talk to them and hang out at the show because I have yet to have an opportunity to really interview or talk to anybody from that particular area. So I really hope so. And then additionally, I’ve heard so many wonderful things about Fayetteville that I do really want to come back.
Kellams: What can we expect on November 8 at the Ozark Folk School in Fayetteville?
ISMAY: So we’re going to be doing a really cool evening where we’re going to combine live music and film. And so we’re going to start the night with a songwriter-slash-poetry round, where I’ll be bringing in some local artists who are going to play a few Lucinda Williams songs. And then also we’re going to read some of Miller Williams’ poetry. And then after that, we’re going to screen the documentary Finding Lucinda. It’s an hour long, and then we might do a little Q&A if people are up for it.
But there’s also a lot of time for any of those who are interested in just hanging out and talking with us at the Fayetteville Folk School-slash-Ozark Folkways. Because this is going to be a really special show, because it’s an area that has so much significance to Lucinda, and I’d love to just connect with people in the community.
“I’m not gonna mind one bit. Once I get to Lafayette, I won’t mind one little bit.”
Kellams: ISMAY will screen the documentary Finding Lucinda at the Fayetteville Folk School Saturday night at 6:30 p.m. The film can also be seen on Apple TV and YouTube. Tickets for Saturday night’s event are $15.
Our conversation took place in late October.
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