Little Honey

In her mid-50s, Lucinda Williams is turning both more reflective and more determined to shed the perceived limits of age and rock like a young teen discovering the power of the electric guitar for the first time. So, rockers like “Real Love,” “Honey Bee,” and the swinging “Jailhouse Tears” (with Elvis Costello) come with a heightened sense of bravado, and ballads such as “If Wishes Were Horses,” “Plan to Marry,” and the eight-and-a-half minute death march of “Rarity,” with its cascading horns and ever-present organ, purr with a sense of finality that’s positively scary in its intensity. Williams writes a cautionary tale, “Little Rock Star,” that warns of the obvious seductions in waiting for each young naïve thing. And the cover of AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” is at once bizarre and absolutely perfect, a blues lament coming from the mouth of a woman who has spent decades trying to get her point across. Few artists are this consistently intense. Lucinda’s the real deal.