Alongside her ninth studio record, “Little Honey” (Oct. 14, Lost Highway) and a hefty fall tour, Lucinda Williams will on Oct. 28 release a digital-only EP of protest songs, Billboard.com can reveal.
“Lu in 08,” which is timed to hit a week before the U.S. presidential election, sports four live tracks, three of which are covers: Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” and the Thievery Corporation/Wayne Coyne collaboration “Marching the Hate Machines Into the Sun.”
The fourth cut is the Williams original “Bone of Contention,” which was originally intended for inclusion on “Little Honey.” “It’s a pretty powerful protest song,” Williams tells Billboard.com. “The track didn’t come out the way I wanted it to [in the studio]. We went out to do some shows, and I played the song live by myself at Summerfest [in Milwaukee]. It just came out killer.”
Williams begins a fall outing Sept. 25 in Asheville, N.C., in support of “Little Honey,” material from which has already garnered a positive reaction on the road.
“We play ‘Real Love’ and then ‘Tears of Joy’ and by the time we get to ‘Little Rock Star,’ people are just smitten,” Williams enthuses. “And that’s what you want to see happen. That’s what’s playing live should do.”
