“You won’t want to miss my New York comeback,” Lucinda Williams sings on her latest album.
In the midst of a national tour and with the release of a new studio album just weeks away, Williams returns to The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester on Nov. 9.
It’s Williams’ third time at The Cap, where she last performed in October 2023.
While the stroke she suffered in 2020 has left Williams unable to play guitar, her masterful songwriting and distinctive vocals won accolades for her 2023 album, Stories from a Rock n Roll Heart.
“I’m singing my ass off,” she told Vanity Fair last year, following her first European tour since 2019.
Rock n Roll Heart features collaborations with her husband, manager and co-producer Tom Overby. Also sharing co-writing credits is Jesse Malin — also a stroke survivor, who Williams will be supporting during a star-studded benefit on Dec. 1 at the Beacon Theatre.
The album’s opening track, Let’s Get the Band Back Together, features background singers Margo Price and Buddy Miller. Price also joins her on the bluesy This Is Not My Town. And New York Comeback includes guest vocalists Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa.
The 71-year-old genre-defying artist whose work dipping into rock, country, blues and folk traditions has won multiple Grammy Awards, said the healing power of music fueled her recovery.
In 2020, a blood clot on the right side of her brain impaired the left side of her body’s motor skills. She returned to the stage in 2021, at first in a wheelchair, but she was soon back on her feet.
“Just the energy of the audiences being so welcoming and warm and the band playing so great and being so supportive gave me so much strength,” Williams says on her website. “I figured, ‘Hell, all I have to do is stand up there and sing. How hard can that be?”
She then returned to the studio. “Writing had been part of my rehabilitation,” says Williams. “It didn’t occur to me to stop and not do anything.”
In 2023, Williams also found time to release a bestselling memoir, Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, recounting her childhood in the Deep South, the frustrating years waiting to break through in the music industry, and the stories behind her songs.
Willams’ appearance comes weeks before the Dec. 6 release of Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road. Recorded at The Beatles’ legendary studio in London, the new collection is Vol. 7 of Lu’s Jukebox series. She’s the first artist to record Beatles’ music at Abbey Road since the Fab Four themselves.
The setlist from Williams’ Sept. 29 show in California mixed some of her signature compositions from her four-decade career, like Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Changed the Locks and Essence, with recent songs including Rock n Roll Heart and Stolen Moments.
She’ll take the stage at The Cap with bandmates David Sutton (bass), Doug Pettibone (guitar/pedal steel), Marc Ford (guitar) and Brady Blade (drums).
Lucinda Williams at The Capitol Theatre
Saturday, Nov. 9.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; show starts at 8 p.m.
149 Westchester Ave., Port Chester
914-937-4126
thecapitoltheatre.com
