大象传媒

This week Johnnie and David Hepworth look at two great successes from America's finest female singer songwriters.

David describes Lucinda Williams as a "remarkable and unique performer... who made her masterpiece when she was 45". It took her eighteen years to make four albums and 1998's Car Wheels on A Gravel Road was her fifth. The Grammy winning album had production input from Roy Bittan (from The E Street Band), Ray Kennedy and Steve Earle.

As well as key tracks, Lucinda herself features, in an archive interview with Johnnie, recorded at the time of the album's release; she talks about her late father - the rebellious poet and academic Miller Williams - and her childhood, spent moving around different areas of the United States.

Lucinda also wrote a song for and appeared on the eighteenth studio album from Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball - recorded in atmospheric New Orleans by rock producer Daniel Lanois (famed for his work with Peter Gabriel, U2 and Robbie Robertson). The album was released in 1995 and won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording in 1996.

David recalls meeting her in the queue for the buffet at the Q Awards and being utterly charmed and also says that although she has made scores of albums and some are better than others, there are no bad ones - "not a single turkey."

Johnnie has found more archive interviews he conducted with Emmylou around the release of the album, commenting on her childhood, guests on the album (who included Neil Young, Steve Earle and Larry Mullen Jnr), and the criticism she received for breaking the mould.