SONG OF THE DAY

“Satisfied Mind” by Lucinda Williams (Ramblin’, Smithsonian Folkways Records, 1979).

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

– Ramblin’ is a cover album by Lucinda Williams, her first professional release.

– “A Satisfied Mind” is a song written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes. The song came from Hayes’ mother.

– The song has been covered by a variety of well-known artists:

Ella Fitzgerald on 1955 album The First Lady Of Song
Ian and Sylvia on their 1966 album Play One More
David Allan Coe on his 1977 album Texas Moon
Porter Wagoner charted at number #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs, 1955.
The Byrds on their 1965 album Turn! Turn! Turn!
Bob Dylan on his 1980 album Saved
Tim Hardin on his 1971 album Bird on a Wire
Johnny Cash at first being exclusive on Kill Bill Vol 2 soundtrack until his posthumously released album American VI: Ain’t No Grave.
Jeff Buckley on his 1998 album Sketches (for My Sweetheart the Drunk)
Glen Campbell on A Satisfied Mind album
Blind Boys Of Alabama on There Will Be a Light with Ben Harper
Joan Baez on her 1975 album Farewell, Angelina; later appeared on her 1979 compilation Satisfied Mind
Rosanne Cash, featuring Neko Case, a bonus track on the iTunes version of her 2009 album, The List
Justin Vernon from Bon Iver on his collaboration with the Eau Claire Memorial Jazz I ensemble on the 2009 live benefit album A Decade With Duke
Lindsey Buckingham on his 1981 album Law and Order
Willie Nelson on his 2010 album Country Music

– Lucinda Williams (born January 26, 1953) is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter.

– She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public.

– In 1988, she released her self-titled album, Lucinda Williams. This release featured “Passionate Kisses”, a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter which garnered Lucinda her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994.

– She was named “America’s best songwriter” by TIME magazine in 2002.

– Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the daughter of poet and literature professor Miller Williams and an amateur pianist.

– Her parents divorced in the mid-1960s with Williams’ father gaining custody of her and her younger brother and sister.

– Her father worked as a visiting professor in Mexico and different parts of the American South including Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jackson, Mississippi, and Utah before settling at the University of Arkansas.

– His daughter started writing when she was 6 years old and showed an affinity for music at an early age, and was playing guitar at 12.

– Williams’s first live performance was in Mexico City at 17, as part of a duo with her friend, a banjo player named Clark Jones.

– Williams has garnered considerable critical acclaim, but her commercial success was moderate. Emmylou Harris has said of Williams, “She is an example of the best of what country at least says it is, but, for some reason, she’s completely out of the loop and I feel strongly that that’s country music’s loss.”

– Williams also gained a reputation as a perfectionist and slow worker when it came to recording.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

No youtube.com video of Lucinda Williams’ cover of the song, but here’s some amazing other options, if I do say so myself. P.S. Saved the best for last:

Here’s Johnny Cash doing a cover of the famous country anthem: