Lucinda Williams - Essence (2001)

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Our buddy Rob Smith likes to talk about albums that are "the one after the big one" and Lucinda Williams' 2001 album Essence is in that category. Both Jeff and Matt enjoyed diving into the record for the first time -- with special guest Mya Byrne.

If you're not familiar with Mya's music, you should be! Playing Americana steeped with potent branches of blues, rock, glam and country music, Byrne is every bit the voice of the outsider that built the foundation of the genre, where we behold stages beaming with the light of those who are so willing to stand tall and confident in the entirety of their truth. Here Byrne stands too. Americana has many champions, but there are scarce few like Byrne; a queer trans woman creating ripples that will find themselves born again and again as waves.

On Rhinestone Tomboy, Mya's newest album, we are treated to a portrait painted with shades of Byrne’s youth, one spent listening to stacks of her mama’s dusty 45s, and thrift store 8-tracks blasting from blown speakers out the window of an old Chevy. Songs that opened the trailhead to a lifelong journey that informed Byrne’s musical landscape.

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