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It's a Lucinda Williams 'World'Transcendence and loneliness
By Todd Leopold
(CNN) -- Lucinda Williams makes me swoon. I'm not embarrassed to say that, either. What other reaction can you have to that voice, that aching voice, so tough and yet so vulnerable? "Side of the Road," "Right in Time," "Essence" -- her songs express a longing and thrill surrounding a core of loneliness and hurt. Williams doesn't just sing from the heart; her lyrics are like chisels, chipping away at emotions until there's nothing left but the truth. Her new album, "World Without Tears," leads off this weekend's Eye on Entertainment. Eye openerWilliams was once known for taking her time putting out material. Her first record of original material, "Happy Woman Blues," came out in 1980; the next album, "Lucinda Williams," didn't follow until 1988, and the third record, "Sweet Old World," followed four years later. But since her fourth album, 1998's Grammy-winning "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," Williams has been almost prolific: "Essence" came out in 2001, and now comes "World Without Tears" (Lost Highway), due Tuesday. The Grammy helped; so does a consistent record label. "World Without Tears" has already garnered attention for the way it was recorded: quickly, with Williams' touring band. It's also, if anything, even blunter than her previous records. "Williams leaves the nerve endings of her music exposed," writes Amazon.com's Don McLeese. Well, sometimes pain can feel good, like a catharsis. On screen• Ever pick up a ringing pay phone? If you're Colin Farrell, it's not a good idea. The actor finds himself the target of a crazy man (and who else would make a guy picking up a pay phone a target?) in the thriller "Phone Booth." Voice of the wacko supplied by Kiefer Sutherland, who seems so calm on "24." • Vin Diesel isn't just a man; he's "A Man Apart." In yet another movie featuring a DEA agent -- John Travolta plays one in the recently released "Basic" -- Diesel teams up with an imprisoned drug lord to try to catch the mysterious man who took over the drug lord's cartel. • It's not exactly "The Princess Diaries," but in another Cinderella story, Amanda Bynes travels to England to find her long-lost father in "What a Girl Wants." • Sigourney Weaver plays a freelance journalist and Anthony LaPaglia is a bereaved New York fireman in "The Guys," in which the two team up to memorialize the lives lost on 9/11. CNN.com reviewer Paul Clinton calls the movie a "moving experience." On the tube• Who will be the NCAA basketball champions? The NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments' Final Fours face off. The men's tourney is on CBS; the women's is on ESPN. Sound waves• The Jayhawks were left for dead after co-founder Mark Olson left a few years back, but the band held together. Its latest album, "Rainy Day Music" (Lost Highway), due Tuesday, features more jangly rock and introspective pop. • Will she howl like a "Hound Dog" or will we "Surrender" to her singing? Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, comes out with her first album, "To Whom It May Concern" (Capitol), Tuesday. Paging readers• The post-September 11 world is examined by Steven Brill in "After" (Simon & Schuster), which examines everything from World Trade Center rebuilding plans to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. • Nicholas Sparks veers off his usual romantic course in "The Guardian" (Warner Books), about a woman seeking love after the death of her husband. She finds it, but she also finds a stalker.
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