Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams grew up immersed in literature before music, the daughter of poet and creative-writing teacher Miller Williams, who she has said gave her something "almost like an apprenticeship," with early critiques from family friends including poets James Dickey and John Ciardi and a literary diet that ran through Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty. A childhood encounter with Blind Pearly Brown, a street preacher she saw perform in Macon at age five, later became the subject of one of her own songs, and she has spoken about studying Bob Dylan specifically for his use of biblical stories and references.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, released in 1998 after a long, famously deliberate recording process, became her most widely heard record and the one that finally matched her singular songwriting to an audience well beyond the alt-country underground. Her influence on younger songwriters has continued since; Katie Crutchfield became a friend after interviewing her, one of many artists in the alt-country and confessional traditions to claim Williams as a direct reference point.