Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana but most of her childhood was spent moving throughout the southern United States - and even as far as Mexico and Chile - for her father's academic work as a professor. Unlike others with a similar tumbleweed experience, Lucinda doesn't lament those restless days. "I think I saw it as a kind of adventure," she told The Telegraph. It gave her a "global view of the world at an early age." Lucinda later wrote a song called "Lake Charles" which dealt with the pain of losing her ex-boyfriend.

Lucinda has a weak back due to a birth defect called Spina bifida, a congenital disorder affecting the spinal cord, she inherited from her father. Some sufferers have partial or total paralysis in their legs, but Lucinda finds she just gets tired if she has to stand for long periods of time. John Mellencamp and the late Hank Williams were also born with Spina bifida.

Lucinda's favorite place to write songs is at her kitchen table where she keeps a folder bursting with decades worth of ideas. She described her work station in an interview with Electronic Musician: "They say when you go to people's houses you always end up in the kitchen. It's the heart of the home. I write a lot when I first get up. I make coffee or tea and I feel comfortable in the kitchen, I spread everything out on the table. It's a handmade Formica-covered wood table, left by the people we bought the house from. It's in the corner of kitchen, lot of light, skylights, mid-century split level house. It's all very open. See a lot of plants, foliage out the window." This is where she wrote and recorded her aptly titled Kitchen Tapes, disc 2 of the deluxe edition of Blessed.