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, @ABieseAPP  Published 8:00 a.m. ET Oct. 26, 2017

If anyone’s earned the title of taste-maker, it’s Little Steven Van Zandt.

The E Street Band guitarist and Middletown native has been a music industry powerhouse for decades as a songwriter, producer, activist and radio personality. When an artist has his seal of approval, audiences would be well-served to pay attention.

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Van Zandt’s “Little Steven’s Underground Garage at the Basie Presented by Citi” concert series on the Asbury Park Press Stage at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank continues Sunday, Oct. 29, with a performance by Grammy-winning Americana singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams.

(To see Van Zandt at the recent ground-breaking for the Basie's $23 million arts and education expansion, watch the video above.)

Van Zandt, who will host Sunday night’s show, described Williams as “to me, one of the great artists of the modern era, without a doubt.”

Lucinda Williams performs at the Stone Fox on September

Lucinda Williams performs at the Stone Fox on September 17, 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo: Getty Images)

 

Williams, Van Zandt said, is one of the few artists played on both of his Sirius XM satellite radio stations, Underground Garage and Outlaw Country.

In fact, Van Zandt said, Williams was one of the reasons why the Outlaw Country format was started "for people who were falling in between the cracks, in terms of categories.”

“There’s a lot of those great people and some of the best music being made is by people who are just a little bit difficult to categorize into normal radio formats," Van Zandt said. "So we started Outlaw Country for people like (Williams) and people like The Band and all three generations of Hank Williams, that kind of thing.”

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Rockers and Underground Garage favorites Jesse Malin and the Woggles provide support on Sunday night at the Basie.

Lucinda Williams performs at the Merle Haggard Tribute

Lucinda Williams performs at the Merle Haggard Tribute concert at Bridgestone Arena Thursday, April 6, 2017 in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo: Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

 

“We’re going to take the rock side of it, but Lucinda, like I said, fits into both categories, or no categories, or she’s her own category,” Van Zandt said.

Over the decades, Williams has collaborated with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson and the late, great Tom Petty.

For her part, the Louisiana native Williams knows just how far she's come. Discussing her work with some of her famous friends, she said, "We weren't always peers."

Shortly after moving to Austin, Texas, in 1974, she was playing for tips while Springsteen, then a rising star, rode into town.

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"He kind of was just breaking out. … That’s where I was then, compared to where they were then, and now where I am now it’s really something," she said. "It means a lot to me. It means a whole hell of a lot, to have that kind of support from those guys.”

Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams released her latest

Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams released her latest album, "This Sweet Old World," in September. (Photo: Courtesy of David McClister)

 

In an interesting statement on how far she's come, Williams — who recorded Springsteen's "Factory" for her 2016 album "The Ghosts of Highway 20" — is now covering herself, in a sense.

Her latest album, the September release "This Sweet Old World," is a reinterpretation of her 1992 LP "Sweet Old World."

“Everything was different going into doing this because my voice is different," Williams said. "I’m better, I think. I mean it’s richer and all of that." 

Williams changed the keys of some numbers and drastically reworked some — the "Sweet Old World" track "He Never Got Enough Love" has even been reborn as "Drivin' Down a Dead End Street."

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“I had to just really get out of my own way and just let it be," Williams said, "because I wasn’t going to sit there and re-write some of the songs ... Although I did do some editing, some lyrical stuff, on ‘Dirivin' Down a Dead End Street,’ which used to have a different title before, and so I messed around with that one.

"But for the most part (with) everything, I just left them alone. It is what it is. it’s not a new album with new songs, so I had to keep that in perspective.”

 

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The SPL Rocks!

Prego che tu stia danzando con San Pietro alle porte perlacee del cielo





Pulled up to my house today
Came and took my little girl away!
Giants Stadium 8/28/03



Oats

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