Lilly Winwood
We revive a strand started on Medium and continued on The Z Review: features on inspiring musical and show business figures across the generations.
I have been writing occasional articles for ten years about cultural inspirations of mine including Maria McKee, Stevie Nicks, Phoebe Price and Jessica Dorfman Jones. I thought it was time to bring this strand back with a new subject: Lilly Winwood.
This week I found a really unusual musician and lyricist. Folks in the UK will not have heard of Lilly but I am certain you will know Steve. Steve did a song a while ago that is still on heavy rotation. Have a listen to their duet version of Higher Love on YouTube.
Lilly grew up somewhere between the Cotswolds and Nashville. As she says on her website:-
“It’s hard to translate to people what my upbringing was like,” she says. “I feel like I grew up in mid air, between Nashville and the U.K.”
I just love the Warren Zevon cover of Steve's Back in the High Life Again. That song unites my two worlds: my work me and my writing me.
It turns out Lilly writes amazing words as well as tunes. All of Lilly's songs have deep lyrics but this one, Sleep Issues, really reached out to me as I lay awake for yet another night.
Lilly Winwood moved back to Nashville permanently at the age of 18 and remains there, writing and recording gems like Sleep Issues. She recorded the Higher Love duet with dad Steve, Islands in the Stream with Boo Ray, and on her Instagram is a reel of her recent Higher Love live duet with Emmylou Harris and Wendy Moten. Such heady highs could prove the ruin of even the most established music star, but Winwood has grown up around such famous names and looks confident in their company.
Although Lilly is getting ready to release new material, it was her 2022 album Talking Walls that captured my attention this week. There are some tracks that would have been called 'obvious singles' in years gone by such as Keep It Spinning, Good Old Days, A Paper Trail of Broken Hearts and the aforementioned opener Sleep Issues.
However more subtle tracks such as Laundry Day and Brighter Days repay careful listening. I found her lyrics possibly even more haunting than her Americana roots-style melodies and textures.
Laundry Day is one of my favourites. "I guess I'll be spending the rest of the day with my underwear on inside out." All she wants is to wash her clothes in her boyfriend's apartment, as she does on the same day every week. They never seem to get to talk but they are having a difficult time. Is she doing his washing with hers? Has she moved out? Why does he still let her do her laundry here? There is a sadness and a beauty in these words. For those feelings where there are no words, there is aching music.
These songs speak of relationship issues, insomnia, drugs and alcohol. Such topics have provided both the fuel and the life experiences for songwriters through the decades, making them timeless. And timeless is an apt word to summarise this accomplished singer songwriter.
I am certain Lilly has a big career ahead of her, and hope that she will see her way to booking tour dates in England soon. You can read more on her own site.
