Lucinda Williams was robbed. And somehow the Grammy committee got away with it. Williams went home from this year's Grammys empty-handed after Pink's punk pastiche "Trouble" bulldozed her haunting, soul-soaked "Righteously" and Warren Zevon edged her out in the Best Contemporary Folk category. There are a couple of lessons to be learned here, kids. First, never doubt the power of short-term recall. ("Righteously" charted months before "Trouble" was released.) Second, never bet against a dead guy in a popularity poll. Sure, it doesn't diminish the work that Williams has been doing for three decades as a patron saint for painfully autobiographical songwriters -- she did bag a Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy for 1998's Car Wheels on a Gravel Road after all -- but it would be great to see her continue to earn her due. And it'd be even better to see it happen without the qualifiers folk and female engraved on the base of the award. Someday, kids, someday.
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