There’s a new honky-tonk kinda joint in the East Village called Lucinda’s, and if that moniker makes you think of the great singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams, there’s a good reason for that – she’s one of the owners.
It seemed only right that Williams and her band would bless the stage with their presence at last week’s unofficial opening. It was an invite-only affair, as the woman who had headlined Radio City and the Beacon would have had a hard time jamming all her fans into a venue that holds about 150 people.
The bar was previously home to Heaven Can Wait, a venue that never seemed to find its identity. Before that, it housed some successful clubs such as Brownie’s (that was quite a while ago) and some not-so-hot spots such as East Berlin (you are forgiven for not remembering that one — it didn’t last long).
But thanks to local singer/songwriter Kelley Swindall, who co-founded the place with Williams and Laura McCarthy, Lucinda’s is looking like a hit already. As soon as you walk in you can feel the vibe of a room that feels like it has already been there for years.
Swindall, who is the general manager, part-time bartender, and all-around hostess, pitched the idea of opening a club to Williams about a year ago when they were having dinner in New Orleans.
“Her eyes just lit up,” Swindall recalls. “She said, hell yeah!”
Swindall did much of the work finding memorabilia and artwork to grace the walls, but Williams helped curate the decor, as well as the liquor and wine choices. Williams is particularly interested in outsider folk art, so there’s a helping of that, along with some nods to blues artists such as Muddy Waters and innovators like Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
“It’s not just about country”, Swindall explains. “The blues is a big part of it.”
Along with the vintage imagery, there are some lovely black-and-white prints of country icons by the photographer Danny Clinch as well as artwork by Jon Langford (the Mekons, Waco Brothers) and Steve Keene. In a move that Johnny Cash is probably chuckling about in the afterlife, one of the bathrooms is devoted entirely to him.
Last week’s show, which was broadcast live on Sirius XM, was opened by Laura Cantrell with a hot set that featured Jeremy Chatzky (bass), Mark Spencer (guitar), Brady Blade (drums) and special guest Mary Lee Kortes (vocals/tambourine). Cantrell has a history with the place, having frequented Brownie’s (and performed there) back in the day, and she feels that the new iteration is a spiritual successor to the old.
“There was a sense that the space was animated by a spirit of possibility,” Cantrell says. “The East Village was still some kind of borderland crisscrossed by punks, poets, folkies, blues wailers and their country cousins, it was all cool. I love that Lucinda’s taps into that openness – it may look like a “country” bar but is really an invitation to connect and commune with great music.”
Williams, who is still recovering from a stroke that she suffered in 2020, is not letting anything stop her.
Although she’s not playing guitar, she’s got a great band and is currently on tour, still singing up a storm. From the stage, she announced, “We’re going to play music and have fun, because that’s what this bar is all about,” and that’s exactly what she did.
The set was a mix of older and newer songs, with a tribute to Tom Petty (Stolen Moments) and a fine cover of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. Before playing her tune “Low Life,” she reflected that she must have “written it about my own bar — I just didn’t know it.”
Although Williams is expected to stop by from time to time, it’s Swindall who you’re likely to encounter on any given day (or night). Among other things, she’s running the Sunday afternoon Singer/Songwriter Open Mic, which is open to anyone who signs up on the day of. There are a couple of rules, however, you should know before going.
For one, each singer gets two songs. Two, they have to be original songs. Three — and if you forget this, then Swindall is going to forcefully remind you — when the singers are singing, the audience needs to “shut the f**k up!”
The first such show was definitely a success, with some very talented artists and an audience that only had to be reminded a few times about rule number three.
Swindall, a fine writer and performer herself who has toured extensively here and abroad, set the bar high as she kicked off the series with an original tune of her own.
Lucinda’s is still working on scheduling , but you can expect live band country karaoke every Friday nights and the East Village Cxntry Club, an all-inclusive queer country party on the last Thursday of the month as well as live bands.
The Georgia-born Swindall is pretty happy to have a place to call her own in New York City.
“I’ve lived and breathed this my whole life,” she says. “I want Lucinda’s to be the third space for people, after home and work. The reception has all been very positive – people say that it feels real.”
Info about Lucinda’s can be found at lucindasnyc.com, and on Instagram at @lucindasnyc.
