Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Sun-Times
Entertainment Weekly	A−
Los Angeles Times
NME	9/10
Pitchfork	9.2/10
Q
Rolling Stone
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Village Voice	A+

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. It was recorded and co-produced by Williams in Nashville, Tennessee and Canoga Park, California, before being released on June 30, 1998, by Mercury Records. The album features guest appearances by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris.

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, and received a nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Can't Let Go". It was Willams' first album to go Gold, and remains her best-selling album to date, with 872,000 copies sold in the US as of October 2014. Universally acclaimed by critics, it was voted as the best album of 1998 in The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll.

After signing a record deal with Rick Rubin's American Recordings label, Williams began recording songs for Car Wheels on a Gravel Road in 1995. The album was originally made in collaboration with Williams's long-time producer and guitar player Gurf Morlix. According to Morlix, the recordings (in Austin, Texas) were "90% done," but Williams shelved them and redid them in Nashville. In the middle of the re-recordings, they "butted heads in the studio" and ended their partnership. She also worked with Steve Earle who said of the experience that it was "the least amount of fun I’ve had working on a record."

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Wikipedia