Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released on June 30, 1998, by Mercury Records.

The album was recorded and co-produced by Williams in Nashville, Tennessee and Canoga Park, California, and features guest appearances by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris.

It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1999, and earned Williams an additional nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Can't Let Go".

[5] The initial recording sessions for Car Wheels on a Gravel Road lasted from February to March 1995 in Austin, Texas, with longtime producer Gurf Morlix.

[5] In the years after the album's release, Earle was misquoted as saying Car Wheels on a Gravel Road was "the least amount of fun I've had working on a record."

[14] Car Wheels on a Gravel Road explores a variety of music genres, including country, pop, blues, and folk.

"[5] Andy Greene of Rolling Stone notes that the overall sound of Car Wheels on a Gravel Road differed from the prevailing trend in country music at the time, which was to incorporate more pop influences, as evidenced by the commercial success of Shania Twain's 1997 album Come On Over.

[17] Steve Huey of AllMusic believes that Car Wheels on a Gravel Road features the cleanest production of any album in Williams' career.

Huey wrote: "Its surfaces are clean and contemporary, with something in the timbres of the instruments (especially the drums) sounding extremely typical of a late-'90s major-label roots-rock album.

"[18] Earle and Kennedy's style of production favored mellow grooves for Williams to sing atop, which was greatly influenced by hip hop of the early 1990s.

[19] Williams mentions various Southern cities like Jackson, Mississippi and Lafayette, Louisiana, and discusses events that occurred in nondescript locations like backroads and dilapidated shacks.

[6] Some journalists felt the detractions against Williams were sexist, as male artists known for their perfectionism like Bruce Springsteen and John Fogerty did not receive the same negative treatment for lengthy recording sessions.

[2] Reviewing for Entertainment Weekly in July 1998, David Browne found Williams' hard-edged evocations of Southern rural life refreshing amid a music market overrun by timid, mass-produced female artists.

[25] Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times said her "resonant, resolute and reassuring" answers to the questions romantic passion and pain pose are as ambitious as the "rich", commanding sound she crafted with producers Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy.

[27] NME magazine said Williams transfigures "American roots rock into a heady, soul-baring and, would you believe, unabashedly sexy art form",[28] while Uncut credited the album with "repositioning country-blues roots rock as contemporary Southern art" and offering listeners "a sense of life and place that leap from every line and guitar lick".

[32] The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau argued at the time that she proves herself to be the era's "most accomplished record-maker" by honing traditional popular music composition, understated vocal emotions, and realistic narratives colored by her native experiences and values:[33] Williams's cris de coeur and evocations of rural rootlessness—about juke joints, macho guitarists, alcoholic poets, loved ones locked away in prison, loved ones locked away even more irreparably in the past—are always engaging in themselves.

It topped the annual Pazz & Jop poll and earned Williams a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, although AllMusic's Steve Huey later said it was her "least folk-oriented record".

In a five-star review, About.com's Kim Ruehl credited the album with solidifying Williams' status as one of the best singer-songwriters of all time, as she "single-handedly marries the genres of traditional and alternative country, roots rock and American folk music so smoothly, it almost feels like magic.

[41] Some journalists have credited Car Wheels on a Gravel Road with popularizing Americana music, and defining parameters that would eventually becomes stapes within the genre.

[42] Stephen L. Betts of Rolling Stone wrote: "[Car Wheels on a Gravel Road's] genesis coincides with the birth of the Americana radio format and with masterful nods to country, blues and rock, the finished product, released in June 1998, reflects the cornerstones of that burgeoning movement.