Loretta Lynn Doesn't Need Country Music, But Country Music Sure Needs Her

Johno Johno

It would have made sense thirty years ago: take a phenomenal country singer with an outstanding batch of songs, lock her in a room with a top-notch rock band, roll tape, and see what happens. When Gram Parsons hooked up with Emmylou Harris, we saw a glimpse of how great that could have been, but GP had two strikes against him: he was the first person to fuse country and rock and therefore wasn't taken seriously at the time; and he was kind of a wuss. That great experiment could have turned out so much better.

So why did it take thirty years for someone to try again? For her new album, Van Lear Rose, Loretta Lynn tapped Jack White of the White Stripes (a huge fan) to produce, arrange, and play guitar, and assembled a crack team of musicians to help out. The results are amazing. Lynn wrote thirteen great songs for the sessions, and the band raises a sound that evokes the Rolling Stones circa Sticky Fingers.

Now seventy years old, Loretta Lynn has been languishing for years in that sort of dim career twilight where country icons go once the Nashville Establishment can't quite accept them anymore without a twinge of embarassment. She's joined there by luminaries like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and George Jones. But where Willie and Dolly have recently staged comebacks (and where George just doesn't give a shit), Lynn hadn't done much. Her first "comeback" record, 2000's Still Country was nothing special, and to all appearances her next stop was some obituary page a decade hence.

Or so you would think. As it turns out, Loretta Lynn has a lot of gas left in her tank. Like Johnny Cash before her, who made some of the best music of his career after hooking up with the legendary rock and rap producer Rick Rubin, Lynn has teamed with Jack White to revitalize her career and creativity. In the process, she has released one of the all-time greatest country albums I can remember. Van Lear Rose has got it all: a cheatin' song; a killin' song; a couple God songs; two (!) country-classic punning song titles; a drinkin' song; and an answer song (! When's the last time someone wrote an answer song?). But rather than simply go through the motions and touch all the bases, Lynn and White rip into the album' s thirteen songs with a vengeance-- the amps are turned up, the drums are loud, and Lynn sings like it was still 1970.

I do not kid about "Van Lear Rose" being among country's all-time best ever. Country records have always tended to be a few singles surrounded by lazy tossed-off filler, and no matter how good those few singles are, even the best full albums drag in the middle. When's the last time you sat through George Jones' classic I Am What I Am waiting to hear "Bone Dry"?

(In fact, it occurs to me that the final argument that Elvis was really a country star lies in the fact that he didn't craft albums so much as compile singles into LPs long after rock artists had moved on to making whole records. But I digress.)

Part of a great country record is whether it can get to you emotionally. Well, I am happy to report that Van Lear Rose made me cry, hard. I remember the last time a country album made me cry. It was 2001, and I was living in a basement apartment in Queens and working a thankless gofer job in the entertainment industry. After a hard week, I came home on Friday night, poured myself a stiff whiskey and put on some Johnny Cash. Two hours later I was eyes-deep in self pity, weeping along in a whiskey haze to Johnny Cash singing "Unchained." The difference between then and now is this: Cash made me cry because his songs made me feel bad for myself, made me see myself in the song. That's easy. Lynn has done the harder thing and made me cry for her; for her song on its own terms.

The one that did it it was "Family Tree." Written from the perspective of a wife confronting the woman who her husband left her for, the song manages to simultaneously to be righteous and pathetic. From the wife's perspective, lines like

I didn't come to fight
If he was a better man I might
But I won't dirty my hands on trash like you.
Bring out the babies' daddy
That's who they've come to see
Not the woman who's burning down our family tree.

sound like thundering denunciations, as in fact they are. But later in the song, Lynn complicates matters:

Their daddy once was a good man
Until he ran into trash like you.
Take a look at the baby's face and tell me who loves who.
I brought along his old dog Charlie
And the bills that's overdue
'Cause y'all been working and we need money too.

Suddenly the scene is much more tawdry: a barefoot woman standing in a yard with children and a dog waving "past due" notices and looking for a handout. This is expert songwriting, backed on the album by an outstanding performance, and it made me cry like a kid without candy.

Back to front Van Lear Rose is consistently great, and made all the richer for the interplay of Lynn's and White's iconoclastic musical personalities. Standouts include "Family Tree," the title track, the priceless White/Lynn duet "Portland Oregon," ("Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz/ If that ain't love then tell me what is") the plaintive solo "Miss Being Mrs." and the spirited answer song "Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown." White leaves his musical stamp all over the place, from the straining-at-the-leash guitar chunk of "Have Mercy" to the rollicking lo-fi piano groove to "Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown," and Lynn answers with vocal performances as strong and as nuanced as anything she has ever done. In fact, in a few places she sounds more like frenetic howler Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (almost half a century her junior) than the sweet Kentucky Girl who sang "Coal Miner's Daughter." The talent, technique and abandon on display are absolutely staggering. Few performers of her age have even tried an experiment this daring, and fewer still have created music that can stand with the very best of an already stellar five-decade career.

Posted by Johno Johno on   |   § 16

§ 16 Comments

2

Patton, before I moved to DC, I hated country music. I still hate pop country - the stuff you here on the country radio stations. But there is a lot of really good stuff out there. You should get Johnny Cash's American Recordings (I) as well. It is one of the greatest albums of all time. And if I may make a shameless plug, Mrs. Buckethead is in a bluegrass/americana/traditional country band. Check out Dead">http://www.deadmenshollow.com/]Dead Man's Hollow.

Buckethead Buckethead

3

B,
I'm no scholar of things country-fied, but I think you're onto a much larger issue. An issue of quality, and message, and earnestness, and what humans care about. Will anyone listen to ultra-mega-big-huge sellers like Britney Spears in 50 years? 100?

Now ask yourself how many homes will own a copy of "Live at Folsom Prison". Or, OK, various media formats which, in an earlier era, would have constituted that album?

GeekLethal GeekLethal

4

Bought the album a couple weeks ago -- great, great stuff. When you hear the passion and enthusiasm with which she delivers "Family Tree" or "High On A Mountaintop," then think about the robotic, pitch-corrected, sterile stuff delivered by Faith Hill or Shania Twain, you weep for the state of country.

About the only two successful, mainstream female country performers who really know how to sing a song these days are Martina McBride and Sara Evans, and they've both decided to make the compromises they needed to to be big-time recording artists. (Evans' "Fool, I'm A Woman" is one of the best country songs I've heard in many a year. I could easily imagine it being sung by Tammy Wynette.)

Phil Phil

5

I experienced a lot of Johnny Cash as a kid, since my parents were huge fans.

Perhaps oddly, I never really thought of him as country, even after "A Boy Named Sue". I've added American Recordings (I) to the list, now two long, of country I must soon own.

Anyhow, I don't actively dislike country, and my wife and daughter love it, the latest from Miss Lynn will fit in well here.

DMH has an interesting and fact-packed website. They also look as though they're completely booked through the end of the year, so they must be quite good, no?

Patton Patton

6

Patton,
Your humble servant also suggests the following:

Dolly Parton, Halos and Horns
Johnny Cash, Unchained
Johnny Cash, Live at San Quentin
George Jones, any one of a myriad of best-ofs, each of which has something different to offer.

I was weaned and raised on country (my first favorite song being a Chet Atkins instrumental called "Cloudy and Cool"), and I turned out, well, just great!

Johno Johno

7

Patton, DMH had a shakeup in its lineup a few months back. The result was a switch to all-acoustic instruments - standup base, fiddle and gitter. Also, one of the three singers left, and her replacement ended up blending in with the sound much better. Since the new lineup settled down, they have gotten very, very good. Before, it was my wife's band. Now, it is a great band my wife is in.

Now, people are calling them for gigs, and they've even had to turn them down.

Johnny Cash's Live at Folsom Prison is also a must have. BTW, frequent commenter GuitarPicker is in DMH. I'm sure he will have more suggestions for honest country music.)

Buckethead Buckethead

8

Honest Country Music? The response would take a whole set of Brittanicas.

You already know to skip everything on commercial radio. And you all know to buy Johnny Cash. Here's more Good Stuff that's easy to find:

Start with Johnny's wife, June Carter Cash. Then move on to his mother-in-law Maybelle's band, The Carter Family. Why? They single handedly invented country music by reinventing old Anglo ballads that would have been forgotten but for their efforts. Then they spiced 'em up with haunting harmony singing at a time when monotone bleating, warbling and wailing was the norm in popular music. And finally for the incendiary musicianship of teenaged Maybelle ... she only invented how to play the guitar. Gone was the listless strumming of mere accompaniment. In its place was a virtuoso performance of syncopated rhythm and melody combined. It still sounds like two guitars at once. Or three. If I've piqued your interest, go buy the Mark Zwonitzer book, "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone." But back to country.

Then head west from Virginia for Texas. Jimmie Rodgers for great country blues. Ernest Tubb who will set your toes to tapping while he sings of the most piteous of heartbreaks. Bob Wills for Western Swing. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys are arguably one of the most talented groups of musicians in all popular music. They could and did play absolutely everything and just plain smoked while doing so. Aw hell, back to Virginia: Patsy Cline. Just because she was a goddess. Red Foley, Dolly Parton, Kitty Wells, George Jones, and Buck Owens.

And then go buy all the Doc Watson your grubby little mitts can hold. Merle Travis while you're at it. Get some Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, too.

Finally, leave the house. Doc, Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs are still alive and performing. It is a rare thing indeed to see the progenitors of an art form strut their stuff half a century later.

GuitarPicker GuitarPicker

9

AMEN, BROTHER!!! Chet Atkins, Willie Nelson, and Randy Travis' older records too! And, oh hell, Alan Jackson too. Travis Tritt. Clint Black.

Hank Williams Sr., but don't let your kid hear. It warps fragile minds.

(As of a couple months ago, I managed to outlive Hank Williams Senior. What have I been doing with my life?)

Johno Johno

10

Jebus. Are you guys done yet?

How's a guy who's literally not bought a new album in years supposed to compile a list and make it to the music grocery if the list keeps growing? Next thing I know, someone's going to mention Kinky Friedman and the "the musically impaired" Texas Jewboys, for cryin' out loud.

I'm quite looking forward to some new music for the CD changer in the car. And, heck, I'm in Texas, so I'll suddenly fit right in, all these years later.

Patton Patton

11

YEAH, Johno. I had to stop somewhere before I couldn't stop at all.

Patton, you are in luck. Them Yurpeens keep issuing excellent box sets for insanely low prices. Many come with extensive liner notes, too. Start with JSP Records and Proper Records (England). These box sets also cover earlier jazz and blues so it is, as the sages say, all good.

GuitarPicker GuitarPicker

13

oh for something kinda like country out of Texas, Michelle Shocked's Short, Sharp, Shocked. It's been reissued with more stuff. She's bluesy, rockabilly and traces back to East Texas. But no, you can't hear her on the radio.

DMH is wonderfully good stuff. I don't really own any country, but I've paid to see DMH many times and the shows have all been worth it!

Mapgirl Mapgirl

14

Patton, since y'r a Texan and need to pare it down, here's my definitive entry-level recommendations:

Hank Williams Sr. He didn't record that many songs, and there's several great budget compilations to choose from that have practically his entire output.

Johnny Cash: American Recordings

Pick one of: Ernest Tubb, Buck Owens, Bob Wills. I believe Rhino has a great Buck Owens comp.

George Jones: Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country, on Epic/Mercury is a good definitive look at the greatest voice in country, from the Pine Barrens of East Texas

And this unbelievable superstar double-disc collection of historical proportions: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Will The Circle Be Unbroken. A grand jam session featuring Mother Maybelle Carter, Ernest Tubb, Merle Travis, and a host of other legends, this is maybe the single best place to start your country collection. A total classic.

Johno Johno

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