Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Loretta LynnEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2004-04-27
Music Label: Interscope Records
Soundtracks:
- VAN LEAR ROSE
- PORTLAND OREGON (DUET WITH JACK WHITE)
- TROUBLE ON THE LINE
- FAMILY TREE
- HAVE MERCY
- HIGH ON A MOUNTAIN TOP
- LITTLE RED SHOES
- GOD MAKES NO MISTAKES
- WOMEN'S PRISON
- THIS OLD HOUSE
- MRS. LEROY BROWN
- MISS BEING MRS.
- STORY OF MY LIFE
Free Music Notes for Van Lear Rose
Free Music Review: An album that is as brilliant as it is improbable
Hit: 5 Stars
Who'd a thunk it? Loretta Lynn, the grande dame of country music, retired for most of a decade with only a single mediocre album to show for her return to the business after her husband's death, teaming with punk-garage genius Jack White to produce the best album of her career. I only recently discovered this beauty of a disc. I had Lynn's MCA collection ALL TIME GREATEST HITS, which contained about all of the Loretta Lynn I ever expected to own. But going on a White Stripes binge lately it suddenly inspired me to sample the album I remembered he had done with Lynn. It simply bowled me over.
Before country outsider Willie Nelson started attempting to record true albums in the seventies, the rule in country music had been to produce a couple hit singles and then surround them with rapidly recorded schlock, figuring that fans would buy the albums for the two or three gems, ignoring the rest. As a result, there are very, very few great or even very good country albums before the seventies and eighties. Almost every country artist (George Jones is one of the few exceptions) is best collected via the hits anthology since their albums mainly consisted of filler. Jack White, however, comes from a different background. In indie rock the tendency is to make every song count and there are scores of albums on which all or nearly all of the cuts on a disc are first rate or at least interesting.
What is amazing here is that Lynn excels at producing an entire album of original material. On no other album has she ever contributed so many original songs. Jack White, on the other hand, seamlessly adjusts to country. This is no surprise, since he seems to possess and almost limitless musical vocabulary. Here he keeps the production simple and to the point, always keeping Loretta's voice clearly at the center of things. His guitar playing calls less attention to itself than on White Stripes recordings but instead uses it to brilliantly and tastefully enhance every song.
The most surprising thing about the album is how strong the songs are. Very, very few performers continue to write new material as they approach seventy. Ray Charles for the last couple of decades of his life merely recycled the hits of his creative decades, producing little or no new material. One would hardly have blamed Loretta Lynn if her comeback had consisted merely of performing the huge number of hits from her catalog. Instead, she has created a set of songs that stand comparison to anything she has created. The title track is simply brilliant, and there are a string of absolutely stellar cuts from beginning to end. "Family Tree," "High on a Mountain Top," "God Makes No Mistakes," and "Trouble on the Line" are all vintage Loretta Lynn. "Miss Being Mrs." is almost unbearably personal, as she sings about her departed husband. Country songs are stuffed to overflowing with spouses leaving spouses, but knowing that her husband left her by dying brings a deep poignancy to this song. She is absolutely brilliant in the ultra feisty number "Mrs. Leroy Brown," all the way down to the end when she suddenly says, "Come on Jack, let's get out of here." But the highlight of the album for me is unquestionably "Portland Oregon," which tells of two people meeting in a bar. Though Loretta Lynn is listed as the writer of the song, it is so thoroughly embellished with classic Jack White touches he should get co-credit. This is the only song where the two switch vocals and the results are just exquisite. Who would have thought a 30-year-old punk rocker and the 70-year-old grandmother could kick it like this? White's guitar work is brilliant, while Lynn's lyrics are simply delightful, as well as being delightfully inscrutable. The very first words of the song are:
Well Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz
If that ain't love then tell me what is
The rest of the song tells of a man and woman meeting in a bar for a night of passion, driven by great guitar, wonderful vocals, and great lyrics. For instance, Loretta sings:
Well sloe gin fizz works might fast
When you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass
Some might wonder how strong Loretta Lynn's voice is. After all, she was nearly 70 when this was recorded. She clearly isn't as strong a singer as she was in the sixties, and her age shows when she tries to sustain a note for any length of time, but all in all her voice is amazingly strong. If you compare her work here to any of Johnny Cash's work with Rick Rubin, she is in vastly better voice than Cash was. Cash adjusted wonderfully to aging, making the changes to his voice work wonderfully with his material. He clearly was a different kind of singer than he was in the rest of his career. Loretta Lynn, on the other hand, is pretty much the same singer she always was and stylistically has had to make no concessions to age.
This album has to go down as one of the great and unexpected delights in the history of music. I'm hoping the two of them can get together for an encore. If we don't, at least we got this one brilliant collaboration.
Van Lear Rose Poster
LORETTA LYNN Van Lear Rose (2004 US edition 13-track CD album from one of the most iconic and inspirational women in Country music [with over 70 albums 55 top 10s and 27 number 1 singles in the US] featuring collaborations production and arrangement from The White Stripes JACK WHITE whos work on the album is multi-textured with the layers of steel guitars muffled drums and echoed guitars lending a dramatic impressionistic quality to the songs!)Country Music CDs
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