Loretta Lynn: classic or dud?

Loretta Lynn hospitalized with pneumonia.

Get well soon, Loretta.

How is this thread only three posts long? Because everyone would just say, "Classic, duh" I assume.

Yep

"We even have the same color eyes!"

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/zooey-deschanel-lands-lead-role-in-broadways-coal-miners-daughter-20120511

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xnGmy-m9rw

this is ok, but it's a little disappointing that her first album since Van Lear Rose (12 years ago!) consists entirely of re-recordings and covers. interestingly, she says she wants to record some new material with Jack White.

RIP

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/loretta-lynn-dead-obituary-65340/

Sadly thin amount of ilm discourse on her work.

Too true.

Let's start now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPfulHc5ufk

RIP, I love some of her classic songs (and duets with Twitty).

Classic, unless you want to go to TwittyFist City.

Here's the transcript of the very good Cocaine and Rhinestones episode about "The Pill":

https://cocaineandrhinestones.com/loretta-lynn-pill-ban

Love Loretta Lynn. I've always wanted to see her at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, but I never made it out there before her stroke.

About ten years ago, I took part in a pub quiz in Boerum Hill in Brooklyn - really packed and highly competitive, but to my surprise, nobody in the room knew Loretta Lynn. (She was the answer to a question on who had a hit with the controversial country song "The Pill.") Between her collaborations with Jack White and Sissy Spacek's Oscar-winning performance as Lynn, I thought a lot more people would know her, but country music definitely has less of a presence on the coasts compared to the Midwest.

Also re: the first post, that 3 CD box set was my introduction. I think it's a really strong box set, but the Country Music Hall of Fame released a compilation in the '80s that's only one LP in length and I don't think you can find a better collection that concise.

Correction - it was never released on vinyl, and it came out in 1991. At 16 tracks, it would be a perfect vinyl release though.

https://www.discogs.com/master/730493-Loretta-Lynn-The-Country-Music-Hall-Of-Fame

The single-disc "Definitive Collection" is a pretty great intro as well, IMO

It is -- it led me into deeper dives.

2nd the Cocaine & Rhinestones recommendation. Thought that was the best episode of the run I listened to.

One of the city's most reliable go-tos:

https://d2aam04nmhpdf8.cloudfront.net/images/images/000/065/775/xlarge/jtu8aw2p0hhdmafow4mt.png?1629759698

Fist City is such a stone favorite, the smile in her voice mixed with that orneryness - like she will fight you and she will have fun kicking your stupid ass

i also love her writing, and her particular knack for creating her own unique accent rhymes — i mean it’s a thing all through country music of course - but it feels like she has a particular ownership of it somehow

“The work we done was hard
At night we'd sleep 'cause we were tard (tired)”

there’s a good amount of her best qualities in Miranda Lambert imo

^^^ absolutely

RIP to a legend

Wish I wouldn't have learned about the Trump stuff on Twitter today but 80+ southern white lady she was solidly in the demo I guess

I was under the impression that Lynn enthusiastically supported the President no matter who was in the White House...still disappointing but I can't say I'm all that surprised that she would give Trump her support.

That brings up an interesting aspect of her work, where she projects strength and a type of independence and outspokenness that seemed groundbreaking, but she also seems to put up with men who are domineering assholes in her life. I'm not that familiar with her personal life beyond what's become widely known, but it always seemed remarkable and perhaps a reflection of the culture she came up in and the challenges for any woman in the same position.

Also thirding VegemiteGrrl's comments. "Fist City" is probably her greatest record. I love the rhyme she throws in there with "I'm not a sayin' my baby's at saint, 'cause he ain't"

*a saint

she was a real person who endured real hardship and gained strength from singing about it, and gave strength to her audience by doing so … ie also the story of countless women in country music for decades

Basic in Assholeville:
"After all he's...just a man."
--Tammy Wynette, "Stand By Your Man"
Though Loretta also added/specified rules/talking/fighting points for men and herself, re maintenance.

Melania prob too, or would like to think so

I was under the impression that Lynn enthusiastically supported the President no matter who was in the White House...still disappointing but I can't say I'm all that surprised that she would give Trump her support.

Wikipedia sez she stumped for his campaign in 2016 (which suxx)... it doesn't say how far her support went after that, but I don't really care to know!

Not longer after I was introduced to her music, I was disappointed when she came out in support of George W. Bush...I guess this is going to become heartbreaking or disappointing for a lot of people, but the best I can say is, I don't believe her misguided support for those individuals is coming from a bad place. It's unfortunate it's been taken to the extreme with Trump, but this is someone who has always been outspoken about the poor and working class and I think she does shine a light on how complicated progressive social advances can be when applied to different communities with different economic realities as well as different choices women might want for their own personal lives. It's too bad that doesn't translate into supporting the best candidates who will address those concerns, but such is life.

Sad news, and unfortunate to learn of her support for Trump in 2016.
I have to say I'm not too familiar with much of her music. I listened to the "Coal Miner's Daughter" album a while back and I wasn't keen, to be honest. Is there another studio album that anyone would recommend?

Again, the songs don't lie.

I have to say I'm not too familiar with much of her music. I listened to the "Coal Miner's Daughter" album a while back and I wasn't keen, to be honest. Is there another studio album that anyone would recommend?

― houdini said,

Not really? She wasn't a studio albums person, though I own a few. The Definitive Collection and Loretta Lynn Writes 'Em and Sings 'Em are good starting points as comps.

this might be less popular than my last post but i thought van lear rose was a really good album

With rare exceptions like Willie Nelson, your best bet for country in that era is compilations. Albums typically had too much filler on them.

The compilation I mentioned isn't on Spotify, but it can be found in this playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WV8aYsQxpHZd7geDwcvjs?si=49c5fd1547aa471f

The album Jack White produced (Van Lear Rose0 is great but it's no longer on Spotify.

Haggard, Jones, Jennings, a few others released excellent albums.

Marty Robbins

discogs ghouls are starting to price accordingly but there are still cheap CD copies of VLR

https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=156217&ev=mb&ships_from=United+States

R.I.P. to a great talent and complex person, a bit of a miner herself except her raw material was lived experience — sifted and refined for mass appeal, but rugged enough to resonate. Her support of W and Trump doesn't bother me, I imagine most everyone she grew up with voted the same way. She believed in certain kinds of fair play and honesty, but she was never a liberal.

Re: Haggard, he's also the only one I can think of whose best albums are possibly tribute albums though I still prefer his compilations. I'd also Johnny Cash, he made some great albums. But with Cash (and Jones and Jennings), I'd also direct people to a compilation first.

Holy crap, Van Lear Rose was like a $3 dollar album for a very long time. It's easy to find, don't pay too much for it.

RIP

The American Masters ep on her from a few years ago is amazing, better than most (and maybe all?) late-model feature-length musician documentaries (perhaps it started out as one, and PBS picked it up?).

Haggard has Hag, Someday We'll Look Back, A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today off the top of my head and that marvelous run on MCA from 1978-1981.

Oh yeah - everyone should hear Serving 190 Proof.

some great covers popping up today

Cyndi Lauper + Boy George
“You’re the Reason Our kids are Ugly” from 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRaY2AdytHI

Roseanne Cash & kd lang “You Aint Woman Enough To Take my man” from 1988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8don9Lf5Ak

good tribute by Marrissa R Moss

https://www.vulture.com/2022/10/loretta-lynn-remembrance.html

Excellent tribute. Thanks for sharing that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWGGj4duzIo

I've got a 7" single of this somewhere, from the 90s, on Bloodshot---pretty sure it was originally recorded, maybe written by Loretta, sounds like it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAVD9_myQUE

Rolling Stone has posted a collection of her duets, incl. w Jack White, Willie Nelson, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Costello, and her and Conway's immortal "You're The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly": https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/loretta-lynn-best-duets-1234605014/all-or-nothing-at-all-frank-sinatra-1234605125/

Enjoyed this piece on Lynn and perceptions of the South.

https://emilytaylor.substack.com/p/loretta-lynn-and-the-case-for-southern

xp, it's not the approach so much as the melodrama. Every artist changed his life. Which is great! But I'd prefer to feel that in the writing without the narrative literally being about how he wrote her a letter.

also, come on. I can't be the only one who finds this type of stuff unnecessary pseudophilosophy

I’ve given up on the myth that anyone will live forever, at least on this side of living, the one we all know is promised for at least a little while. And so I have already mourned the world that wouldn’t hold Loretta Lynn. I have mourned it for years, knowing what I know of time.

No, but I tried They Can't Kill Us and have listened to a few of his podcast episodes, and his writing seems to typically be anchored around his personal experience with the art/artist, no?

― Indexed, Thursday, October 6, 2022

The Tribe book mixes memoir, journalism, and criticism.

The Tribe book mixes memoir, journalism, and criticism.

TBF, my latest book does this same thing — I profiled somewhere around 40 artists, and each one was anchored in my personal experience with them: where we met, what they were like live, etc., etc. I couldn't have done it any other way. But I'm not going to be doing that in my next book, about Cecil Taylor — only the first chapter will contain any significant first-person material.

And so I have already mourned the world that wouldn’t hold Loretta Lynn. I have mourned it for years, knowing what I know of time.

http://i.imgur.com/yYCAPAR.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPNdcSqI0fo

xp exactly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQmzvfwSQbo

xxxp LMAO, but to be fair, I thought most of that piece was really good, at least before the back end.

I think I know what he means about having already mourned the world etc: every time somebody I care about dies (and it can be anybody, depending on what I read or hear, cos I do those a lot), I adapt again, thinking of us all as organisms, with expiration dates, esp. those who get into the zone, in terms of actuarial tables---helps when you're running out of relatives in Loretta's age range---but thar she goes, blows, another hole, and I'm a little bit deflated once again, for reasons of special longtime musical quality as well, not just generational associations.
Music is the generative power of associations, incl. emotional---sorry bout that, let it all hang out and bleed sometimes, no matter how we try to boy scout it/be prepared.

"Made Galileo look like a boy scout, sorry bout that let it all hang out." That'll happen, but doesn't mean G. and his kind of music writing=wrong to take a less emotional approach.

i love Hanif’s writing - i think partly ~because~ it’s so personal & emotional
like there isn’t another obit like his but there’s a whole lot of other obits for her that all read similarly so i think there’s room for this

i get if it’s not for you but imo there’s a library’s worth of cooly dispassionate music writing already

Yeah, exactly. I don't write like him at all and I relish the contrast.

I actually don't mind the personal approach to criticism - if anything, I prefer reading that - but the best ones usually make their personal experiences open up to other things beyond themselves. When that op-ed looked back at Loretta Lynn's words and work, it did a great job in putting it in a greater context, but I don't think it managed to do that while discussing their own personal connection to her.

Speaking of Hag, he was one of the first country artists that xgau got into, and he led me to a lot of good stuff over the generations (put it that way because his comments start in 1970). This link is the best way to check these many, many reviews, since it Merges All (listings that is) https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist2.php?id=926
Here's what it merges:
Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard and the Strangers
Merle Haggard and George Jones
Merle Haggard/Willie Nelson
George Jones and Merle Haggard
Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard
I like some of the this-century offerings than he does, but he does rate several others A, B+, and three asterisks in the cup.

Uh-oh, he missed this 'un, which I mentioned on No Dep:

Merle Haggard's Live In San Francisco 1965 opens with a series of endings, which work pretty well: the last 48 seconds of "Devil Woman" is about all I can take, especially since he clones the hair-oil sanctimony of Marty Robbins' original delivery---then make way for the exciting climaxes of "Movin' On", "Orange Blossom Special", and "Love Is Gonna Live Here Again"! First full-length (2:58) is a very fine "Blue Yodel", with Johnny Gimble's blue fiddle swinging out and back into a tensile combo of early Strangers (later, Bonnie Owens is the effective singing actress on "Lead me On", and caps the uptempo "Cowboy's Sweetheart" with her own, Swiss-tending yodels, while the rhythm guitarist enjoys working at "Harold's Super Service", except for the big guy who always wants like the sign says for a little bitty amount of gas, even at the Pearly Gates). Mostly we get Reader's Digest editions of mostly original early highlights, some already classic, all quite fresh, as is the Hag's voice, yodeling and all---the more striking after last year's collab with Willie, Django and Jimmie, where his always right, but economizing, sometimes ragged delivery made dispiriting news not that surprising when he checked out with respiratory problems. Yet the deft terseness of his final round is accentuated here too, making the candid pictures, cards from life's "other" side. cut just right: ain't that it, often as not. "Okie From Musgokee" and "Fightin' Side of Me" have yet to show up, but/and "A Soldier's Letter" certainly works as a sign-off. 16 tracks, 30 minutes.

Check your local listings, but it looks like PBS is rerunning her American Masters episode starting tomorrow.

yay!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmdlp_80r5Q

I was thinking after watching the documentary that was on BBC on Friday that I could do with a compilation as good as the Essential Dolly Parton on her.
She has a very good voice so could do with something pretty stripped back and not schmaltzy with strings. I'm not overly familiar with her work so not sure if she managed to fully dodge production values of her time in the 60s. I did listen to the title track of Fist City cos it sounded like an OTT title for the time. Thought it pretty good so looking for more. Not sure why I haven't looked into her before. Do like non countrypolitan stuff from the time and honky tonk etc from earlier.

Todd Snider:

i knew loretta thru her daughter peggy.
she is married to one of my oldest and closest friends mark marchetti
and because of them loretta knew of me.

she asked if i wanted to try to write a song
we sat at her office and wrote a song called
"dont tempt me"
and i just remember that we were laughing the whole time
and that i felt like i'd really made a friend.

then she asked me out to the house to write another song.
this time we went to her writing cabin and we were playing guitars
and talking about what we could sing about.
she said "go look in that refrigerator todd"
so i did, and when i opened it
a bunch of yellow legal pads with her words written all over them, fell out onto the floor.
the refrigerator was stuffed completely full of bits of lyrics by loretta lynn
that went back to the sixties.
she said smoke one of your doobies
and go thru those.
see if anything jumps out at you.

i sat there on the floor going thru them.
i couldn't believe what i was seeing.
i quickly found a lyric that said
"i love you more than she ever will
but the only way she can get a man is steal.
i don't know if i should tell you this or not
but she's got everything it takes to take everything you've got."

and i said "loretta, my god, what is this?"
and she said "oh yeah i remember that little bitch"
she asked me to sing it
knowing i'd only seen the lyrics
so i just sang a melody without thinking
and she said that was it.

then she made up the rest
as if "we" were doing it.
i couldn't keep my mouth shut
but not cuz i was talking.
she said "always keep the poetry out"
she said they ruined lyrics.
swoon...
i'll never forget that.

she wanted to know about elvis costello
because she was working with him
and she thought he wanted to use too many chords.

she mentioned the scruffy kid from Minnesota
who got caught out with his name.
she said he had some songs she admired
and that he seemed to still be doing really good.
i said "bob dylan?"
and she said yes.
she said he was good at lyrics.

when she recorded the song i wrote with her
she did it in the cabin johnny cash passed away in.
john carter told me that she would park her bus by the cabin
and stay over night just below his bedroom window.
one night at three a.m.
he woke to the sound of some old country music
and looked out his window to see
loretta lynn
spinning barefoot in the grass
like a teenager.
she was 80.
the next day he asked her what she was doing
and she said
"i was dancing with your dad"

he said the next night she did it again.

i have to admit i had a genuine crush on her.
i loved her so much.
she was so funny...
i would laugh til i was coughing
she was magic.

my buddy mark told me
that earlier in the day on tuesday
loretta said,
"i'm going to heaven tonight."

!

Amazing stuff, thanks. I only know that one song, guess I will give the whole album a listen soon.

Okay, this album is really good, as somebody no doubt said upthread. Full Circle.

dow said a few days ago, although he prefers Van Lear Street/Van Lear Heaven/Van Lear something I also need to hear one day I guess.

Van Lear Rose.

Van Lear Rose - thoughts?

Now I have a craving for fried chicken:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkv3ArEtc4c

Forgot about that. Mostly remember Florence Henderson repping for a rival product.

Guess this is the more active Van Lear Rose thread, being currently active: jack white/loretta lynn "Portland Oregon"

Hmm. Wonder if mods could put in a filter to catch posts with repeated redundant words?

Turn back, you poxy fule, ere ye enter fist city!

I said that I preferred the originals on Van Lear Rose to those on Full Circle, but both are strong overall, also the last in her lifetime, xpost Still Woman Enough Todd Snider makes it sound like there's enough lyrics left for one of those music-added-by-various-artists projects: The Refrigerator Tapes (they're not on tapes, o course, but good grabby title)(maybe she does have some more good prev. unleased recordings though, more recent than the ones on the box set mentioned at beginning of this thread).

I don't agree with all of his comments, as usual, but this lead me to some good tracks I'd never heard of: https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist2.php?id=832 (also good comments upthread about these singles collections)

led

Cool! Wanna hear that “I’ll Be All Smiles Tonight.”

Jack White's talked about her lyric vault as well, claiming that the tracks on VLR were merely the first twelve or so they pulled out of the stack.

Elvis Costello mentioned it too, although I don’t remember hearing about the refrigerator before.

In his version I seem to remember just a hatbox. Either I am confusing the story with one about that kid from Minnesota or else she was just testing out EC to see if he was worthy of the full-on refrigerator.

EC's story: "I didn't actually meet Loretta until maybe 2007. I knew John Carter since he was a lad, because I knew his parents. My friend — and producer of my first five albums — married into the family so we got the benefit of Nick (Lowe)'s son-in-law status. We were treated very kindly by the Cash-Carter clan. I'd been back in touch with John Carter, and I went to see him when I was in Nashville on a day off when I was on tour with Bob Dylan. "I was there on my own and suddenly Loretta arrives. She was like a ball of fire. She's got this box file, with 'SONGS' written on it. She tips it out and every kind of piece of paper tumbles out. Telephone note pads. Fancy stationery. Hotel stationery. Bits of old receipts. Bits of cardboard boxes. All with lyrics written on them. Some of them are quite famous, and I even said, 'Why isn't this in the Country Music Hall of Fame?' Some of the songs were half a verse and some of them were just titles, like 'Thank God For Jesus'. There was one that said, 'Pardon Me, Madam, My Name is Eve'. I said, 'I know what that is.' Loretta said, 'Well, what is it? "It's Eve's song to Adam's second wife: She laughed at that. I told her, 'I can write that if you'll let me.' So I did, and that went on my album Momofuku. Then we got to work on this one title that she had, 'I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came'. I could hear it in my head the minute she showed it to me. I just started playing and we were easily completing the couplets. Any time I went off the rails into anything more baroque, musically or lyrically, she'd rein me back in to keep it plain. I think she allowed me the line 'a linger of perfume'. She liked that one, but that was about as fancy as it got. Whenever I attempted anything more, she'd question it. That was good, because it meant that it was in her voice."

omigod

So they only wrote those two songs and then did a duet on the other song? Might have been nice if they had done a whole album like he did with Burt Bacharach

https://www.facebook.com/LyleLovett/videos/on-writing-with-loretta-lynn/1258371841199342/

Guess he also covered “Honky Tonk Girl.”

An Almost Blue outtake/bonus track?

I just love how they're all in a box marked "songs." Like you can't get any less modest than that. Where do you keep your masterpieces? In that box between "receipts" and "thank you notes."

*can't get any MORE modest

not just a box
a box IN THE FRIDGE <3

Oh mang, John Carter Cash could totally guide The Refrigerator Tapes, judging by this 'un, which has been reissued with added tracks several times---from what would have been my Scene ballot comments for 2021 releases, if Himes hadn't wandered off to Disgraceland:

*Johnny Cash Forever Words(Various Artists) reached its final peak, mebbe, with tracks added for April 2021 reincarnation. It's new music, via many hands, for his previously unset lyrics and poems, built from characteristic, yet venturesome imagery, moods, turns, twists, with that JC cadence, wherever he may roam. The resulting tracks are plausible vibe-wise, even when briefly brushed by Elvis Costello's chamber strings, and in Robert Glasper's jazz-hiphop-alt.r&b setting, where The Man Hisself comments on what he was trying to convey in these words, about drugs. A double album that zips right by. The Watkins Family offering, feat. Sara Watkins's vocal, is a bit bland, duh, and maybe one or two likewise, but overall, sets and hews to pretty amazing standard.