Country gets back to basics
What It Is: “Van Lear Rose,” a collaboration between country legend Loretta Lynn and alt-rocker Jack White (yes, that Jack White, of White Stripes fame), is arguably the most anticipated album of the year. It might also be the best.
What It’s About: Lynn hasn’t just recorded some 70 albums of classic country-music lovin’, drinkin’ and fightin’ songs – she’s lived them. From her childhood as a barefoot coal miner’s daughter in the hardscrabble mountains of Butcher Holler, Ky., to her tumultuous 48-year marriage to Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn and her remarkable success as the first lady of country music, the singer has always had an extraordinary set of pipes and an innate talent for crafting a perfectly realized country tune. Now, thanks to longtime fan and newfound collaborator White, the honky-tonk girl is back on top of the Nashville heap and darn near at the top of the Billboard charts with what just might be the album of her career.
Why We Like It: Forget politics – if you want to see some seriously strange bedfellows, take a gander at the music biz. From the 1977 pairing of David Bowie and Bing Crosby to the 1990s matchup of country icon Johnny Cash and rap producer Rick Rubin, unlikely musical couplings have produced their share of classics. The Lynn-White hookup may be the greatest yet.
For the first time in her career, Lynn wrote (or co-wrote) all of the 13 tracks on the album, and there’s not a clunker in the bunch. From the majestic twang of the title track, a tribute to Lynn’s mother, to the autobiographical closer “Story of My Life,” Rose is a whole lotta country with a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll.
A rollicking account of a booze-soaked one-night-stand might seem an odd choice for a duet between the 69-year-old Lynn and the 28-year-old White, but the kindred spirits sell it on “Portland, Oregon” (sample lyrics: “Well, Portland, Oregon, and sloe-gin fizz / If that ain’t love, then tell me what is, uh-huh”).
Other songs return to the familiar Lynn oeuvre of good-hearted backwater gals and the men that done ‘em wrong. “Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown” and “Women’s Prison” relate the tales of put-upon women whose philandering husbands finally get their comeuppance, and “Family Tree” boasts perhaps the finest hussy-baiting lyrics (“I didn’t come to fight / If he were a better man I might / But I wouldn’t dirty my hands / On trash like you”) since Lynn’s own “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man).”
In an age when country cupcakes such as Shania Twain and Faith Hill take navel-gazing to a whole new (literal) level, it’s nice to see Lynn getting the critical respect (and album sales) she deserves. We usually like to use this space to tout some underappreciated gem, but we’re so sweet on “Van Lear Rose” we couldn’t resist making it our pick of the week.