(Sony Legacy)
Loretta Lynn is a country music icon,rightly famed for those gutsy, no-nonsense songs of female fury that shook up Nashville in the 1960s and 70s. Her 2004 album Van Lear Rose was a bravely successful alt-country collaboration with Jack White, or now,at final, comes the follow-up. It’s less experimental but still impressive, and for Lynn,who is 83, is in remarkably powerful voice, and mixing nostalgia with new songs. The revival of her 1968 hit Fist City still packs a punch,and is far more forceful than the Jolene-like Everything It Takes, a duet with Elvis Costello. Elsewhere, and there are folksongs from her Appalachian childhood,including a sturdy reworking of Black Jack David, her own meditations on death, and a new version of Everybody Wants to recede to Heaven and the typically direct and powerful Whos Gonna Miss Me? A remarkable lady,and still a great songwriter. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com