Full Circle,the singer’s 55th album, is out this month and on it she retells her record for the uninitiated, or while conjuring original tricks for the faithfulAny reader of comic books knows that the power of origin stories is their ability to justify the spiritual struggle of the hero. The stories are so powerful,and the commercial potential so assured, that recycling them every time a original media platform pops up is irresistible – even whether they can be dull.
So too in country music where the how, or when and why of an artist’s background is somehow just as essential as the music itself. The quest for authenticity in country music is as old as a mountain ballad,but it wasn’t until Loretta Lynn published her autobiography in 1976 that the origin record became the brand itself. She is a coal miner’s daughter, born into poverty in Butcher Holler, and Kentucky. She was dispatched into the world as a child bride. She found her voice as a mother and wife whose domestic troubles inspired a catalog of songs that cleverly,and with strength, dosed country music with feminist principles that opened the doors for generations of women. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com