ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Tragic Songs of Life - The Louvin Brothers

Yee haw.  We were knee-deep in southern country-gospel this week with the Louvin Brothers.  The Louvin Brothers were actual brothers (unlike those Righteous 'Brothers'), Ira and Charlie.  Ira played mandolin and Charlie played guitar, and both sang in close harmony which went on to influence the likes of Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers and Emmylou Harris.  Charlie Louvin seemed like a pretty reasonable person, whereas Ira was a bit more of a spicy personality.  He was a heavy drinker and womanizer and had a horrible temper - he would smash his mandolin on stage if he was unable to tune it.  He married 4 times and his third wife Faye shot him 4 times in the chest (he survived).  Ira was killed in a car accident at age 41 and Charlie lived to the ripe old age of 83.

The album Tragic Songs of Life was released in 1956 and was packed with your standard 'done do me wrong' songs, some with a bizarre twist.  

Holly:

Louvin Brothers - Tragic Songs of Life

Let me start off by saying two things: 

1-    This style of music is not my thing. 

2-    The Louvin Brothers are good at what they do.

Before we started this project I’d never heard of Charlie and Ira Louvin, but apparently they were a big deal to country music. They are now in the Country Music Hall of Fame, and lots of country stars that came after them credit the Louvin Brothers as super inspirational. 

            So Charlie Louvin was the higher harmony and guitar player in the group, and Ira Louvin played mandolin and sang the lower harmonies. I have to say, to my ears, the mandolin playing sticks out as more memorable. The mandolin can sound pretty terrible when played poorly, and Ira is really able to get a big and dark tone out of the instrument. Although this style of twangy singing is not my thing, they both sing really well. Their voices sound great together, and they sing very tightly with these close together harmonies. Having said all that, this record did the opposite growing on me over the week. I found myself really looking forward to having the Louvin Brothers in my rearview mirror.

            As for songs that I liked or didn’t like; to be honest, a lot of them blended together for me, in a very similar fashion to the Sinatra album from a couple of weeks back. Maybe the whole album was in the same key? But, I’m not going to cop out. Two favourites: Let Her Go, God Bless Her, because of the mandolin, because it’s fast paced, and it’s soooo cheezy! Other favourite: Knoxville Girl. I mean really, what more can you ask for than a lovely waltz about beating the crap out of your girlfriend and drowning her in a river? Seriously. Weird.

I give this album a 5/10. They’re good at what they do. I just don’t like it. 

Kelly:

Before the purchase of this book, I had never actually heard of the Louvin Brothers.  My initial reaction listening to this album was 'wow, they sound like country-fied Everly Brothers!', but the more the album wore on, the more I tired of it.  Here's the bad first:

I felt like I was listening to the same song over and over again.  I'm pretty sure all the songs are in the same key and as far as tempo and time, they're either common time or that country waltz 3/4, which gets pretty boring pretty quickly.  And as good as they are at harmonizing with each other, they are awfully heavy handed with the harmony.  And I LOVE me some harmony.  But this is all in thirds through most of all the songs.  I think it was the 3rd or 4th song that I realized that I was no longer paying attention.  I had to consciously focus on the music so that I would be able to tell that it was a different song that was on, and I found myself looking forward to the end of the album.

The good: the harmonies, are grating as they are, are flawless, which is one of the benefits of having a sibling act - voices usually sound very similar if not identical, which means they mesh very well together.  Apparently no one had really sung close harmonies like these 2 had before, so they were sort of harmony pioneers.  The mandolin playing is really good too. If I have to pick a favourite song, it would have to be Knoxville Girl, as I was not expecting a song about beating his girlfriend to death, dumping her body in the river and when he comes home and mom asks what the blood on his shirt is from, he says a nosebleed.

I can appreciate this album's place in history, it just isn't one that I'm going to buy.  5/10

Tragic Songs of Life

This week's album: The Wildest! - Louis Prima