Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose Review

Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose

(Friday May 21, 2004 3:10 PM )

Released on 03/05/04
Label: Interscope


Loretta Lynn has lived a life extraordinary even by the standards of other country music icons. The second of eight children and brought up in a one-room Kentucky cabin she ate possum as a child and was married at aged 13.

Her life changed forever in 1960 when the, then 25-year old, had a Nashville hit with “Honky Tonk Girl”. She’s since become a C&W icon – a Matriarch with five kids and twenty-one grandchildren who presides over the Loretta Lynn Dude Ranch complete with its own museum and motocross racetrack.

Her voice remains as pure as the proverbial mountain stream. Honey-toned and tinged with regret it’s a truly wonderful thing unaffected by the years. Mr Jack White certainly thinks so – he claims “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, Lynn’s Sissy Spacek-starring biopic, was the catalyst for him to pick up a guitar in the first place. He even left Lynn a written dedication on the White Stripes own “White Blood Cells”.

Here he takes the production chair and puts a sympathetic band of rock musicians behind his heroine allowing her voice free reign to travel. Surprisingly, the results are as close to Loretta’s world as Jack’s – “Portland Oregon” is an exquisite duet where the smitten twosome sound like they’re waltzing around the studio, while the title track, despite a musical similarity to “Coward Of The County”, would have good ol’ boys tapping their boots in time.

Only “Have Mercy” comes anywhere near rocking out, though it does so in the style of Sun Records circa 1954. Elsewhere fiddles, steel guitars and dobros dominate.

It’s not as remarkable a transformation as the one Rick Rubin performed on Johnny Cash, but this is a fine collection and as pleasurable a listen as it undoubtedly was to record.


by Adam Webb...full text Reinventing oneself is always a gamble. I direct you to the extreme case of clean-cut, '60s pop crooner Pat Boone who tragically, but hysterically, donned black leather in the '80s and put out a heavy metal covers album that didn't even lend itself to ironic appreciation. Loretta Lynn who, like Boone was born in 1934, thankfully never tarnished her image by pandering to trends, and has always made music in keeping with who she is. But in more recent times this hasn't necessarily proved all that exciting, as she was stuck in the Nashville production rut where strict uniformity and overproduction are the rules of the game.

Enter rock torchbearer and producer Jack White of the White Stripes, whose friendship with Lynn developed after he and Meg White dedicated their album White Blood Cells to her. His reworking of Loretta Lynn is miraculous, and he did it in the simplest way possible. Rather than transform her into something she's not, he peeled away the layers of paint to reveal the rustic essence that was already there. Twelve of the 13 songs on Van Lear Rose are Lynn originals and draw from her own life experiences, each was recorded in a single live take on analog equipment, and the result is an album that has rightfully and tastefully highlighted Lynn's worth for a whole new generation of listeners.

Sixty-nine years old, Loretta Lynn sounds nearly as young as she did on her very first release, and just as much of a tough country mama. Never one to shy away from controversial topics -- "The Pill", her 1975 women's-lib anthem about birth control was removed from radio playlists across the country -- Lynn tackles, with equal force, her husband's mistress in "Family Tree". Simple, traditional country instruments underpin this Kentucky-style confrontation -- just imagine Lynn's five-foot two-inch frame standing in the doorway in that big blue dress yelling "Their daddy once was a good man/ Until he ran into trash like you". Do not mess with a woman who once knocked her own husband's teeth out during a domestic dispute....full text Reinventing oneself is always a gamble. I direct you to the extreme case of clean-cut, '60s pop crooner Pat Boone who tragically, but hysterically, donned black leather in the '80s and put out a heavy metal covers album that didn't even lend itself to ironic appreciation. Loretta Lynn who, like Boone was born in 1934, thankfully never tarnished her image by pandering to trends, and has always made music in keeping with who she is. But in more recent times this hasn't necessarily proved all that exciting, as she was stuck in the Nashville production rut where strict uniformity and overproduction are the rules of the game.

Enter rock torchbearer and producer Jack White of the White Stripes, whose friendship with Lynn developed after he and Meg White dedicated their album White Blood Cells to her. His reworking of Loretta Lynn is miraculous, and he did it in the simplest way possible. Rather than transform her into something she's not, he peeled away the layers of paint to reveal the rustic essence that was already there. Twelve of the 13 songs on Van Lear Rose are Lynn originals and draw from her own life experiences, each was recorded in a single live take on analog equipment, and the result is an album that has rightfully and tastefully highlighted Lynn's worth for a whole new generation of listeners.

Sixty-nine years old, Loretta Lynn sounds nearly as young as she did on her very first release, and just as much of a tough country mama. Never one to shy away from controversial topics -- "The Pill", her 1975 women's-lib anthem about birth control was removed from radio playlists across the country -- Lynn tackles, with equal force, her husband's mistress in "Family Tree". Simple, traditional country instruments underpin this Kentucky-style confrontation -- just imagine Lynn's five-foot two-inch frame standing in the doorway in that big blue dress yelling "Their daddy once was a good man/ Until he ran into trash like you". Do not mess with a woman who once knocked her own husband's teeth out during a domestic dispute....full text