there's nothing cold as ashes after the fire is gone

[soopageek]

So I've been obsessed with Loretta Lynn this week. She was a bad ass! Whereas a lot of her contemperaries, like Dolly Parton, pleaded with rivals, Loretta made it clear she'd slap a bitch before she let some tramp take her man on tracks like "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" and especially on "Fist City".

If you don't wanna go to fist

Comments

[welfy]

I like Loretta Lynn, also Emmylou Harris and Patsy Cline. I agree though--the rhinestones and big hair remind me a lot of televangelists! :^P

[soopageek]

I love the way Loretta's voice just slightly cracks when she hits high notes. Did you know Jack White produced her last record? They even did a duet together on it.

[superhappytime]

Emmylou Harris is a goddess. All artists are better who spend an influential part of their career hanging out with someone on heroin.

[soopageek]

By that argument, Sid Vicious should have been a much better bassist.

[porcelain72]

I've admired Loretta Lynn ever since seeing Coal Miner's Daughter, which, in my opinion at least, is one of the best music biopics of all time (funnily enough, given that they're both about country singers who rose to fame during roughly the same time period, I'd put Walk the Line up there as well). I think you're absolutely right about TV and the emphasis on harmless, "howdy y'all" personalities really did ruin country music. It's sort of the same thing that happened to hip hop music, in which it was watered down and partied up to appeal to a white suburban wider audience. The stuff that passes as "country" today is pretty much unlistenable to me.

[soopageek]

I haven't seen Coal Miner's Daughter in nearly 20 years probably but I'll never forget that scene when she and her husband are amking the circuit of radio stations and she blurts on the air about the injoke she has with her husband about bologna sandwiches.

One of my favorite music biopics is Leadbelly from '76. Really good film, even if you're not not a fan of/familiar with the man's music.

As I mentioned to superhappytime below, I think country music was different from other genre in the way it was presented on television. I think you're absolutely right that music was typically homogenized to reach a wider audience, but in the case of C&W, I think it was being presented that way for their core audience rather than mass consumption.

[superhappytime]

a) You are a total hipster who is going to learn to embrace Radiohead one day--I'm convinced. "Fist City" is the hipster Loretta song of choice. It's right up there with George Jones and "He Stopped Loving Her Today" or DAC's "You Never Even Called Me By My Name." Or, you know, pretty much anything by Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, or Buck Fucking Owens

[welfy]

I don't think Soop will ever be a hipster. I thought what he chose was a great example of a song that is defiant and angry compared to Dolly's "Jolene" but when shown on television looks hokey and ridiculous.

Ugh, I had no idea who Mumford and Sons was until I looked them up and saw they sing that "Little Lion Man" song. They play that song 34983742 times a day on the radio station that I'm forced to listen to at work on a daily basis. I've never heard them considered bluegrass though. Aren't they just some over-the-pond folk/pop group like The Waterboys?

[superhappytime]

Way to be brilliant, Erin. I agree 100%. They are a rip off of the Waterboys, The Pogues, etc. And yet their fanbase--which seems to be made up of people who love the killers and coldplay and so forth say "theyre so original.". I don't get it at all. This week they headlined a big bluegrass show in New Orleans.

[soopageek]

a) The day I start waxing-on about how awesome Radiohead or the Decemberists or [insert the next darling here] are, please, just shoot me. Ughhh. Don't get me started on Radiohead. The only band that I really got into along with the hipsters (though several years after the fact) was The Strokes, especially their first album

[malaria]

Oh, totally. Having grown up listening to fucking fantastic classic country, I'm always annoyed by how it's never taken seriously, even though the musicianship was incredible and the lyrics were usually pretty awesome. TV has definitely ruined a lot of things, sadly.

OMG I love you.

[babsbuni]

I went to my profile page to go to your journal (so I could read more about the new friends post) which first took me to your user info. I either never read your "about me" or it's changed since I read it. You make me smile. Welfy is lucky to have you.

Re: OMG I love you.

[soopageek]

Oh yeah, you must've just missed it. That's been my info/profile/whatever for like, 6-7 years at least. Jeez has it been that long?