From Billboard.com:
http://tinylink.com/?RtUSVLGJ5E
White Stripes frontman Jack White steers country legend Loretta Lynn through her first new album since 2000's "Still Country" on "Van Lear Rose," due April 27 via Interscope. White produced, arranged and performs on the set, which includes such tracks as "Trouble on the Line," the title cut and first single "Portland, Oregon."
A video for that song is being serviced to outlets well beyond the scope of Lynn's usual country base, including MTV and VH1. The artist, who will turn 70 next month, is planning to appear on an upcoming episode of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and has tour dates scheduled into the fall.
"This has been a long project, but one that I have loved so much working on," Lynn writes on her official Web site. "I look forward to singing some of the new songs this year at my shows. It's a little different than you all might expect, but I think you'll really like it."
White has been a Lynn devotee for years, having dedicated the White Stripes' 2001 album "White Blood Cells" to her. After they were finally introduced, the pair became fast friends, leading to Lynn joining the Stripes on-stage at a New York concert last year.
"Loretta just sang like a 21-year-old," White told the Associated Press of the album last week. "It was amazing. I'm so proud of this, because it's the first album since her very first record where all the songs are written by her. It's Loretta like I've always wanted to hear her -- Loretta like she should be heard. It really turned out perfect.
-- Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
Loretta Lynn Taps Jack White For New Album
Moderator: SMLCHNG
Loretta Lynn-"Van Lear Rose"
A review of Loretta's new album from RollingStone.com:
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/cd/ ... id=2048559
No matter who you are, one thing is for sure: You ain't woman enough to take Loretta Lynn's man. Miss Loretta has been a country legend for more than forty years, but she still sings with all the passion of the blue Kentucky girl who busted out of Butcher Hollow, the coal miner's daughter who got married at thirteen and fought her way to fame. She's always had the toughest, meanest, fiercest, warmest and sexiest voice in country music. But on her fantastic Van Lear Rose, she's got a new man named Jack White, the mastermind of the White Stripes, and together they deliver the answer to her fans' prayers: a classic Loretta Lynn album. There's no Nashville glitz, no crossover schlock -- as the lady used to sing, you're lookin' at country.
The surprise is that Lynn has started writing her own songs again. As she says in the liner notes, "This is the first time I wrote all the songs on a record, and I hope you like 'em." In the Sixties and Seventies, Lynn wrote her sharpest hits -- anthems of down-home pride such as "Coal Miner's Daughter" as well as two-fisted tantrums including "You Ain't Woman Enough," "Rated X" and "Your Squaw Is on the Warpath." If all Jack White did was get her writing again, that would have been enough. But he has juiced up her muse, keeping the mostly acoustic instrumentation spare and sweet, adding his electric-guitar kick to the fiddle, dobro and pedal steel. Listen to the way she yowls the bluesy sex stomp "Have Mercy on Me," dueling with White's guitar until she sounds like Loretta Zeppelin -- when was the last time you heard anyone sing with this much libido and fury? Let alone a woman pushing seventy?
The White Stripes have always idolized Loretta Lynn -- they dedicated White Blood Cells to her, and Meg sings "Rated X" onstage. It would have been fun to hear Jack and Lynn remake her Conway Twitty duet "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly." But he's too gracious to butt in -- he just gives her room to do her thing, like Johnny Winter did for Muddy Waters on his great comeback Hard Again. Their one vocal duet is a killer, "Portland, Oregon," where they sing about a hard-core drinking-and-shagging night: "Portland, Oregon, and sloe-gin fizz/If that ain't love, then tell me what is."
In "Mrs. Leroy Brown," she rides a pink limo to the honky-tonk to get all Von Bondie on the blonde who messed with Mrs. Leroy Brown's man; Jack's got the mug shot, but Loretta's the scary one. "Little Red Shoes" is a spoken-word ramble through a dreamlike childhood memory over atmospheric guitar twang -- it sounds like nothing she's ever done before.
Lynn's husband, Doo, who died in 1996, is an emotional presence throughout the album. "Miss Being Mrs." slams home because she's so forthright about the loneliness of life as a widow: "I took off my wedding band/And put it on my right hand/I miss being Mrs. tonight." It evokes "This Haunted House," the song she wrote for Patsy Cline's husband back in 1964, as well as the love songs she wrote about Doo while he was alive, and it's a heart-rending tribute.
Loretta Lynn hasn't made an album this rich since her 1977 concept tribute to Cline, I Remember Patsy -- an album recorded when Jack White was two years old. It almost feels strange to make a fuss about Van Lear Rose, since the music soars because of its modesty and gentle touch. Lynn and White weren't straining to make history, just a damn good Loretta Lynn album. But it sure sounds classic anyway. Anybody who worships Loretta Lynn dreams about being able to thank her for all the music, but Jack White has pulled off the ultimate fan fantasy: He's helped her make the album we all dreamed she would make.
ROB SHEFFIELD
(RS 948, May 13, 2004)
Van Lear Rose
Portland, Oregon
Trouble on the Line
Family Tree
Have Mercy on Me
High on a Mountain
Little Red Shoes
God Has No Mistakes
Women's Prison
This Old House
Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown
Miss Being Mrs.
Story of My Life
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/cd/ ... id=2048559
No matter who you are, one thing is for sure: You ain't woman enough to take Loretta Lynn's man. Miss Loretta has been a country legend for more than forty years, but she still sings with all the passion of the blue Kentucky girl who busted out of Butcher Hollow, the coal miner's daughter who got married at thirteen and fought her way to fame. She's always had the toughest, meanest, fiercest, warmest and sexiest voice in country music. But on her fantastic Van Lear Rose, she's got a new man named Jack White, the mastermind of the White Stripes, and together they deliver the answer to her fans' prayers: a classic Loretta Lynn album. There's no Nashville glitz, no crossover schlock -- as the lady used to sing, you're lookin' at country.
The surprise is that Lynn has started writing her own songs again. As she says in the liner notes, "This is the first time I wrote all the songs on a record, and I hope you like 'em." In the Sixties and Seventies, Lynn wrote her sharpest hits -- anthems of down-home pride such as "Coal Miner's Daughter" as well as two-fisted tantrums including "You Ain't Woman Enough," "Rated X" and "Your Squaw Is on the Warpath." If all Jack White did was get her writing again, that would have been enough. But he has juiced up her muse, keeping the mostly acoustic instrumentation spare and sweet, adding his electric-guitar kick to the fiddle, dobro and pedal steel. Listen to the way she yowls the bluesy sex stomp "Have Mercy on Me," dueling with White's guitar until she sounds like Loretta Zeppelin -- when was the last time you heard anyone sing with this much libido and fury? Let alone a woman pushing seventy?
The White Stripes have always idolized Loretta Lynn -- they dedicated White Blood Cells to her, and Meg sings "Rated X" onstage. It would have been fun to hear Jack and Lynn remake her Conway Twitty duet "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly." But he's too gracious to butt in -- he just gives her room to do her thing, like Johnny Winter did for Muddy Waters on his great comeback Hard Again. Their one vocal duet is a killer, "Portland, Oregon," where they sing about a hard-core drinking-and-shagging night: "Portland, Oregon, and sloe-gin fizz/If that ain't love, then tell me what is."
In "Mrs. Leroy Brown," she rides a pink limo to the honky-tonk to get all Von Bondie on the blonde who messed with Mrs. Leroy Brown's man; Jack's got the mug shot, but Loretta's the scary one. "Little Red Shoes" is a spoken-word ramble through a dreamlike childhood memory over atmospheric guitar twang -- it sounds like nothing she's ever done before.
Lynn's husband, Doo, who died in 1996, is an emotional presence throughout the album. "Miss Being Mrs." slams home because she's so forthright about the loneliness of life as a widow: "I took off my wedding band/And put it on my right hand/I miss being Mrs. tonight." It evokes "This Haunted House," the song she wrote for Patsy Cline's husband back in 1964, as well as the love songs she wrote about Doo while he was alive, and it's a heart-rending tribute.
Loretta Lynn hasn't made an album this rich since her 1977 concept tribute to Cline, I Remember Patsy -- an album recorded when Jack White was two years old. It almost feels strange to make a fuss about Van Lear Rose, since the music soars because of its modesty and gentle touch. Lynn and White weren't straining to make history, just a damn good Loretta Lynn album. But it sure sounds classic anyway. Anybody who worships Loretta Lynn dreams about being able to thank her for all the music, but Jack White has pulled off the ultimate fan fantasy: He's helped her make the album we all dreamed she would make.
ROB SHEFFIELD
(RS 948, May 13, 2004)
Van Lear Rose
Portland, Oregon
Trouble on the Line
Family Tree
Have Mercy on Me
High on a Mountain
Little Red Shoes
God Has No Mistakes
Women's Prison
This Old House
Mad Mrs. Leroy Brown
Miss Being Mrs.
Story of My Life
-
Fins in Low Places
- We are the People our Parents Warned us
- Posts: 355
- Joined: March 31, 2003 2:10 pm
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- Location: Tennessee
From Billboard.com:
http://www.billboard.com/bb/feature/index.jsp
White Waters Lynn's "Rose"
By Deborah Evans Price
Country icon Loretta Lynn and rocker Jack White of White Stripes fame might appear to be a musical odd couple. But one listen to Lynn's new White-produced album, "Van Lear Rose," proves this coupling is inspired.
The idea for the collaboration struck Lynn's manager, Nancy Russell, when she noticed White had dedicated his band's 2001 album "White Blood Cells" to Lynn.
Lynn and White first paired for a show last year at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom.
"He had dinner with me and my manager, and he said he would like to produce my next record," Lynn recalls. "I said OK. It could only go two ways, wrong or right."
Lynn, like many music critics who have reviewed the album, thinks it turned out right. She says the 28-year-old White is older than his years and compares him to legendary producer Owen Bradley.
Lynn and White recorded "Van Lear Rose," released April 27 by Interscope, in less than two weeks in an East Nashville studio.
"We recorded on eight track," White says. "I refuse to record on digital computers or equipment. If this equipment was good enough for the people and music I really love -- for Cole Porter, Hank Williams, the Beatles -- there's no need to go and do digital. It [gives you] way too much opportunity to overproduce."
Russell calls Lynn and White's studio collaboration "magical. There's just something there between the two of them."
"There's something very honest about her, which is what people look for when they listen to music," White says of Lynn. "There's something very special about how she tells her story."
Lynn wrote every song on the album, which contains the kind of vulnerable, personal observations and homespun honesty that propelled such classics as "Coal Miner's Daughter."
The title cut is a tribute to her mother. She duets with White on "Portland, Oregon," while "Miss Being Mrs." expresses a widow's longing for her married life.
"Little Red Shoes" features a White-penned music bed, over which Lynn tells a childhood story about her mother stealing a pair of shoes for Lynn after the doctor told her parents she was dying.
White doesn't mind the obvious comparisons to Rick Rubin producing Johnny Cash and revitalizing the late artist's career. "Those albums are really great," he says. "I don't think Rick Rubin said, 'I'm going to help Johnny Cash get this whole new audience,' or anything like that. You say, 'I'm going to do the best job I can do because I'm a producer.' "
Lynn and White will perform Monday night on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman" and again Wednesday on NBC's "Today" morning show. He also plans to tour with Lynn in coming months.
http://www.billboard.com/bb/feature/index.jsp
White Waters Lynn's "Rose"
By Deborah Evans Price
Country icon Loretta Lynn and rocker Jack White of White Stripes fame might appear to be a musical odd couple. But one listen to Lynn's new White-produced album, "Van Lear Rose," proves this coupling is inspired.
The idea for the collaboration struck Lynn's manager, Nancy Russell, when she noticed White had dedicated his band's 2001 album "White Blood Cells" to Lynn.
Lynn and White first paired for a show last year at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom.
"He had dinner with me and my manager, and he said he would like to produce my next record," Lynn recalls. "I said OK. It could only go two ways, wrong or right."
Lynn, like many music critics who have reviewed the album, thinks it turned out right. She says the 28-year-old White is older than his years and compares him to legendary producer Owen Bradley.
Lynn and White recorded "Van Lear Rose," released April 27 by Interscope, in less than two weeks in an East Nashville studio.
"We recorded on eight track," White says. "I refuse to record on digital computers or equipment. If this equipment was good enough for the people and music I really love -- for Cole Porter, Hank Williams, the Beatles -- there's no need to go and do digital. It [gives you] way too much opportunity to overproduce."
Russell calls Lynn and White's studio collaboration "magical. There's just something there between the two of them."
"There's something very honest about her, which is what people look for when they listen to music," White says of Lynn. "There's something very special about how she tells her story."
Lynn wrote every song on the album, which contains the kind of vulnerable, personal observations and homespun honesty that propelled such classics as "Coal Miner's Daughter."
The title cut is a tribute to her mother. She duets with White on "Portland, Oregon," while "Miss Being Mrs." expresses a widow's longing for her married life.
"Little Red Shoes" features a White-penned music bed, over which Lynn tells a childhood story about her mother stealing a pair of shoes for Lynn after the doctor told her parents she was dying.
White doesn't mind the obvious comparisons to Rick Rubin producing Johnny Cash and revitalizing the late artist's career. "Those albums are really great," he says. "I don't think Rick Rubin said, 'I'm going to help Johnny Cash get this whole new audience,' or anything like that. You say, 'I'm going to do the best job I can do because I'm a producer.' "
Lynn and White will perform Monday night on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman" and again Wednesday on NBC's "Today" morning show. He also plans to tour with Lynn in coming months.