Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Hey, Loretta...




As many of you know, I am a huge Loretta Lynn fan-- and today being her birthday, I thought I might take a moment to jot down a few thoughts I have on the road she forged for all women in music, but particularly for Appalachian women and those of us working in country music in particular. I wracked my brain this morning, trying to come to grips with a way to articulate what Ms. Lynn's music-- coupled with her experience making it-- really means to me.

A few weeks back a good friend of mine and I were batting stuff back and forth on the ubiquitous facebook page, and he asked me who Loretta Lynn is; "Is she a singer?"
I was amazed. How could someone not KNOW Ms. Lynn's ouvre? Her stature as an artist, a writer, a woman, a warrior?

Anyway, this here is what I told him:
Loretta Lynn is the iconic female trailblazer in American country music. A honky tonk maverick, she demurred from taking the "Stand By Your Man" stance of most of her peers, penning hits such as "Don't Come Home A Drinkin' With Lovin On Your Mind", "Your Squaw is on the Warpath Tonight", "Rated X", "One's on the Way", "The Pill"..., and won a grammy in 2005 at the age of 74 for her rock and roll collaboration with Jack White of the White Stripes for their studio album, "Van Lear Rose". Ms. Lynn was married at age 13 to "Doo" Lynn, and did not pick up a guitar until she was 26; transforming herself from housewife to country music superstar, she never lost touch with her rural roots, once telling a record executive, "Record?! I can't come to Nashville and record! I'm canning sausage!".

So in writing all this, I recalled a song that I don't sing that often anymore, but that I wrote as a tribute to her. Here are the lyrics, and a little pigdin recording I did a long time ago. I hope you like it.

"Country Girl's Lullabye"

Sister’s in the driveway, peddalin’ her life away
I try to play along to “The Pill”
I always wanted to sing like Loretta and I guess I always will
It was miles of dirt road to the nearest town
And no neighbors to holler, “turn the radio down”
So we listened to it loud and long as we could
sang along till thought we sang it just as good

Patsy, Dolly and Kitty and Emmylou
If not for them women pushin’ through every Kentucy’ gal’d be alone and blue
With a sound so sweet it’d get you high, keening so fierce it’d make you cry
They brought us the sound of a country girl’s lullabye


Them label reps on the Nashville scene, with their synthesizers and drum machines
Can’t tell me what nothin but a dollar means
The neighbors never holler “turn the radio down” because ol’ country’s gone to town
I turn it on to pick me up and it just lets me down


CMTV jumps and screams with girls more fit for magazines
Than singing about working peoples dreams
None of the sound gets me near high, and I just hang my head and cry
Is this the sound of a country girl’s lullabye?


I don’t know where all them years have gotten to
I spin that dial searching for a tune
half as true as “Sixteenth Avenue”
Work your hands to leather on that old guitar
saw that fiddle like you got some heart
Take back the sound from the boys in A & R


Break the radio and throw it in the pond
Lord knows where the music’s gone
And the ones that’s left behind gotta carry it on
With a sound so sweet it’d get you high
keening so fierce it’d make you cry
And listen to the sound of the country girl’s lullabye
I was born to sing a country girl's lullabye...

love,
Jamie Lyn

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Miller Kelton's Ed Forman answers seven questions for songwriters...




SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR SONGWRITERS
1. What makes you write?
I don’t know that I have much choice in the matter, every very so often I just get an urge to create. If it wasn’t writing songs, it would be writing short stories or making models or something. Not model trains though, that gets a little creepy.
2. Who is the greatest unknown influence on your music?
I think half the guys in high school played metal guitar, it was pretty competitive. I wrote songs for them because that’s the only way I was ever going to get to join a band. I couldn’t keep up with the cool kids, so I was influenced to compensate.
3. What is your most closeted, secret, guilty and humiliating musical pleasure?
Mediocre 60’s folk groups like The Kingston Trio or The Chad Mitchell Trio, even the New Christy Minstrels. God help me, I love it. I caught every joke in “A Mighty Wind.”
4. What established artist made you want to write songs, and why?
I grew up with my mother’s music, John Denver and Pete Seeger mostly. Paul Simon was a bridge to rock music, and that probably got me playing the guitar. I always wrote, but I didn’t WANT to be a writer until I heard Randy Newman respond to “We Are the World” with his fantasy telethon sing-along, “I Just Want You to Hurt Like I Do.” It was like watching a car wreck. I remember thinking holy hell, what sort of an awful bastard would record a thing like that?
I’ve been chasing it ever since -- one of my favorite songs that I’ve written is “Glad to See You’re Pushing Me Again,” which is musically fairly pretty, with lyrics that may inspire recoil.
5. Advice for just-starting songwriters?
If you don’t police your lyrics nobody will. An engineer or band member will tell you your guitar is out of tune or that they don’t care for a keyboard part. Nobody though, except maybe a producer you are actually paying, will tell you that a line of poetry about the love of your life or a deceased relative is cringe inducing.
Also, and perhaps more importantly, avoid any and all references to whippoorwills.
6. Why country?
Willie Sutton supposedly said he robbed banks because that’s where the money was. Same deal, I guess. With the tragic demise of rock (March 12, 2000, in case you were wondering) and hip-hop doing its own flameout, the interesting songwriting has shifted to Alt-Country and Americana, and it seems to feel right at home. The magnificent pop hooks of mainstream country remain delicious, if lyrically horrifying. If this is where the good music is going, who am I not to follow?
Plus, in this genre you can still sell songs -- how cool is that?
7. Favorite backwoods expression?
“Meanness don't happen overnight,” officially, but I still have to laugh every time I hear “busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”

Monday, April 5, 2010

Photos from GOOD FRIDAY honky tonk happy hour up on our facebook page!






Here's a little sneak preview, but you gotta friend us and check it out!
We had a great afternoon at the Shrunken Head... Slim White and the Avery's put on a great show and I had a ball playing with Fort Knox. Thanks to our extra extra awesome backup singers on "I'll Fly Away"... it was a thrill to harmonize with Slim, Eric Nassau, and Billy Zen. Hallelujiah bye and bye, indeed!