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

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.”

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!

Slim White answers seven questions for songwriters

SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR SONGWRITERS
1. What makes you write?
I tend to approach writing as an exercise in discipline. I'm not one of these folks that waits for an "inspiration" or depends on a muse. I'll listen to some music by an artist I like a lot, and then I'll set out to write something that might have come from that artist. I'll just set up an assignment for myself. For instance, The Averys cover a song by Hank Williams called "Dear John". There is a singalong chorus where the whole band hollers "Dear John!". I like performing that song, so I thought I'd try writing something of my own that had the same type of chorus. That's where I got "High Life", which a song about drinking Miller High Life beer. I think that is an appropriate subject for a country song.

2. Who is the greatest unknown influence on your music?
Back in the early '90s I used to play in a rock'n'roll band back in Missouri. The guitar player and co-front man was a great songwriter named Dave Brooks. He was a master of writing riffs. When would write songs for that band, I always wrote a place in the song for Dave to insert a killer guitar hook or a little riff that would grab the listener. I still do that to this day. When I'm writing, I tend to write specifically for the band. So, in The Averys, I always try to make sure there is a place in the song for Boots or Dusty to write a hook. Lately I've been looking for more bluesy structures so the band has some space to stretch out and vamp.

3. What is your most closeted, secret, guilty and humiliating musical pleasure?
Hall and Oats. Love those guys.

4. What established artist made you want to write songs, and why?
Way back when I first started writing I was listening to a lot of Tom Waits and Lou Reed. Those guys are very literate and the lyric is really paramount in their work. My songs back then were pretty heavy and very artsy and poetic. I hate that stuff now. Life is short. I try to enjoy the music now, rather than treat it as a cartharsis. These days I just listen to the great old country songs and try my best to write stuff in that tradition. I'm talking about Hank Williams, The Carter Family, The Delmore Brothers, Buck Owens. I would rather de-emphasize my own personality, keep it simple and to the point, and also try to exibit a sense of humor in the lyric.

5. Advice for just-starting songwriters?
This is not an original observation, but it bears repeating: You have to work at it. You have to sit with the guitar and the legal pad and the pen and just write and write and write. And know that you'll have to write ten dogs for every decent song that you can come up with.

6. Why country?
It's the sense of tradition and permanence, I think. These song forms go back to the 19th century, and there is something comfortable in working this territory. The subject matter, too, works for me. I am no stranger to loss, pain, heartache, alcohol and hard work. I can write about these things.

7. Favorite backwoods expression?
Here is where my lack of genuine rural bona fides will betray me. As a city boy, I'm afraid I don't speak genuine backwoods lingo.

Editor's Note: "City Boy" is a qualifiable backwoods expression, and in my opinion Slim is one good old boy.

Slim White & The Averys w/ Fort Knox at April 2 Honky Tonk Happy Hour!

If you belly up to the bar at The Shrunken Head (formerly Victorians Midnight Café) on the first and third Friday of the month from 6-8 pm, you’ll be sure to hear some raucously original neo-traditional country music --- and you may even win a jar of homemade sweet pickles in the weekly raffle.

The show begins at 6pm with Fort Knox. Jamie Lyn’s lyrics and wry humor channel June Carter and Loretta Lynn in her own brand of neo-traditional "Deep Woods Off" country. Fort Knox can follow Jamie Lyn wherever she leads, with Brooklyn Country.com stating “Jamie Lyn infuses her honky-tonk story songs with a whole lot of humor, feeling and good-time energy”.

At 7pm, local honky tonk heroes Slim White and the Avery’s put their spin on the foot-stompin’ classic country and Bakersfield sound with a lineup of great originals and chestnut covers guaranteed to get folks out of their seats and dancing. Slim has been doing a phenomenal job with his Averys blog, check it out at www.ranchpartyroundup.com.

The Shrunken Head is a full-service restaurant and bar located in the heart of Columbus, Ohio, offering happy hour specials daily: half price draft beers, $1 off top shelf liquor, $1 hot dogs, and $5 prime organic hamburgers. The Honky Tonk Happy Hour special is $4 for a Budweiser and shot of Jack Daniels whiskey. Admission to this event is free, and all ages are welcome, although those under 21 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Andy Smith of OUTLAW DELUXE answers Seven Questions for Songwriters

1. What makes you write?
other songs and musicians that have inspired me

2. Who is the greatest unknown influence on your music?
my uncle Dave. he showed me how to play.

3. What is your most closeted, secret, guilty and humiliating musical pleasure?
dr teeth and the electric mayhem

4. What established artist made you want to write songs, and why?
johnny cash because he wrote his own songs and really appreciated other songs and songwriters and put his own spin on all of it.

5. Advice for just-starting songwriters?
good or bad write it down asap. anything and everything you can sort the good from the bad later.

6. Why country?
country music has so many flavors it leaves you with alot to cook with.

7. Favorite backwoods expression?
poosh as in "poosh the door shut it's gettin cold in here"

Andy Smith, of OUTLAW DELUXE
www.myspace.com/outlawdeluxe

Miss Molly Winters answers seven questions for songwriters:

1. What makes you write?
I love life and the things I learn from the world around me. I am very sensitive to stories of love, passion, heart break, and family. I am not made to write, I just feel like that is how I cope, how I express the emotions inside me.
2. Who is the greatest unknown influence on your music?
Hard question. In the past two years, The Beatles, before that, I loved Beth Orton, Pearl Jam, Beck, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Holiday, Patsy Cline and the list goes on.
3. What is your most closeted, secret, guilty and humiliating musical pleasure?
Making up songs about just about anyone or anything, singing them in the car, or on a run, or writing them in books that will never be found.
4. What established artist made you want to write songs, and why?
The Beatles. They write such pop tunes that are elaborate and fulfilling, catchy and intense, and often political.
5. Advice for just-starting songwriters?
Write like crazy. Keep journels. Work with other people as much as you can. Learn songs as much as you can. Record whenever possible. Never sit down and force yourself to write a song, it doesn’t work that way.
6. Why country?
It is basic, fun to listen to, catchy, has a great beat, dance-inspiring, raw.
7. Favorite backwoods expression?
“Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back”