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Country legend spreads gospel
By Adam Goldstein
goldstea@mscd.edu

Photo by Jason Small • jsmall4@mscd.edu From left, Charlie Louvin, Bill Kelly, Brent Wilson and Pearly Curtis play during an in-store appearance April 5 at Twist and Shout.

A town in northwest France may seem like an unlikely spot to discover one of the most powerful and influential voices in American country music.

It was when I was living abroad in Rennes, among European hipsters and Celtic revivalists, however, that I stumbled upon a record by the Louvin Brothers, a country act from Alabama, titled Satan is Real. Songs such as “The Christian Life” and “The Kneeling Drunkard’s Plea” boasted a sermonizing message straight out of a Southern Baptist church.

It was the musical manner in which their themes were delivered that made the album a constant audio companion during my time in France. The Louvin Brothers sang with a seamlessly close harmony, so much so that their voices seemed to meld into a single entity. Their tones were unmatched in their passion, urgency and raw feeling. Together, their voices touted an almost preternatural power.

When I recently learned that the surviving member of the duo was coming through Denver for two performances, I was agog. Suddenly, a distant musical legend had donned flesh and blood.

The deep vocal connection that first captured my ear persists for Charlie Louvin even now, more than 40 years after the death of his brother, Ira, in 1965.

“When we were a duet together, I would do the solo part, and when it was time for the harmony to move in I would move to my left a half step, because we just used one mike,” Charlie Louvin explained in a phone interview before his Denver appearance April 7. “I still do that unconsciously. When I get to where the harmony should come in, I’ll move off of the mike just a little. I still hear it in my head.”

Louvin ruminated about a career in music that he started as a child with his older brother at the behest of his parents.

“We sang together when I was 6 and he was 9,” he said. “We already knew several songs like ‘The Knoxville Girl,’ ‘Mary of the Wild Moor’ and ‘I Love You Best of All.’ Songs that our mother taught us.”

With the encouragement of their parents and the example of other country acts, the pair began singing their childhood songs professionally.

“When (Ira) was 18 he decided, listening to the Delmore Brothers, to have one instrument that would play the lead, the turnarounds,” he said. “The Blue Sky Boys used the mandolin and the Monroe Brothers used the mandolin. So he said, ‘I’m going to buy me a mandolin, and you’re going to have to start playing the guitar.”

Although Charlie served stints in the Army during the ’40s (including time at Lowry Air Force Base in 1946), the act refined their traditional tunes and wrote originals, both secular and gospel. By the ’50s, the pair had gained popularity and joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1955.

The power of their harmonies had a deep impact on pop music, from country to folk to rock. The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Byrds are names on a long roster of Louvin Brothers devotees who used their harmonies as an instructive inspiration.

Louvin’s recent appearances at Twist and Shout and the Bluebird Theater were part of a national tour that includes Portland, Los Angeles and the Bonaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn. Louvin is promoting a new self-titled album that features duets with some of contemporary music’s most notable Louvin admirers. Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy, George Jones and Alex McManus join the country music legend on originals and country music standards.

Paul Epstein, the owner of Twist and Shout, saw Louvin’s appearance as an unprecedented event.

“It definitely has the feeling of gravity and history,” he said after Louvin performed for a small crowd on April 7. “I think of people we’ve had (in the store) like Elvis Costello, Mickey Hart, Suzanne Vega … It’s not in the same category. This guy goes back to that core of artists that defined the late 20th century American experience, the rural experience that is now essentially gone.”

Members of Louvin’s four-piece touring band also saw the opportunity as historic. Billy Kelly, who plays lead guitar, explained that the ramifications of Louvin’s influence made his head spin.

“Think about it,” he said. “Elvis and Buddy Holly were influenced. The Beatles were influenced by the Louvin Brothers, not to mention the thousands of country artists. Who knows if George and John’s harmonies would’ve existed without them?”

For Louvin, his deep cultural impact seems less important than the opportunity to play music and remember his brother, whom he celebrates with a song on the new album. The tribute is a bittersweet reminder of his lost musical partner.

“It is a hard song for me to perform, because basically, the song takes me back where I don’t need to go,” he said.