Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Full Circle -- Loretta Lynn

Full Circle is a fine album, Loretta Lynn's first one in 12 years.  Lynn may be 83, but her voice is still 33.  She turns in a great mix of oldies and new numbers in that pure country twang right out of Butcher Holler.  You can listen to a lot of country singers today, and their arrangements and voices wouldn't be out of place in a pop performance.  Lynn is the real thing, the thing that country used to be about.  Just listen to her introduction to "Whispering Sea," the first thing she ever wrote.  It's short, but it's worth the price of the album all by itself.  I can't pick a favorite, but I really like the last number, "Lay Me Down," a duet with Willie Nelson.  If you want to hear to octogenarians singing real country better than any two whippersnappers you can name, this is the one to check out.  Let's hope we don't have to wait 12 more years for another album.  

Full tracklist: 

Whispering Sea Introduction
Whispering Sea
Who's Gonna Miss Me?
Black Jack David
Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven
Always on my Mind
Wine Into Water
In the Pines
Band of Gold
Fist City
I Never Will Marry
Everything it Takes (duet with Elvis Costello)

Lay Me Down (duet with Willie Nelson)

4 comments:

Jeff Meyerson said...

Sounds great. We watched the recent PBS American Masters show on Loretta and she looked and sounded great.

This one is on my list.

Don Coffin said...

And Lucinda Williams has a new album ("The Ghosts of Highway 20") out as well. What I could listen to as samples were pretty amazing..oh, well, it's only money...It'll be interesting to play Loretta Lynn and Lucinda Williams back-to-back, though.

Unknown said...

My daughter has given me several Lucinda Williams CDs. She's a big fan and has seen her in person several times.

Jeff Meyerson said...

We've seen her too.