Charlie Louvin

Charlie Louvin's recording of murder ballads and disaster songs feels, strangely, almost like a subversive act -- or an episode of Jerry Springer. Fathers spurn their daughters (who die on frozen doorsteps), men shoot unfaithful lovers, trains crash, teens kill themselves. Nobody ends up healthy and happy. Presiding over the mayhem is one of country's music's greatest singers, now an octogenarian whose crevassed, wispy voice speaks to another form of devastation -- the ravages of age -- as it lays its decaying tones over bright, clean instrumental backing.

The best-ever sibling harmony duo, the Louvin Brothers sang about homicidal impulses and
spiritual ones. Having revived a solo career at age 80 — brother Ira died in 1965 — Charlie
Louvin plows similar fields. Murder Ballads features a scalded steam-train engineer ("Wreck
of the Old 97"), a lovelorn suicide ("Katie Dear") and other doomed souls, sketched by
Louvin's gentle warble and a stately string band. Louvin is releasing it in tandem... More >