The Louvin Brothers: Satan is Real
So, couple years ago, I’m standing in a Nashville bar. Up on stage a white-haired old man, a little unsteady on his feet, is singing and playing guitar. Next to me, a giddy kid in his early 20s shouts to no one in particular, “I’m watching Charlie fuckin’ Louvin!”
I look over at him and tip my beer bottle in salute. That’s right, I think. A piece of history right there in front of us. Charlie…fuckin’ … Louvin.
In the 50s, Charlie Louvin and his brother Ira were arguably the biggest country duo act in the business.
Born in the 1920s, the brothers were raised in an impoverished region of the Appalachian mountains in Alabama. As boys, Charlie (born Charlie Elzer Loudermilk) and Ira (born Lonnie Ira Loudermilk) grew up listening to the close-harmony country brother duets of the Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers and the Monroe Brothers. Ira took up the mandolin while Charlie picked up the guitar, and they honed their harmonies singing gospel songs in church.. Their first professional gig was playing the early morning show at a small Chattanooga radio station.
While they started out in gospel, by the 50s, the Louvin Brothers had successfully moved to mainstream country and were riding a string of top 10 hits. In 1955, after ten unsuccessful auditions, they were finally accepted into the Grand Ole Opry. Still, their gospel tunes remained a significant part of their appeal and were often sung at all-night church revivals in the south.
Satan is Real, a collection of gospel tunes sung in the brothers’ signature tight high-country harmonies, was their second all-gospel album and their most successful. The album was re-released on CD in 1996 - only a couple of years after Uncle Tupelo released its cover of the Louvin Brothers’ Great Atomic Power on the band’s March 16-20 1992 recording.
Since then, hipsters have been working to reintroduce Charlie Louvin’s stellar career to a new generation. In 2003, Carl Jackson produced a tribute album Livin', Lovin' Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers. And a year ago, Charlie released his own batch of re-recordings on a CD bearing his name, which features performances by Jeff Tweedy and Superchunk's Mac McCaughan.
Still, even with all the recent attention, it’s worth revisiting the original recordings for a glimpse at The Louvin Brothers before they were outside-the-mainstream trendy, back when they were merely straight-up popular, before they were re-interpreted by irony-fueled youngsters.
Because the thing I've always wondered about them is how much of their act was unabashed sincerity – and how much were they putting us on?
Their genius is in the fact that you can never quite tell. And that’s why their original stuff is so much fun.
The original cover of Satan is Real bears the over-the-top cover art of Ira and Charlie dressed in white and gesticulating before a sea of flames and a cross-eyed gap-toothed cardboard cutout devil. Charlie tells the story that Ira came up with the cover concept himself. But in their exuberance, they got carried away and the two were almost killed by the flames and chunks of exploding rock.
The first tune, Satan is Real, features Ira’s spoken testimony, accompanied by the soft strains of organ music, as he witnesses to Satan’s awesome power:
“Preacher, tell them that Satan is real too. You can hear him in songs that give praise to idols and sinful things of this world.”
Confession: Hank Williams III’s Straight to Hell has been in heavy rotation on my I-pod lately and I have trouble listening to the Louvin Brothers’ original version of Satan is Real without hearing in my head Hank III’s own medley version in which he sings, “The sheriff wants to kill me ‘cause I fucked his wife.”
Ain’t hard to figure out where that boy’s coming from.
Certainly Ira, known for his drunken brawls and drug abuse, would have earned Hank III’s outlaw respect. After the brothers broke up in 1963, Ira’s third wife shot him three times during a serious drinking binge. He survived the shooting, only to die, along with his fourth wife, in a car crash in 1965.
So you really gotta wonder when he sings, as he did on The Christian Life:
Or maybe not.
So, couple years ago, I’m standing in a Nashville bar. Up on stage a white-haired old man, a little unsteady on his feet, is singing and playing guitar. Next to me, a giddy kid in his early 20s shouts to no one in particular, “I’m watching Charlie fuckin’ Louvin!”
I look over at him and tip my beer bottle in salute. That’s right, I think. A piece of history right there in front of us. Charlie…fuckin’ … Louvin.
In the 50s, Charlie Louvin and his brother Ira were arguably the biggest country duo act in the business.
Born in the 1920s, the brothers were raised in an impoverished region of the Appalachian mountains in Alabama. As boys, Charlie (born Charlie Elzer Loudermilk) and Ira (born Lonnie Ira Loudermilk) grew up listening to the close-harmony country brother duets of the Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers and the Monroe Brothers. Ira took up the mandolin while Charlie picked up the guitar, and they honed their harmonies singing gospel songs in church.. Their first professional gig was playing the early morning show at a small Chattanooga radio station.
While they started out in gospel, by the 50s, the Louvin Brothers had successfully moved to mainstream country and were riding a string of top 10 hits. In 1955, after ten unsuccessful auditions, they were finally accepted into the Grand Ole Opry. Still, their gospel tunes remained a significant part of their appeal and were often sung at all-night church revivals in the south.
Satan is Real, a collection of gospel tunes sung in the brothers’ signature tight high-country harmonies, was their second all-gospel album and their most successful. The album was re-released on CD in 1996 - only a couple of years after Uncle Tupelo released its cover of the Louvin Brothers’ Great Atomic Power on the band’s March 16-20 1992 recording.
Since then, hipsters have been working to reintroduce Charlie Louvin’s stellar career to a new generation. In 2003, Carl Jackson produced a tribute album Livin', Lovin' Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers. And a year ago, Charlie released his own batch of re-recordings on a CD bearing his name, which features performances by Jeff Tweedy and Superchunk's Mac McCaughan.
Still, even with all the recent attention, it’s worth revisiting the original recordings for a glimpse at The Louvin Brothers before they were outside-the-mainstream trendy, back when they were merely straight-up popular, before they were re-interpreted by irony-fueled youngsters.
Because the thing I've always wondered about them is how much of their act was unabashed sincerity – and how much were they putting us on?
Their genius is in the fact that you can never quite tell. And that’s why their original stuff is so much fun.
The original cover of Satan is Real bears the over-the-top cover art of Ira and Charlie dressed in white and gesticulating before a sea of flames and a cross-eyed gap-toothed cardboard cutout devil. Charlie tells the story that Ira came up with the cover concept himself. But in their exuberance, they got carried away and the two were almost killed by the flames and chunks of exploding rock.
The first tune, Satan is Real, features Ira’s spoken testimony, accompanied by the soft strains of organ music, as he witnesses to Satan’s awesome power:
“Preacher, tell them that Satan is real too. You can hear him in songs that give praise to idols and sinful things of this world.”
Confession: Hank Williams III’s Straight to Hell has been in heavy rotation on my I-pod lately and I have trouble listening to the Louvin Brothers’ original version of Satan is Real without hearing in my head Hank III’s own medley version in which he sings, “The sheriff wants to kill me ‘cause I fucked his wife.”
Ain’t hard to figure out where that boy’s coming from.
Certainly Ira, known for his drunken brawls and drug abuse, would have earned Hank III’s outlaw respect. After the brothers broke up in 1963, Ira’s third wife shot him three times during a serious drinking binge. He survived the shooting, only to die, along with his fourth wife, in a car crash in 1965.
So you really gotta wonder when he sings, as he did on The Christian Life:
I won’t lose a friend by heeding God’s callI think if you listen really, really carefully, you might hear in the background the soft-subtle sound of a wink.
For what is a friend who’d want
you to fall
Others find pleasure in things I despise
I like the Christian
life
Or maybe not.
You can buy Satan in Real here.
