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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZLOUVIN BROTHERSCountry music songwriters and vocal duo, playing guitar and mandolin: brothers Charlie (b 7 July 1927, Rainesville AL; d 26 January 2011, Wartrace TN) and Ira Loudermilk (b 21 April 1924, Rainesville; d 20 June 1965). Their arrangements were very simple; their beautifully pure harmony owed more to the 'high lonesome' Appalachian sound than to Nashville. From a poor cotton-farming family on hardscrabble land, they began learning very old songs from their mother as children ('Knoxville Girl' has been traced back to Elizabethan England), and had an uncanny ability to sing harmony together. They recorded for Decca, then MGM, and finally on Capitol, where they were allowed only to singel gospel songs at first, then had country chart hits '55-62 ('I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby', 'Hoping That You're Hoping', 'You're Running Wild'/'Cash On The Barrel Head', 'My Baby's Gone' all top ten). Among their best-known songs are 'When I Stop Dreaming' and 'Love Thy Neighbour As Thyself', now a staple of bluegrass revivalists. For their album Satan Is Real, they cut a figure of the Devil out of a sheet of plywood, painted it and set fire to stacks of old tires to create a vision of Hell; the photographer got all the credit. An original copy of the album is an expensive collector's item. Ira was regarded as the better singer, musician and songwriter, and Charlie did not disagree, but he broke up the duo because of Ira's alcoholism and did better as a single then the duo had been doing thanks to Ira's unreliability. The brothers had been savagely beaten by their father, especially Ira; many years later Ira was shot six times by his third wife, but survived. He was a drunk who hated other drunks, possibly because they had a good time, while Ira was a mean drunk. He a habit of smashing his mandolin to splinters. Ira was killed in a car crash, ironically hit head-on by another drunk. Charlie had country hits every year until well into the '70s, as well as duet hits with Melba Montgomery '70-1. The brothers continued influential long after the end of the act with Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash and many others covering their songs. Albums included The Best Of The Early Louvin Brothers '55-8 on Rebel; The Louvin Brothers, Songs That Tell A Story, Tragic Songs Of Life on Rounder USA, Stetson UK; Charlie's solo Country Souvenirs on Accord, The Longest Train on Watermelon. Close Harmony is an eight-CD complete set of the brothers on Bear Family. Charlie's book, Satan Is Real (with Benjamin Whitmer, published a year after Charlie's death), is a briolliant piece of work, with 53 short chronological chapters, each an extended anecdote, adding up to one of the most powerful books about country music, alternatively hilarious and tragic, with a huge cast of familiar names from Nashville and the Grand Old Opry. Charlie wrote, 'you can get as much justice as you can afford, and if you can't afford much justice, you won't get much.' |