"…something scary and washed in the blood…"
Naomi Johnson was kind enough to review Satan Is Real on her blog, The Drowning Machine. This is the kind of review that means the world to me, coming from a life-long Louvin Brothers fan.
I could talk forever about the music of The Louvin Brothers, and how, like The Beatles' music, it has been a soundtrack to my life. The Louvins wrote and played the kind of country music that modern Nashville pretty well tries to pretend it has outgrown, somewhat like a self-conscious teenager who is ashamed of his uncool parents. Emmylou Harris may have said it best: "There was something scary and washed in the blood about the sound of the Louvin Brothers."
For those who know their music, beyond the melodies, beyond Ira Louvin's incredible songwriting talent, beyond the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, beyond all of it lie the most incredible vocal harmonies in American music. The two brothers sang gospel, folk ballads, bluegrass, honky tonk, and they sang all of it with conviction. And their impact on other musicians was bigger than they could have realized. From the Everly Brothers to Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Ray Charles, Elvis Costello, Raul Malo, Alison Krauss, and so many more — Vince Gill said, "You can't find anybody, I don't think, that was not inspired by them." My dad sure was. My dad had a beautiful old Martin guitar, a 00021 I think, from about 1947, and my siblings and I grew up singing old-timey gospel songs at home and at church as he sang and played along. There weren't many songs by the Louvins we didn't know, and their songs were always our favorites whenever we sang at revivals or songfests or just sat around the living room with relatives and friends, telling family stories and singing as the mood took us.
