Southern sisters are doing it for themselves
LARKIN Poe – aka Lovell sisters Rebecca, 29, and Megan, 31 – have hit their prime on their new, waggishly titled fifth album, Self Made Man.
Grammy-nominated for 2018’s Venom & Faith, the Georgia-bred, Nashville-based siblings are repaying the support shown to them by Americana pioneers and songwriting greats such as T Bone Burnett, Don Henley, David Crosby, Elvis Costello and Jackson Browne.
Megan said: “Our folks raised us to be hardcore ‘do-ityourselfers’. We’ve really taken it to extremes in the past few years – self-producing our own albums and working really hard to realise our dreams.
“Self Made Man is a response to a sense of self-empowerment that has been building.
“If you put your mind to something, you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.”
As capable of playing full-tilt Southern rock as well as any of their male predecessors, the sisters were music naturals from the get-go.
Classical students in infancy, they became bluegrass proponents in their teens. And their home schooling gave their musical inclinations a keen advantage.
Megan said: “We never dabbled much in sports or other afterschool activities, so music quickly became the predominant focus in our lives.
“Also, we were always big book nerds as kids, so our fascination with the written word was a natural conduit into songwriting.”
With great Gothic horror writer Edgar Allan Poe an actual ancestor, their literary roots are as deep as their musical ones.
Megan’s favourite Poe tale is The Tell-Tale Heart, “written in 1843, and absolutely as terrifying today as the day it was penned”. And Rebecca wants to write a tragic love song about Poe character Lenore.
The sisters admit to having been very disappointed when the tour supporting the album was called off.
Megan said: “Having almost 100 shows postponed has been heartbreaking.
“We are touring musicians, so not being able to go out and do our jobs is really tough.”
However, they have responded to lockdown with consistently excellent online performances that are a way of “coping”.
Rebecca said: “We feel grateful to be able to connect with folks during quarantine.”
● Self Made Man is out today.