Eternal return
THE CLUE is in the title. Produced by Johnny Cash's son John Carter Cash and Patsy Lynn Russell, one of Loretta's six children, Full Circle sees the Queen of Country, now almost 84, begin to put her house in order. The music [here] and in the upcoming volumes, writes Cash in his sleevenotes, flagging-up the 100 or so new recordings he's been helping Lynn stockpile since 2007, is a statement of accumulated genius by one of our remaining original masters. Having seen what Rick Rubin and Johnny Cash achieved at the tail end of his father's life, John Carter Cash understands what's required to help a towering figure of American music execute a potent and (hopefully) slow-burning valedictory. Still, even if Full Circle ends with Lay Me Down, an acceptant, time to meet my Maker duet with fellow octogenarian Willie Nelson, Lynn still sounds full of the life-force; more engaged and effervescent than many stars half her age. You can hear it on the big, open-throated chorus of Wine Into Water, wherein Lynn, playing an alcoholic, requests the Lord's help as she attempts to invert one of His better-known miracles. You can hear it on Fist City, a spirited revisit of Lynn's 1968, gal-fight honky-tonker. You can hear it, too, in the studio chitchat that proceeds Full Circle's new version of Whispering Sea, the waltz-time ballad that was the first song Lynn ever wrote. I was fishin, she says with a laugh, holding court and telling her rapt band of crack musicians of the song's provenance. Let it rip, boys! she adds, and away they go. With its Elvis Costello backing vocal, Everything It Takes sounds as though it's been kicking around the Grand Ole Opry for decades, yet it's a new song by Lynn and Todd Snider. In classic country tradition, they ensure that every perfectly weighted lyrical couplet packs a punch, a gag, or both: She's cold as ice but you still think she's hot/She's got everything it takes to take everything you've got, sings Lynn, relishing every syllable. Overall, Full Circle's tracklisting strikes a neat balance between resonant standards (Always On My Mind; Secret Love), stirring honky-tonk (Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven; Band Of Gold), and stock-taking, mountain-top folk best exemplified by Who's Gonna Miss Me? All told, we should be very glad that Loretta Lynn the woman whose 1968 riposte to Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill's Uber-submissive Stand By Your Man was Your Squaw Is On The Warpath is still around. Like her fellow Grand Dames of American Roots music Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples, she remains a force to be reckoned with.
Queen of country's first since 2004s Grammy-grabbing Van Lear Rose, her collaboration with Jack White. By James McNair.