For those of you unfamiliar with the Louvin Brothers
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Artist:
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Track:Are You Afraid to Die?
here is a little taster. Charles and Ira Loudermilk (their cousin John D Loudermilk preferred to retain his birth name) were a massively successful Christian country/gospel act of the 1950s, whose career was effectively destroyed when rock'n'roll came along. Two (let's be honest) pot-ugly thirty year olds, one playing the mandolin, singing songs about Satan and death were never going to have quite the appeal of the Everly Brothers, who also sang the songs of John D Loudermilk, but were rather more teen-friendly.
In the early 1970s, performers such as Gram Parsons and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band began to revive their songs, and there have been dozens of covers of some of their greater tunes, such as "Wreck On the Highway" and "Cash on the Barrelhead". While Charles Louvin still performs live to this day, aged over 80, Ira came to a rather spectacular end. He took the failure of the brothers' career as being the direct result of the influence of Satan himself, and his drinking became uncontrollable, as he struggled to cope with a world at odds with his Calvinist morality.
He was not exactly a happy drunk - his second wife shot him, but was acquitted when she revealed that at the time he was attempting to strangle her with a telephone cable. He and his third wife died in a car crash in 1964 when both were drunk, and when he had a number of outstanding bench warrants in his home state.
So, here is "Are You Afraid To Die?"
Comments (6)
Their harmonies remain breathtaking, but their music never really quite grasped the concept of "irony". There was no top they could not go over, provided, by the end of the song, the sinner was in Hell and the righteous man in Heaven.
This track was recorded at the height of the Korean War - the title "Robe of White" might give you a clue as to the song's outcome
I'm saved.
Isn't that LP cover one of the greatest? Their harmonies do remain breathtaking. As for irony, thirty-odd years ago I found maybe a half-dozen unused LPs of theirs on the Jamaican Capitol label in a little Jamaican reggae record store in Brooklyn.
DMDM. weren't you just saved a couple of weeks ago when someone else posted a religious song? Let's hope you don't hear any Muslim hymns any time soon.
Pot-ugly? Geez, they look ok to me. Love the harmonies. Being an agnostic, most religious music is unpalatable to me unless it is...what?...non-threatening, charming, somehow. I respond very favorably to the gospel songs of Flatt & Scruggs - and this.
That's one of their more "flattering" pictures, as it's taken from a distance. George Clooney and Brad Pitt they ain't, but their melodic and harmonic skills are what secured their reputation.
Dylan's a fan. You can see why with subject matter like this.