Country Love Ballads/Ira and Charlie

AMG Review of Country Love Ballads/Ira and Charlie

Steve Leggett
All Music Guide

Born in the lower reaches of Appalachia in eastern Alabama, Ira and Charlie Louvin brought gospel-fed mountain harmonies to the country table when they made the switch from gospel to secular material, and their close harmony approach (Charlie generally sang the lead lines with Ira adding a high harmony) became the model for later successful vocal duos like the Everly Brothers. No vocal duo before or since, however, has ever come close to matching the edgy and intangible intensity of Ira and Charlie's singing, which reached into the heart and soul of everything they touched. This set combines two of their Capitol LPs, 1958's Ira and Charlie and 1959's Country Love Ballads, on a single disc and throws in six additional bonus tracks from the same era. The singing is wonderful and the arrangements are appropriately spare, which gives the brothers plenty of space to explore the ins and outs and sometimes tragic consequences of falling and being in love. Highlights here include the beautiful "If I Could Only Win Your Love" (which became Emmylou Harris' first solo hit in a later cover version), the blunt "My Heart Was Trampled on the Street," the desperately resigned "Have I Stayed Away Too Long," and a wonderful version of "Tennessee Waltz" that brings out the deep regrets and loneliness that are at the heart of the song. It's all fairly seamless, and without looking at the track listing, it's impossible to tell where one LP ends and the other begins. It's the Louvin Brothers singing love songs as if the world itself was tentatively hanging by a thread, which means this stuff is darn near timeless.