It’s been a sad day as I note the passing of the great Charlie Louvin, singer and songwriter. Charlie and his brother, Ira, were The Louvin Brothers, of course, who recorded and performed some of country music’s most-beautiful songs, including the song that inspired the name of this blog. The Louvin Brothers story deserves a screenplay. Ira had a temper and a problem with alcohol, but wrote sincere and inspirational country gospel standards, very possibly aware that the sinner he often sang about was himself. He died, with his wife, in a car accident in 1965. Charlie, who began singing …
Category: Passings
Passings: Les Paul
You know that you’re a success when your name is used to represent your creation and, in the same breath, endows in it a sense of quality and authenticity. I’m going to defer to the many guitarists who are mourning the 94-year-old Les Paul online today, who love what he created and did with his life — they are better than I am at describing how his work changed the world. But I want to acknowledge the passing of this man and what he accomplished. By all accounts, a master with a guitar in his hands, Lester Polfus didn’t settle …
Passings: Hank Locklin
I made a bad joke to friends a few years ago when Hank Cochran died that he was the fifth best-known Hank, and we were down to just a few contenders left. Well, I consider Hank Locklin the third best-known Hank, and the highest-ranked “living Hank” before his death yesterday. Hank Locklin’s greatest moment may have been “Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On,” a really sweet song, so earnest that it could never be recorded today, when the sentiment would be considered creepy. I believe that “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” was an even-bigger hit, although both songs …
Passings: Lux Interior
Back in the ’80s, music was pathetic. There are very few exceptions — the world was obsessed with MTV, and artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna dominated radio, and if you didn’t like it, there was always yacht-rock captains like Christopher Cross. There was also new wave, which to some was an attempt to make punk more acceptable, more popular. I bought many records that had guys wearing makeup on the cover and playing weak-sounding keyboards on the record. Then one glorious day, I bought a strange record with a slightly ominous-looking cover photo. Songs the Lord Taught Us was …
Passings: Ron Asheton
The Stooges recorded three frantic, intense LPs, developed a tough and nasty reputation, then watched as their lead singer became an icon. They got old, were remembered and idolized by a relative few, then reunited — like stepping out for the expected encore — and gathered the respect and adoration that might have escaped them earlier. To perform in the shadow of Iggy Pop and not become invisible means you’re doing something right. Ron Asheton’s guitar on the The Stooges and Funhouse records was as raw and wild as Iggy’s vocals and stage behavior, and endeared him to many who …
Passings: Bettie Page
Last weekend began with an AP news item that Bettie Page, the 85-year-old iconic pinup model, had been hospitalized after a number of strokes and was in intensive care. I’ve been checking for updates all week, avoiding the practice of some major newspapers of writing about her life in the past tense until she passed away. She apparently never regained consciousness, which can be a blessing. Bettie Page’s face and figure are so well-known that, I bet, anyone who doesn’t recognize her name will recognize her photo. Even her hairstyle was iconic. She began her career in somewhat more innocent …
Passings: Yma Sumac
A staple of every record collector’s “bachelor pad” section, the works of Yma Sumac were weirdly calming, even when they were at their cacophonic, screeching-infused best. She passed away in Los Angeles on November 1. Sumac was born as Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo in Peru in 1922, and released her first American album, Voice of the Xtabay, on Capitol in 1950. She claimed to have descended from Atahualpa, the last Incan emperor, and Capitol made every attempt to play up the exotic nature of her voice, her music and her appearance. She famously had a five-octave voice, capable …
Passings: Paul Newman
Just weeks ago, I wrote in a review of Hud that there’s no other actor I’d rather be than Paul Newman. I guess I hadn’t heard much about him for a while, and that usually means one thing for a celebrity his age. I knew it was coming, and yet it depresses me. There are fewer and fewer of his type: men who provided unreproachable role models and examples of how to live one’s life. A comment that I’ve read in several tributes this morning quote him explaining why he was faithful to his wife, the beautiful actress Joanne Woodward: …
Passings: Jerry Reed
“Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’, we gonna do what they say can’t be done. . .” Jerry Reed started out as a songwriter and session man, recording a few rockabilly sides of his own before gaining attention through the recording of his “Crazy Legs” by Gene Vincent, as well as “Guitar Man” and “US Male” by Elvis Presley. He had some later hits of his own, including “Eastbound and Down,” “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” and “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).” Probably best known as Burt Reynolds’ sidekick in Smokey and the Bandit and its …
Passings: Don Helms
Don Helms was a member of Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, which must have been fulfilling and frustrating at the same time. As steel guitarist, he was able to put his signature on some of country music’s most-renown songs but he had a boss whose battles with drugs and alcohol made the lives of all around him difficult, and who played himself off the stage at age 29. Helms continued to work, adding steel guitar to the music of Johnny Cash, the Wilburn Brothers and Lefty Frizzell, among others. Don Helms was 81, and lived long enough to have a Myspace …