THE LOUVIN BROTHERS
The brothers wrote and performed secular country music, as well as fire-and-brimstone gospel music. Ira played virtuoso mandolin and generally sang lead vocal in the tenor range, while Charlie played rhythm guitar and offered supporting vocals in a lower pitch. They helped popularize the vocal technique of close harmony in country and country-rock.
After becoming regulars at the Grand Ole Opry and scoring a string of hit singles in the late 1950s and early '60s, the Louvin Brothers broke up in 1963 due in large part to Charlie growing tired of Ira's addictions and reckless behavior. Ira died in a traffic accident in 1965. They were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001, and Charlie died of cancer in 2011. Rolling Stone ranked the Louvin Brothers No. 4 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time.
Background
The brothers adopted the name Louvin Brothers in the 1940s as they began their career in gospel music. Their first foray into secular music was the minor hit "The Get Acquainted Waltz", recorded with Chet Atkins. Other hits included "Cash on the Barrelhead" and "When I Stop Dreaming". They joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and stayed there until breaking up in 1963.
Their songs were heavily influenced by their Baptist faith and warned against sin. Nevertheless, Ira Louvin was notorious for his drinking, womanizing, and volcanic temper.He was married four times; his third wife Faye shot him four times in the chest and twice in the hand after he allegedly tried to strangle her with a telephone cord Although seriously injured, he survived. (Faye is reported to have said, "if the bastard don't die I'll shoot him again!"). When performing and drinking, Ira would sometimes become angry enough on stage to smash his mandolin when he was unable to tune it, and - when sober - glue it back together. His style was heavily influenced by Bill Monroe, and his brother Charlie Monroe, who had a tempestuous relationship with Ira, considered him one of the top mandolin players in Nashville
In his New York Times review of Charlie's biography Satan Is Real, Alex Abramovich said, "Ira Louvin was a full head taller than his younger brother, played the mandolin like Bill Monroe and sang in an impossibly high, tense, quivering tenor. Charlie strummed a guitar, grinned like a vaudevillian and handled the bottom register. But every so often, in the middle of a song, some hidden signal flashed and the brothers switched places — with Ira swooping down from the heights, and Charlie angling upward — and even the most careful listeners would lose track of which man was carrying the lead. This was more than close-harmony singing; each instance was an act of transubstantiation."
In 1963, fed up with Ira's drinking and abusive behavior, Charlie started a solo career, and Ira also went on his own.
Ira died on June 20, 1965, at the age of 41. He and his fourth wife, Anne Young, were on the way home from a performance in Kansas City when they came to a section of construction on Highway 70 outside of Williamsburg, Missouri where traffic had been reduced down to one lane. A drunken driver struck their car head-on, and both Ira and Anne were killed instantly. At the time, a warrant for Ira's arrest had been issued on a DUI charge.
Charlie died of pancreatic cancer on January 26, 2011 at age 83.
Legacy
Country-rock band The Byrds recorded the Louvin-penned "The Christian Life" for their 1968 release Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
Emmylou Harris had a hit with the brothers' tune "If I Could Only Win Your Love" in 1975. Her cover version reached number four on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and earned the top spot on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada.
In 2001, The Louvin Brothers were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.The tribute CD Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers, produced by Carl Jackson and Kathy Louvin and released in 2003, won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Country Album.
On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed The Louvin Brothers among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
Although the brothers are still remembered today for their musical talent, they are also remembered for the unusual cover used for their 1959 album, Satan Is Real. Designed by Ira Louvin, the cover features the brothers standing in a rock quarry in front of a 12-foot-tall (3.7 m) plywood rendition of the Devil as several hidden tires soaked in kerosene burn behind them as fire and brimstone.While some reviewers count this as being one of the "greatest iconic album covers of all time", the cover can also be found today on several Web sites celebrating unusual or bizarre album covers. The cover has also become an Internet meme on a number of Web sites such as Fark.com, where it has been posted in discussion threads as an example of religious views of the era.
The opening bars of the album's title track "Satan Is Real" can be heard at the beginning of Hank Williams III's "Medley: Straight to Hell / Satan Is Real", on his Straight to Hell album of 2006. It is also excerpted in Will Ferrell's 2009 one-man Broadway show, You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W Bush.
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Los hermanos Louvin son una institución de la música estadounidense. Venerados por gigantes como Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons, Kris Kristofferson y Nick Cave, se les considera unos verdaderos maestros de la armonía, quizás el mejor y más influyente dúo de góspel y country que haya existido jamás… y sin duda el más turbulento. Nacidos en los años veinte en Alabama, en la zona sur de los Apalaches, los Louvin no podían ser más distintos entre sí. Charlie era un joven respetuoso, devoto y temeroso de Dios, pero su hermano Ira, que en otro tiempo había ido para predicador, vivía atormentado por todo tipo de diablos; veleidoso, mujeriego y alcohólico, se labró una merecida reputación de «hombre salvaje» debido a su costumbre de destrozar sus mandolinas sobre el escenario, acabar a golpes con miembros del público e insultar a Elvis Presley.
La autobiografía de Charlie Louvin, coescrita junto al novelista Benjamin Whitmer, plasma con crudo detalle su infancia en una pequeña granja familiar durante los años de la Depresión, cuando la música y la religión eran la única huida a una existencia ruda y embrutecedora, marcada por la escasez y las cosechas del algodón. Charlie e Ira encontraron una salida en las tremebundas baladas tradicionales que les legó su madre y en las canciones espirituales que aprendieron en la iglesia. Entre 1947 y 1962, grabaron una docena de álbumes, colaron trece sencillos en las listas de éxitos y cumplieron su sueño de convertirse en miembros fijos del venerable Grand Ole Opry. Pero, tal como demuestra su fugaz carrera, los sacrificios que a veces debe realizar uno para llegar a cumplir su sueño pueden acabar haciendo que se pregunte si de verdad merecía la pena. La historia de los Louvin, que comenzó en triunfo tan pronto como la música les permitió huir de la granja algodonera de su severo padre, terminó quince años más tarde en tragedia. Satán es real es la épica historia de dos hermanos unidos por el amor, el odio, la religión, la carretera, la sangre y la música.
«La historia de toda una generación del country ya desaparecida. Si recolectar algodón a mano era un trabajo duro y desagradable, los hermanos Louvin descubrieron que ganarse la vida con la música tampoco le iba a la zaga. Charlie hizo ambas cosas y vivió para contar la historia. Ni su vida ni las descripciones que de la misma hace en sus memorias son aptas para lectores impresionables».
—Les Kerr, Paste Magazine
«Los discos que Ira y Charlie Louvin grabaron en los años 50 y primeros 60 se cuentan entre los más reverenciados e influyentes de la historia del country. Pero la extraordinaria armonía que les caracterizaba sobre el escenario no tuvo eco en sus vidas fuera de él, un hecho que queda meridianamente claro desde el primer capítulo de Satán es real, unas memorias nada dadas a la nostalgia ni al recuerdo reverente».
—Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times
«Ácido, socarrón y brutalmente sincero de un modo que sin duda ofenderá a los puristas de la música country. Repleto de peleas a puñetazos, anécdotas peripatéticas y encuentros cercanos con compañeros de la carretera, como Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash y muchos otros».
—Alex Abramovich, The New York Times
«Una de las memorias más importantes y reveladoras de la música country».
—Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal
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