Recommended Listening



It sounds gimmicky or even desperate on paper: 69-year-old Loretta Lynn teaming up with White Stripes enfant terrible Jack White for her new record The Van Lear Rose. Instead it’s a match made in heaven. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite like it; just your basic traditional garage-twang album, I guess. All the songs are newly penned by Lynn, but it’s more like she excavated them from the tomb of the unknown country classics; one listen and you’d swear you’d known them all your life. (The exception for me is “Little Red Shoes,” which is essentially a rambling anecdote with musical accompaniment – it’s interesting and all, but I don’t need to hear it every time I play the album.) If “Portland, Oregon,” “High on a Mountain Top” and “Mrs. Leroy Brown” don’t make you happy to be alive, it’s time to give up.



On their third album …In All Their Splendor, Li’l Cap’n Travis don’t make a radical departure from their usual sound, but that’s perfectly fine since no one else does quite what they do. If you’re not from around these parts you may not be familiar with their spacey brand of honky tonk adorned with Beach Boys harmonies. Their previous album Lonesome and Losin’ might be a better place for newcomers to start, but if you’re already a fan, you’re unlikely to be disappointed with the new one. Personal favorite tracks include the melancholy “Throw Off the Reins” and the boozy anthem “Bar Full of Fans,” which has been earworming me for about a week straight.