by Matt Parks
Lynn and producer/bandleader Jack White (yes, that Jack White) are this year’s Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin. Like Rubin’s old-school meets new school cabin-in-the-woods rock and roll, White’s garage Americana isn’t really authentic country music, but then neither are the records their cutting in Nashville these days. And like Cash’s American Recordings, ‘Van Lear Rose’ is more about finding a way to filter out the background noise de jour, bringing one of the authoritative voices in American popular music back to into the spotlight.
To his credit as a producer/devotee, White insisted that Lynn write all of the album’s thirteen songs, and captures in these recordings a raw, live-in-the-studio feel. Lynn, now nearly 70 years old, can still sing this stuff—snaky blues, nostalgic ballads, story songs, front porch gospel—with a power that’s rare and surprising. Though the songs here are perhaps not quite on par with the best work of Lynn’s long and illustrious career—“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “The Pill, “Rated X,” “You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Your Squaw Is on the Warpath,” “Don't Come Home a Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind),” to name just a few—but ‘Van Lear Rose’ is Lynn’s best and most varied recorded work since the Seventies.
Playlist: “Miss Being Mrs.,” “Portland, Oregon”
