Charlie Louvin Announces Tour

Charlie Louvin announced a string of tour dates for 2009. This is a brief note on why the announcement warranted noting.

The Louvin Brothers were Charlie and Ira Louvin, who recorded for Capitol Records from the mid-1950s and produced a body of sacred and secular country music that has been cited as an influence by every significant country and Americana act of the following five decades. The harmonies are the central fact: two voices building something that neither could build alone, an interweaving that is emotionally devastating at its best.

Ira Louvin died in 1965 in a car accident. Charlie continued as a solo act. The solo work is substantial and underappreciated relative to the Brothers material.

The contemporary Louvin legacy

By 2008, the Louvin Brothers were a canonical reference point for the alt-country and Americana communities. The Satan Is Real album — the title coming from the 1959 album with the most extraordinary cover in country music history — had been revisited and discussed extensively. Jeff Tweedy, Gram Parsons, the Everly Brothers, and dozens of others had acknowledged the debt.

Charlie Louvin's 2007 self-titled album, produced by Mark Nevers and featuring guests including Elvis Costello, Will Oldham, and Marty Stuart, brought him to a broader audience.

The tour

The 2009 dates placed Louvin in small venues, the appropriate size for this kind of music. Country harmony at its traditional best does not need scale. It needs a room that is quiet enough to let the voices work.

Charlie Louvin died in January 2011 at eighty-three. His last years of touring and recording were a final chapter worth attending.

For more on the country and Americana tradition: American Roots Music Primer and the Mixtapes index.