Loretta Lynn, the Queer, and the Hellbillies

I had the good fortune last April to see the incomparable Loretta Lynn, who, along with her daughters, the Lynns, and her backing band, The Coal Miners, had come to put on their show just a stone’s throw away from my home. After I paid $7 for a Jack Daniels shot that was barely enough to cover the bottom of the cup, I drifted over to my fourth row seat. The chairs were very skinny, though, and the person immediately to my right was very wide, so I got up and meandered around. Besides, I wanted to scope the place out.

The show was a half-house setup, and only two-thirds full - about 900 people, tops: Regular folks, maybe with a child or grandchild in tow. What I was hoping to see, alongside these people who have supported Loretta for so many years, were younger, punk-ier fans who looked like they might have been there because of Loretta’s genre-busting 2004 LP Van Lear Rose, or because they’d been living on a steady diet of Hank, cigarettes, and whiskey, and knew what real music is, but I didn’t see much of anyone like that.

Anyway, the show started, so I sat myself down on the floor in front of the sound board, taking notes and clicking pictures. Apparently there was someone I couldn’t see in the front row who was, in his enthusiasm for Loretta, sticking out from the rest of the well-behaved crowd. A player in her band, reacting to this person, quipped,” Loretta, this is your kinda crowd – drunks!” It wasn’t an overt, premeditated act, but it still felt like he was trying to shame the guy into sitting still like everybody else. (Curious about this fan, I tracked him down after the show. He was an effusive, gushing, gay Loretta Lynn fan, very open and full of good humor.)

A little while later, two women on the floor decided to stand and shake it a bit - the only fans standing in the whole arena. Hellbilly-types, they were: One had dyed-red hair, while the other had a bit of the sex-icon Bettie Page thing going on, with the hairstyle, eyeliner, and painted red lips. In a crowd like that, though, if you stand up, you’re gonna stand out, so pretty soon they sat down.

Beyond the folks who, upon Loretta’s call for song requests, hollered “Portland, Oregon”, there was no real evidence that anyone was conscious of Loretta’s recent work to revitalize her recording career. Van Lear Rose, her 2004 album produced by rock icon Jack White, won Loretta her first Grammy, but seems glaringly out of place with her fans and her touring band.

For starters, The Coal Miners just aren’t equipped to present the VLR material very well. Not that it should be held against them - there is no place for Jack White-style soloing in traditional country. But why is there no place in the Coal Miner’s repertoire for the simple beauty of Van Lear Rose’s “Miss Being Mrs.” or “Family Tree”?

Even beyond the Coal Miners, it’s clear that Loretta’s handlers are not geared toward revitalizing her career in the manner Johnny Cash managed to do, and that’s a shame. Johnny Cash played the Viper Room and eventually won over a new generation of fans; Loretta, meanwhile, continues to play the casinos. It’s the hardcore fan’s fault, too: They idolize her so much that’s it next to impossible for her to be anything other than the same Queen of Country they need her to be.

The problem of keeping country music vital extends way beyond Loretta Lynn, too, though her concert represented that problem fairly well. The chasm lying between the older, more conservative folks who love real country and the younger, more rebellious fans, the tattooed, drinking, smoking kids who love that same country sound, is so vast. Falling into the chasm is the music of many of today’s musicians who, true to the blueprint laid out by artists like Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams, and George Jones, struggle to find an audience.

It’s up to the fans to close the gap: Conservatives and liberals, the old guard and the young punks, need to co-exist better. They need to have more mutual respect. As it exists now, the audience for good country music is not regenerating at a rate that will allow it to survive.

Loretta Lynn, April 22, 2007