Light On Dark Water

Patty Loveless: Mountain Soul

This aptly-title collection is pure straight-up country music, which is the kind I like. I don’t listen to all that much country music, and when I do I like for it to be the genuine article, not just pop music with twangy vocals and a fiddle. Mountain Soul could be loosely classified as bluegrass. More precisely, it comprises bluegrass, gospel, and Nashville-style tear-jerkers about love and loss, the sort of songs that could have been (and for all I know were) sung by Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn in their primes, but without Nashville schmaltz. There are no electric instruments and no drums: just virtuoso players on mandolin, banjo, guitar, fiddle, and bass, and Loveless’s archetypal country voice, joined on the choruses by that high taut harmony singing that does funny things to your chest and spine.

I’m less than crazy about two or three of the songs, and the album as whole comes across more as a series of independent songs than as a unified work. On the other hand, some of the songs are killers, especially the chilling “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” a portrait of life in the coal-mining country, which may belong in the ”unforgettable“ category. This is just the thing to clear the palate if you’ve accidentally ingested a serving of what apparently passes for country music on the radio these days.

Here is the All Music Guide entry.

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