This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
The Blue Kentucky Girl meets the White Stripe.
For her first major-label album in 15 years, country legend Loretta Lynn has pairs up with none other than singer-guitarist Jack White. And as Rick Rubin did for Johnny Cash a decade ago, the young rocker has helped a beloved country icon reconnect with her muse and produce a career-revitalizing work of beauty and maturity.
These 13 cuts — all written or co-written by Lynn, a first in her four-decade history — find the tough-talkin’ country queen and the stylishly cool garage-rocker merging their respective strengths and styles with surprising ease. Loretta delivers the simple melodies and plainspoken lyrics of songs like Van Lear Rose, Trouble On The Line, This Old House, Story Of My Life and the poignant Miss Being Mrs., an ode to her late husband Doo. Jack helps bring out the best in her by teaming her with a loose band of twentysomethings, recording most of the tracks on the first or second take and skipping all the Nashville gloss and overdubs.
Most of these immediate, earthy cuts hew closer to rustic, ragged alt-country than the blistering blues-garage of White’s day job, but that doesn’t mean he and Loretta don’t kick up their heels now and then. Have Mercy is a pumping, bluesy firecracker reminiscent of Wanda Jackson; Women’s Prison, Mrs. Leroy Brown and Family Tree are classic Loretta tales of bad-girl revenge. And Jack and Loretta’s drunken duet Portland Oregon is worth the purchase price all by itself, if only for lines like “Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz / If that ain’t love, then tell me what is.” Sounds like a match made in heaven to me.
