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Charlie Louvin is just about as self-deprecating as a legend can be. When he answers his cell phone and fields a request for Mr. Charlie Louvin, he responds with a jovial drawl, "Well, if you drop the 'mister,' I'll admit to the rest of it."
Louvin will be 80 years old this summer, but he was well on his way to becoming an icon in Country music over a half century ago. He and his brother Ira — inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001 — began singing professionally on the radio as teenagers in Chattanooga, Tenn. They continued working day jobs and performing their angelic Gospel/Country vocal harmonies in the evening until the mid-'40s, when Charlie served in World War II. The duo picked up where they'd left off after the war, but the act went on hiatus again when Charlie served his country once more, this time in the Korean War.
In the early '50s, a radio sponsor persuaded the Louvins to switch from Gospel to more secular Country music, which turned out to be a momentous move. The Louvin Brothers notched a couple dozen hits on the Country charts and became members of the Grand Ole Opry in 1955, becoming Country mainstays in the process.
In the '60s, the Louvin Brothers found their high Country harmonies in less and less demand, and they split up the act in 1964. Ira's solo career was cut tragically short when he was killed in a car accident in 1965, and Charlie carried on alone.
Louvin might well have become an interesting footnote in Country music history, if not for a fascinating twist of fate.
Gram Parsons, an eventual legend in his own right as a member of The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and with his band, The Fallen Angels, was a huge fan of the Louvins. Parsons introduced a young Emmylou Harris to the Louvins' music, an event that had a profound impact on the vocalist. Parsons' love of Country music affected every band with which he interacted. By covering the Louvins in his repertoire, Parsons and Harris secured their place in history.
"I'm told when Gram played the first Louvin Brothers record for Emmylou, she said, 'Who is that girl singing the high part?' He informed her that it was Ira Louvin," says Louvin from his Tennessee home. "We owe a lot of thanks to Gram and to Emmylou."
In subsequent years, Louvin recorded solo albums and toured, but with an understandably diminished frequency. He hadn't had a decently distributed album in well over a decade when Josh Rosenthal from Tompkins Square Records contacted Louvin with an offer.
"He said, 'I looked it up and you haven't had an international release in 10 years,' and I said, 'Well, you've done your homework,' " says Louvin with a laugh. "He asked me if I wanted to record for him and I said, 'Sure.' I told him to send out a contract and I'd sign it. He's one of the only people, in my lifetime, who's done everything he said he would do."
Rosenthal had already written a set list for Louvin's approval and assembled an all-star cast of guest musicians with the help and connections of producer Mark Nevers. At an age when most men would be tending gardens and puttering around the house, Charlie Louvin recorded one of the finest albums of his career with the eager assistance of guests like Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy, Marty Stuart, George Jones, Bobby Bare Sr., Will Oldham, Bright Eyes' Alex McManus, Superchunk's Mac McCaughan and many others.
Louvin hopes to re-energize his old fan base and attract a new one with the album.
"Josh said, 'If you cut these, I'm positive I can get them played on college radio,' " says Louvin. "If he does that, I'll get to work the universities and there's good money there. He gave me the right to replace them with other songs if I didn't like them, but if I didn't change them and it didn't work, guess who's fault it would have been? So I was chicken."
The basic album took about two weeks to track. Louvin made sure he was on hand whenever someone new arrived to cut his or her part.
"I live about 75 miles out of Nashville, so I would go in and watch them cut it and give them moral support and let them know I appreciated them coming by," says Louvin. "This is strictly a labor of love; the people that helped on this one didn't get nothin' but a thank you."
The majority of the songs on the self-titled album are either Louvin Brothers songs or songs from the groups that Charlie and Ira grew up idolizing. The one new song on the album is especially poignant — co-written by Louvin with Trent and Tim LeClaire, "Ira" is Louvin's heartfelt tribute to his late brother.
"It wasn't that hard to write, it's too factual, but it's extremely hard for me to get through," says Louvin. "Sometimes I tell one of the boys, 'You might have to pee on my leg to get me through this song ... if I can get mad, I can go on through.' "
While Ira's loss is never far from his mind, Louvin doesn't dwell on the past. These days he lives in Manchester, Tenn., halfway between Nashville and Chattanooga ("I'd have gotten farther away from Nashville," he notes, "but I was afraid I'd get back to Alabama and I couldn't afford to do that"). He doesn't play guitar anymore, after an accident with a motor home awning cost him the ends of two fingers on his picking left hand ("I enjoyed 'em for 73 years, so I'm not bitchin' ").
His current touring schedule — including a date at Bonnaroo — has him doing the kind of traveling that someone half his age might think twice about undertaking.
"I do about 30 to 40 minutes and then sign autographs for a couple of hours then leave," says Louvin. "I don't know if I have anything really planned (for summer). Josh is my manager, too, and he sends the stuff down here as it happens and it looks real good. Looks like I might have time to cut the yard a few times."
CHARLIE LOUVIN performs at 6 p.m. Friday at Shake It Records in Northside.
