I watched Coal Miner’s Daughter the other night. Thirty years after its release it still stands as a great film — especially on account of Sissy Spacek’s Academy Award winning turn as Loretta Lynn and the inspired casting of Levon Helm as her father.
Loretta Lynn, even while part of the Nashville music factory, took creative risks and did things her way.
In 2004, she released Van Lear Rose, a collaboration with Jack White of the White Stripes. It’s a swell album, but my favorite track is the duet between Lynn and White, Portland, Oregon. The boozy May-December hook up in the song, fueled by pitchers of sloe gin fizz, goes down well with Jack Killed Mom by Jenny Lewis, a decidely dark tune. Put them together and you have a witches brew of alcohol, sex, incest and murder. If that’s not a good time, I don’t know what is?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuC_l3ymXhM]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtrFSdCLNMY]
Loved “Van Lear Rose” and agree totally on that track. What a great, funky ride that is.
I think White gets dismissed by a lot of folks because of his prevalence in the mainstream, but I adore more or less everything he’s done (although I wasn’t wild about the first Rancounteurs album it was still listenable).
Jack White? Certainly not the alt-rock darling he once — and yes, highly visible — but I think he still falls into the category of esoterica. Even if he was in Cold Mountain!
Speaking of which, that’s one of those movies that eternally sits in the middle of my Netflix Queue. Is it worth going out of my way to see?
Oh, sure, very watchable. I loved the book and found the adaptation quite satisfying — and Renée Zellweger was a hoot.