Songs That Tell a Story

Unquestioned masters of Kentucky’s close-harmony style of country gospel, the Louvin Brothers were responsible for perfecting, and popularizing, the sweet harmonizing style that was first practiced by groups like Kentucky’s legendary Blue Sky Boys, and later brought to commercial prominence by the Everly Brothers. This album features a set of rare and startlingly intimate recordings cut live on the radio for Fort Payne Alabama’s WMPS station in 1952. The brothers sound more relaxed and playful than on many of their official recordings, and give spare readings of some of their most legendary material. The sound here is close and occasionally muffled, but this only adds an entirely appropriate sense of unearthly mystery to these songs, which tell tales of the individual’s search for grace and salvation. While musicians like the great Chet Atkins lent a lush atmosphere to the groups most popular recordings they appear here entirely unaccompanied, putting these songs over with only their voices and their simple but crystalline guitar and mandolin work.