Hi Everbody,
I just found out that Patty Loveless has recorded the song Cheap Whiskey and it will be included on her upcoming album Mountain Soul which is scheduled to be released on June 26. It is great to finally get a bluegrass album from Patty, I am sure Patty's version of the song will make Martina proud. Below I have posted a full story about the album.
David
Nashville: TIME magazine raved, 'Patty Loveless sings the truth, and she serves it up raw' about the woman who's been named Female Vocalist of the Year three different times -- and has seen her brand of modern country music provide some of the genres most enduring songs, whether it's the plucky three-week #1 'Blame It On Your Heart,' the wrenching-Grammy nominated 'How Can I Help You Say Good-Bye' and 'You Don't Even Know Who I Am' or the wry chart-topper 'I Try To Think About Elvis.' But for all her mainstream success, Loveless remains a blue Kentucky girl at heart.
To that end, Loveless and husband/legendary producer Emory Gordy, Jr (George Jones, Jimmie Dale Gilmore's Spinning Around The Sun) are finishing Mountain Soul -- a labor of love embracing the bluesy side of the hollers where Loveless and her siblings grew up. Drawing on traditional material, songs from Loveless' and Gordy's cache of originals and songs they've found for Loveless' five critic's fave platinum+ Epic CDs.
'I've been wanting to do this record since 1992 when Emory and I put a little group together to go play The Carter Stanley Memorial Festival,' Loveless says. 'Playing this music in front of people -- as opposed to in a dressing room or someone's home -- made me feel very connected to where I come from. It took me back. So when we were getting ready to go out on the road for my regular concerts, I thought we should play some of this music to let people know where I come from…to give them a sense of who I am.
'And you know,' Loveless adds with a laugh, 'the people loved it!'
Featuring guess Ricky Skaggs, Travis Tritt and Jon Randall, in addition to two key road people multi-instrumentalist Deenie Richardson and singer Carmella Ramsey, Loveless and Gordy began making this music for themselves. And beyond traditional Music Row marketing, Sony Nashville -- Loveless' longtime home -- is releasing the 14-song Mountain Soul, alongside Strong Heart, her current mainstream country project.
'When you have an artist with as much integrity as Patty Loveless, whose roots in traditional and mountain music run as deep as her's, you want to do everything you can to support their music,' says Sony Executive VP and GM of Sales and Marketing Mike Kraski. 'Mountain Soul is an amazing project, which we believe Patty Loveless' fans will embrace as much as the records they've come to expect from her -- and we're pleased to be able to show this side of her music, even as we're working her mainstream Strong Heart.'
'I'm very lucky my label will let me do this,' Loveless says. 'They see the music the way I do and they know it's a dream of mine so they're supporting me here. We're breaking a few rules, having two records out at once, but I think one will only enhance the other. And for me, it's the best of both possible worlds.'
Drawing on Reno and Smiley's broken-hearted lament 'I Know You're Married,' Dolly-and-Porter's lost love 'Someone That I Used To Know' and Melba Montgomery's glowing ember of yearning 'Raging Fire,' plus the vintage church-based 'New Coat,' old-time 'Sorrowful Angels' and gospel quartet 'Daniel Prayed,' Loveless mines her memory for a large part of Soul. The more recent gems include 'You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive,' a chilling Darrell Scott portrait of the reality of the hills, 'The Smell of Cheap Whiskey,' Gordy's song of excess' price in real life terms recorded by Martina McBride, 'Pretty Little Miss,' a light-hearted update based on a folk song that celebrates young girls with big crushes, and Loveless' own 'The Sounds of Loneliness,' written at 15 and recorded for her MCA debut, but now echoing with the austere knowledge of what loneliness truly means.
'This was recorded live, which means everyone has to be on,' Loveless notes, 'because with bleed-through, you can't fix things. But there's something about knowing that, too, that just inspires you. When you're having that much fun and the music is connecting, you get drawn in and it lifts you up. There's a freedom to it because you're part of this group that's urging each other on. And even if it's not absolutely perfect, there is so much heart here, that's what you hear -- and it sounds amazing.'
'The Last Thing On My Mind,' the second single from Loveless' Strong Heart , is at #19 with a bullet in Radio & Records and #21 with a bullet in Billboard. Mountain Soul will be released on June 26th, as Loveless kicks off her summer tour.