Charlie Louvin obituary | Country

Charlie Louvin obituary

The singer and guitarist Charlie Louvin, who has died aged 83, was half of one of country music's best loved and most influential double acts. The recordings he made in the 1950s with his older brother, Ira, who played the mandolin and sang the high harmony parts – on songs such as I Don't Believe You've Met My Baby, When I Stop Dreaming and My Baby's Gone – shaped the sound of the Everly Brothers. Later, the Louvins' work caught the imagination of Gram Parsons and, through him, Emmylou Harris, who revived several of their songs.

Ira and Charlie Loudermilk grew up in the Sand Mountain area of north-eastern Alabama, absorbing music from their father, who played the banjo, and their mother, whose family was well-known in the circles of Sacred Harp choral singing. In 1943 the brothers won a talent contest, their prize a spot on a small radio station in Knoxville, Tennessee. By 1947 they had adopted the stage name the Louvin Brothers, moved to a larger Knoxville station, WROL, and were heard widely throughout the south-eastern states. After brief associations with other record labels, they signed with Capitol in 1951.

Their career was interrupted while Charlie did military service in Korea, and it took a couple of years for them to re-establish themselves, but in 1955 they were invited to join the well known Nashville stage and radio show the Grand Ole Opry. The following year they had three top 10 hits and released what would become their most famous album, Tragic Songs of Life.

Their success was the more remarkable in that country music was then under threat from rock'n'roll, and the new music would eventually prove their undoing. In 1958, persuaded that Ira's mandolin sounded old-fashioned in an era of electric guitars, the Louvins' producer, Ken Nelson, asked him to stop playing it on their records. Already a short-tempered man with a drink problem, Ira took this slight badly, and the brothers' edgy relationship worsened. "We went from the top of the ladder," said Charlie, "to where you couldn't give the Louvin Brothers away." In 1963 they separated, and two years later Ira was killed in a car crash.

It had not been a coupling of equal talents. Ira's keening harmonies and diamond-hard mandolin breaks had given their music most of its character, and he had composed many of their songs. "I hold the paper," Charlie would say, "and Ira does the writing." But although conscious that he had been the junior partner, Charlie doggedly persevered with a career in country music, continuing to record for Capitol – including a brief spell in a duet with Melba Montgomery – and consolidating his position as a respected cast member of the Grand Ole Opry.

The Louvins' music was deeply rooted in the eternal verities of the American south, as crystallised in songs such as The Family Who Prays (from the 1958 album of the same name) and The Christian Life (from Satan is Real, 1959). Having become an elder statesman of country music, Charlie was always ready to speak up for its traditional values. "Today," he said in the mid-80s, "a true country music artist couldn't get on a major label with a machine gun." Chatting with him during the filming of the Channel 4 series Hank Wangford's A to Z of C&W, I asked him what he thought about the annual Country Music Association awards. "The CMA?" he snorted. "Stands for Country My Ass."

But for all his forthright opinions, he was willing to meet younger musicians halfway, and in the last few years had worked with rock bands including Cake and Cheap Trick. "I didn't know what to expect, going on the road with them," he remarked in 2007. "I imagined people would say, 'Get that redneck off the stage, we came to hear rock.' But it came out beautiful. It's ironic that a man that'll soon be 80 would start his career over, but that's kind of what I've done."

In the last three years he had recorded three albums: Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs (2008); a live set from a festival in memory of Parsons; and The Battle Rages On (2010), a collection of songs about war. In December he collapsed while recording for the Marty Stuart Show on US TV but, like the trouper he was, recovered to complete his performance.

He is survived by his wife, Betty, their sons, Charlie, Glenn and Kenneth, and five grandchildren.

Charlie Louvin (Charlie Elzer Loudermilk), country music singer, born 27 July 1927; died 26 January 2011

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