Keeping Harmony In The Family: The Louvin Brothers

Ira and Charlie Louvin

Terry Teachout is one of the nation's top participant-observers in the world of American arts and letters. His Friday column in The Wall Street Journal brings us some analysis of the how and why of family acts. He also writes of the publication of Satan is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers, a memoir by Charlie Louvin (1927-2011). The Louvin Brothers - Ira being the other half - produced remarkable, close harmonies that became synonymous with country music beginning in the middle of the last century. They had an immense influence on the sounds of "cosmic American music" and country-rock in the decades that followed.

Link to an excerpt of Teachout's column here. The post has an internal link to the full column.

Here's one of the Louvins' big hits from the '50s to whet the appetite of real country music types out there.