Whenever I tell people I like country music, I have to quickly add, "but not the mainstream crap." I like old stuff like Hank Williams, Johnny Cash (as well as his later stuff), Buck Owens, Hank Thompson and Wanda Jackson, as well as newer stuff ranging from Giant Sand to The Derailers, BR-549 to Lucinda Williams.
And now you can add Lydia Loveless to that list. How can I not love a 21-year-old woman who's confident enough to write and record a song called "Jesus Was a Wino?" Or who covers Metallica in concert?
With a voice powerful enough to slap a cheatin' man standing at the back of the bar, Loveless (her real name? I don't know. I knew a kid in junior high school, a Mormon as it turned out -- the first one I ever met, maybe the only -- named Loveless, so it's possible) is so damn self assured it's scary. Evidently she grew up with musicians tramping through her parents' house, as her father owned a country music bar. As a teenager -- you know, like, just a few years ago -- she got turned on to punk rock and hero-of-the-gutter Charles Bukowski, so now she combines those two musical flavors into what somebody wisely, years ago, dubbed cowpunk.
Anyway, here are a few videos, including the aforementioned Metallica cover.
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