Charlie Louvin in American Spectator

Charlie LouvinThe political magazine, American Spectator, ran a special report yesterday on their website featuring an interview and story about Charlie Louvin.

The story is a nice length and includes a lot of first hand comments directly from Charlie. The history of the brother duo is told, along with a couple interesting childhood stories.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes concerning how the pair learned to sing harmony.

He tells about learning shape-note singing at the local Baptist church — and none of these simple, childlike songs they sing nowadays, written so as not to traumatize five-year-old girls, but creepy close harmony tunes like “Are you Washed in the Blood?” and “Sinner, You’d Better Get Ready.”

I’ve never heard Washed In The Blood referred to as “creepy” before, but that line definitely made me laugh.

Who knew Ira had such a temper?!

If a mandolin string worked itself out of tune Ira would smash the instrument to pieces on stage and stomp on the pieces.

I’d like to attend a bluegrass show and see some of that attitude. It would sure liven up the stage performance and make it entertaining!