Voices: new music from Nashville and from Scotland: Patty Loveless and Julie Fowlis

Country singer Patty Loveless grew up in the hills of Appalachia, in Pikeville, Kentucky, where she learned the mountain sounds of bluegrass, gospel, and folk music. She also heard, over her radio and through the records her older siblings bought, the sounds of classic country, from George Jones to Skeeter Davis, from Porter and Dolly to Hank Williams senior. This time out, the gifted songstress, a Country Music Association and Grammy award winner, is bringing the two parts of her musical history together on a collection called Sleepless Nights: The Traditional Country Soul of Patty Loveless.

Loveless and her producer and husband Emory Gordy, Junior, narrowed their song choices down to fourteen. Some of the were number one hits in their day, while others, such as the title track, were not. Each of them is a classic of song craft, though. “This is how it used to be in my bedroom when I was a little girl,” Loveless says. “I used to go in there and lay out the records and listen to them over and over, until I learned the song. That’s what the whole concept of for this album was, to take me back to that period of my life. Another reason I I wanted to do a record such as this is that there are so many young people coming along today in country music. I don’t want them to forget where it all came from. I want to give these young people a good image of country's past.”

She does that, letting these songs speak while clearly putting her own stamp on them. The disc opens with the rockin’ honky tonk dance of Why Baby Why, which was a hit for George Jones and has been recorded by Willie Nelson and Ricky Skaggs among many others. Loveless found another source of inspiration. “I was trying to figure out how to approach this song,” she says “Then I thought I’ve got it: Tina Turner Meets George Jones. Well, a little bit.”

Crazy Arms is another song Loveless maks completely her own, adding an Appalachian tinge to a slowed down version of what is often done as a high stepping honky tonk song. Other tracks include He Thinks I Still Care, Color of the Blues, There Stands the Glass, and I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know. The backing musicians offer outstanding support , never getting in the way of the singing but adding their own presences to the song. It’s an interesting mix of players, too, including classic old school Nashville session players such as Harold Bradley and Hargus ‘Pig” Robbins, contemporary studio aces such as Al Perkins and John Hobbs, and former Loveless band members including Jedd Hughes and Carmella Ramsey.

Loveless closes things out with a Hank Williams tune, Cold Cold Heart. “This was the only place for this song,” Loveless says. It’s so raw, and sort of quiet in a way With Emory opening it on acoustic guitar it makes a very intimate and very serious moment. It’s the perfect song to close with.” Several years ago, Loveless dug deep into one aspect of her musical background with an album called Mountain Soul. It’s really no accident that this recording has country soul in its title, and the mountain soul is there too, in Loveless’ style and phrasing. They are both part of what makes her the artist she is.

Julie Fowlis knows a bit about putting soul into her music, too. In her case, that involves conveying emotion and meaning to people who mostly do not speak the language in which she sings. Fowlis sings in Scots Gaelic, which is spoken by fewer than one per cent of the people in Scotland, never mind the rest of the world, and she’s celebrating the US relase of her second album, called Cuilidh..

Fowlis comes from North Uist, in the Outer Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland, or as she says, “far out.” There she grew up with the language, the history, the stories, and the music. Some of the songs she sings are recent, and some go back centuries. They might speak of tragedies -- or they might speak of cabbage on the table or the cow outside. “These people were on the edge of the world,” Fowlis says of those who composed the songs. “The weather was extreme, and the conditions were hard. Through music and song, they were very expressive people. They were always singing and writing poetry. It could be something light hearted, like the food on the table or what washed up on the beach, or it could be something completely beautiful.”

That range of emotion and connection to story is what Fowlis brings her listeners, whether they understand Scots Gaelic or not. Cuilidh means treasure, and on the recording Fowlis includes both the lively and the sad, love songs and a song about potatoes and butter. Fowlis is also an accomplished player on the whistle and the highland pipes [and has a degree in classical music too] and there’s a set of jigs to include that, as well. Hug Air a’ Bhonaid Mhor, in English called Celebrate the Great Bonnet, makes a fine and lively opener, and ‘Ille Dunn,’ S Toigh Leam Thu, My Brown Haired Boy, is a fine ballad. It’s easy to hear why Fowlis has won a batch of awards in the UK, and how her music speaks across the boundaries of language and time. “I'm more than happy to sing English, but right now this is what I feel called to do,” she says. “This is what love and know.”

Julie Fowlis is celebrating the US release of Cuilidh with a brief tour in the United States, including appearances at the Lotus Festival in Bloomington, Indiana and Club Passim in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

You may also want to see

Julie Fowlis: tour schedule

Music Road: now playing: Julie Fowlis: Mar A Tha Mo Chridhe/As My Heart Is

Music Road: now playing: eist: songs in their native language

You'll find music content from many genres and plenty of other music fans at Gather Essentials: Music. For more of Kerry Dexter's Voices columns, look here. It's published on Thursdays.

Kerry Dexter, Music Correspondent Kerry's credits include VH1, CMT, the folk music magazine Dirty Linen, Strings, The Encyclopedia of Ireland and the Americas, and The MusicHound Guides. She also writes about the arts and creative practice at Music Road and contributes to Fred Bals' Series of Tubes.