Patty Loveless - "Why Baby Why"

[iCF]

This is the first single from Patty's upcoming covers album, Sleepless Nights, which will be out September 9th. The single, "Why Baby Why, is a remake of the George Jones classic.

You can hear a clip of it here.



Here's what Patty says about the first single:
------------
1. “Why Baby Why” (Darrell Edwards/George Jones)

Maybe taking a three-year sabbatical has been good for me. A cousin of Emory’s heard this and said, “Gosh! You sound like you’re 20 years old!” I wish I was. I said, “That’s what living out in the country can do for you.” We’re way out in the sticks. I was trying to figure out how to approach this song. Then I thought, “I’ve got it: Tina Turner meets George Jones.” Well, a little bit.
-------------------

and here's the history of the song:

----------------------
1. “Why Baby Why”
#4 1955 George Jones
#1 1956 Red Sovine & Webb Pierce
#9 1956 Hank Locklin
#1 1983 Charley Pride

This was the first hit record for the legendary George Jones, “The Rolls Royce of Country Singers.” He also co-wrote it. Jones would go on from this early success to enjoy an incredible 50 more years of consistent hit making. As was the custom in the early 1950s, a hit song was often recorded and released by a number of other stars, hence its simultaneous hit versions by Hank Locklin and the team of Webb Pierce and Red Sovine.

This catchy tune has been recorded by dozens of artists, including Willie Nelson, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Shelby Lynne, Warren Smith, Roger McGuinn, Palomino Road, Kevin Welch and Ricky Skaggs. In 1983, Charley Pride revived “Why Baby Why” and brought it back to the top of the country charts.

George Jones – Country Music Hall of Fame 1992
Webb Pierce – Country Music Hall of Fame 2001
Charley Pride – Country Music Hall of Fame 2000


------------------------------

[iCF]

The album will have covers/remakes of different country songs like:

1. Why Baby Why
2. The Pain of Loving You
3. He Thinks I Still Care
3. Sleepless Nights
4. Crazy Arms
6. There Stands the Glass
7. That's All It Took
8. Color of the Blues
9. I Forgot More Than You'll Ever
10. Next In Line
11 Don't Let Me Cross Over
12. Please Help Me I'm Falling
13. There Goes My Everything
14. Cold, Cold Heart

Other info about the album can be found here: www.saguaroroad.com/blog/?page_id=156
or at: www.patty-loveless.net/

[gcizvolsfan]

Jul 31, 2008 20:10:41 GMT -5 iCF said:

This is the first single from Patty's upcoming covers album, Sleepless Nights, which will be out September 9th. The single, "Why Baby Why, is a remake of the George Jones's classic.

You can hear a clip of it here.



1. “Why Baby Why” (Darrell Edwards/George Jones)

“Gosh! You sound like you’re 20 years old!”

Great to hear another awesome song from Patty. To bad she is not 20 years old again because radio might actually play the song. Instead, she will get ignored like all the other older females who are not young and blonde.

[Gitar Strang]

It's not necessarily an age thing. They won't play it because it's a country song.

[gcizvolsfan]

Aug 1, 2008 11:39:35 GMT -5 Gitar Strang said:

It's not necessarily an age thing. They won't play it because it's a country song.

Unfortunately, it is both.

[pipi]

I like her older stuff. I might buy this album but I don't see it having much success.

[rockingcountry]

I think Patty has a great voice and has some great songs. I hope she continues to put albums out.

[iCF]

I'm glad that the album won't be a normal "cover album". It seems like it will be more of a "remake" type, like it won't be a carbon copy of the original songs (the vocals being the exception). Patty will put her own stamp on them.

[jenglisbe]

Patty should be so much more successful than she has been (she's had a nice career, but it should be even bigger).

When does this impact?

[sbp17]

Interesting that they think she sounds younger on this song because I think her age is showing through her vocals. I love Patty but I'm not quite digging this cover.

[iCF]

Yeah, I think she sounds a bit older, but still good as ever.

But, he single is now on iTunes ! :
phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=286773507&id=286773501&s=143441

[kevin59]

Listen to song (Allaccess)

wm.allaccess.com/allaccess/pattwhyb.wma

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Jul 31, 2008 20:10:41 GMT -5 iCF said:

1. “Why Baby Why”
#4 1955 George Jones
#1 1956 Red Sovine & Webb Pierce
#9 1956 Hank Locklin
#1 1983 Charley Pride

You forgot at least one:
#46, 1992, Palomino Road.

[wilddustin]

Great Song. Even greater singer. Poor thing just doesn't stand a chance in a country chart full of Carrie Underwood's and Taylor Swift's. Sad. This CD is a perfect kiss off song to mainstream country. Going forward she's going to record what she wants to record. I love it.

[Dustin J.]

Aug 27, 2008 23:20:20 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

You forgot at least one:
#46, 1992, Palomino Road.

Not to change the subject, but... I have that CD! :)

[blondie]

Very impressive line up of songs for the new cd! I agree that sadly, country radio will ignore it in favor of the young females and good ol boys like Brad, Kenny and George. Don't get me wrong I like Carrie, Taylor and the guys, but what would be wrong with playing a little variety? There are plenty of new country fans who have never been exposed to songs like the ones on Patty's new cd.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Aug 28, 2008 14:07:20 GMT -5 Dustin J. said:

Aug 27, 2008 23:20:20 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

You forgot at least one:
#46, 1992, Palomino Road.

Not to change the subject, but... I have that CD! :)

I never doubted that. You seem to have every CD from every band that ever existed in the 1990s. Do you have either of Pearl River's CDs? I have their second one.

[iCF]

I'm about to pre-order this for next week. I know the stores around here probably won't have it.

[iCF]

I'd also thought I'd spread the word. Patty will be part of the new Imus Ranch Record with other artists, with her cover/remake of "Silver Springs" and a new duet with Vince Gill on "Satisfied Mind". Comes out September 30th! (here's a link on Amazon to listen to samples)

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Sept 2, 2008 13:19:54 GMT -5 iCF said:

and a new duet with Vince Gill on "Satisfied Mind".

I wonder if that's the same song that Randy Travis cut on You and You Alone (and that Hal Ketchum cut on The Hits)?

[iCF]

Sept 2, 2008 15:03:50 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

Sept 2, 2008 13:19:54 GMT -5 iCF said:

and a new duet with Vince Gill on "Satisfied Mind".

I wonder if that's the same song that Randy Travis cut on You and You Alone (and that Hal Ketchum cut on The Hits)?

It's a remake/cover of the Porter Wagoner's song :) .

[jenglisbe]

Has this gone to radio?

[S4C]

Sept 2, 2008 18:23:14 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

Has this gone to radio?

Yeah (on Promo Only MPE).

But it only has 16 spins right now according to Mediabase Quick Cut Data, so nothing to get too hyped about.

[leilamaurizia]

Country Universe

Album Review: Patty Loveless, Sleepless Nights
Posted by Blake Boldt

(4 1/2 out of 5 stars)

Thankfully for country music disciples, Patty Loveless blends classic and contemporary country music seamlessly, a practice that is often used, but rarely mastered. On Sleepless Nights, she delivers a record that engages the listeners and pays tribute to the old life-and-love songs of yesterday. With husband and producer Emory Gordy, Jr. and the assistance of a number of Nashville’s first-rate musicians (among them, Nashville Sound pioneers Harold Bradley and Pig Robbins), Loveless honors these memories of misery with style and class.

Sleepless Nights is an album about paying for sins, praying for strength and staying faithful to old memories and new loves. Cheating is the choice subject for “Don’t Let Me Cross Over”, drinking is the word of the day on “There Stands the Glass” and sadness is the stuff of “Color of the Blues”. And through the course of fourteen classic cuts, Loveless demonstrates that certain wounds are lingering, lasting and sometimes, permanent.

The album itself is a lesson in loneliness. It’s a testament to the art form of country music, warts and all. It shows how the genre, as with almost any style of music from blues to gospel to jazz, is born out of pain. It’s an emotion that is part of the deep roots of music, and this pain takes on many names when directed by the voice of one of country music’s finest artists ever. As a whole, Sleepless Nights makes a fascinating case study in sadness.

A shift in how country music is approached has caused the often harsh realities of heartache and hurt to be glossed over in favor of uplifting tunes that encourage determination and denial rather than facing these fears and failings. But throughout her career, Loveless has found true connection to material that spells out such sorrowful times. While a number of country music’s classic artists have demonstrated the difficulties of hard living in their songs, it is hard loving that has caused the characters in these songs to reach the brink. That consuming, fiery feeling which is unyielding and often unreturned. And Loveless’ plaintive voice shows full awareness that love is most painful when it cannot be given equally by those that trade in it, and the sad songs here prove it.


And of course, it’s the sad songs to which she has always seemed most perfectly suited. The ballads that may be unfamiliar to many listeners are the real keepers here. Her yearning vocals on “The Pain of Loving You” (a hidden gem from Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner) gains new meaning and measure through the longing in the Loveless voice. On the most haunting track, the title cut recorded previously by the Everly Brothers and Emmylou Harris, Loveless sings of a woman in dire need of her old love. From the depths of despair, she still manages to keep faith that her broken heart will be repaired. As she wails and wonders openly to her former flame “Why did you go?” with the piercing pain in her voice, she’s complemented by a beautiful harmony vocal from Vince Gill. The Davis sisters’ “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know” is also fiercely sung (and assisted by a wonderfully melodic steel guitar), yet recognizes that the sting is a powerful thing and will have to be endured.

Throughout the album, even the sad songs, Loveless and her supporting cast shine with enjoyment and energy. Even though Sleepless Nights treads on serious themes, the musical arrangements are not always so solemn. At times it’s the ultimate in what one could call “beautiful pain”. On the first single, “Why, Baby, Why”, a reworking of the 1955 George Jones classic, Loveless leans into the lyric with the mountainous twang that has become her trademark, and she dances the line between desperate and defiant with great ease. On this track, and other timeless tunes such as “Please Help Me, I’m Falling” and “Crazy Arms”, she fully acknowledges the marvelous delights of deep-rooted affection that have created these painful situations. The musicians assist her with poignant, yet pleasurable settings. Loveless proves that with the nuance in her voice and true insight into what makes these relationships rewarding, regardless of the pain involved. She excels at exploring the complexity in human relationships and how these ties that bind are rarely crystal clear.

On any covers collection, the natural inclination is to compare the songs with the original versions, but Loveless’ musical identity and distinctive vocal talent make the difference on Sleepless Nights. She even tackles “(S)he Thinks I Still Care”, a George Jones staple and a neat shuffle that features a swaying piano on the playing-pretend ballad. And although Webb Pierce’s version of “There Stands the Glass” is inimitable, Loveless (with a little fiddle at just the right times) is able to make the song her own through her spirited and sprightly vocal. The subtlety and sass on display is considerable and carefully rendered. But examining this album from a song-by-song perspective would leave the message ever-elusive. Sleepless Nights, as with all great country albums, is meant to be enjoyed as a whole. And it’s best viewed as an example of the heart’s push-and-pull, and Loveless’ voice echoes with an understanding that life is fully lived because of these experiences, not in spite of them.

In previewing the album, Loveless said, “It’s a little bit of a history lesson, but I think once you hear the songs, the stories … you’re going to be drawn to it”. Although those involved with Sleepless Nights could never truly capture the sound of these old recordings (technology and time have made that impossible), they are able to capture their spirit. Loveless conjures up memories of an older era of country music, and her fresh twist on these classics feels natural, sounding like a channel to the past and a legend in the present.

[hoosy]

cant wait to pick this album up

[leilamaurizia]

AMG review
4 out of 5 stars

Review by Thom Jurek
Who would have thought that recording an album of classic country tunes from the bygone era would be the most radical act a country artist could commit? When it's 2008 and contemporary country sounds are wound so deep in an identity crisis that threatens to exhaust every bit of its vitality and creativity. Since much of contemporary country borrows so heavily the clichéd production standards — not to mention compositional styles — of '70s and '80s rock, both north and south of the Mason Dixon line, it takes a talent as big as Patty Loveless' to remind the punters where the music came from and what qualities make it timeless and immeasurably valuable.

As writer Holly Gleason's fine liner essay attests, Loveless has long been one of country music's gentry artists (a genuine lineage holder to the tradition). Having begun her professional career as a songwriter at the age of 14, at 51 she's a seasoned veteran with an authentic story — raised in a holler by a coal-mining father, she began singing with her brother at the age of 12. These 14 songs, chosen from hundreds and produced by her celebrated husband, Emory Gordy, Jr., are all from the canon and undisputed classics of the repertoire. They were recorded with genuine attraction and enthusiasm by an artist whose voice signifies the very best of the tradition's qualities — without falling into the museum-piece trap. From Felice & Boudleaux Bryant's title track (sung with Vince Gill), Ralph Mooney's "Crazy Arms," that scored big for Ray Price, and "Why Baby Why," a tune George Jones co-wrote (his presence is invoked either as a songwriter or as an inspiration no less than four times here), and Dickey Lee's "He Thinks I Still Care," (a hit for Jones who replaced the pronoun), Loveless takes each of these cuts deep into the well of her heart and let's them rip. Gordy's production understands that the object of accompaniment is to be true to the song and drenches these tunes in pedal steel, hushed, shuffling drums, fiddles, electric guitars, and Hargus "Pig" Robbins' piano. He showers them in emotion and Loveless simply needs to open her mouth to tell the story behind the words to get it across to the listener, where it resonates deeply. While a song like "There Stands the Glass" has been recorded many times, this is the only version that comes close to the Webb Pierce hit. Jedd Hughes makes an appearance on "That's All It Took" to reclaim this song from the shelves. It's less dramatic than the Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris version of the tune, but it's also more nakedly emotional. Penny Jay Moyer's classic cheating song"Don't Let Me Cross Over," is delivered without irony or humor; in the grain of Loveless' voice, the song becomes true and urgent entreaty. Her reading of Hal Blair's "Please Help Me I'm Falling" erases all distance between performer and listener. This set closes with Hank Williams, Sr.'s "Cold, Cold Heart." Loveless treats these songs without even a trace of nostalgia, but as the living embodiment of stories that not only transfer emotion, but reveal the hidden truths of love, life, sadness, grief, and wisdom gained by experience. If ever we needed a record of country music classics it's now, but to have them delivered by one of the greatest talents the music ever produced — a singer still very much in her prime — is a gift beyond measure.

AMG Track Picks:
Why Baby Why
Sleepless Nights
There Stands the Glass
Don't Let Me Cross Over

[blondie]

I'm getting more and more excited to get this cd on Tuesday. I only hope my local Walmart will have it! If not, I guess I'll head to Amazon to order a copy.

[jenglisbe]

Slant Magazine
4.5/5 stars

One of the most commonly used clichés in discussions of great vocalists is that they "can sing anything." And there's undeniably an element of truth to that conceit: Joan Osborne has tackled vintage R&B, Americana, pop standards and adult-top-40 styles on her last four albums, while country singer Trisha Yearwood is just about the only singer to imbue one of Dianne Warren's god-awful adult contemporary ballads with anything that resembles human emotion and has also made a killer reading of "Midnight Train to Georgia" a staple of her live shows. A list of artists like Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, Linda Ronstadt and Solomon Burke, whose careers transcend genre boundaries, includes some of popular music's most capable voices.

What Patty Loveless's Sleepless Nights illustrates, then, is that the converse of that cliché holds just as true: The ability to sing anything does not define a great singer. With a sense of phrasing that owes a clear debt to George Jones and with so much of the Eastern Kentucky hollow captured in her incomparable voice, Loveless can sing only country music. And lest the previous 20 years of her celebrated career left any doubts, this collection of covers of classic and lesser-known songs proves that Loveless sings country music better than just about anyone ever has. Although she and her husband and longtime producer Emory Gordy Jr. remain faithful to the traditional sound and arrangements of these songs, Loveless's superior skill as an interpretive vocalist makes the album far more than simply the glorified karaoke exercise of lesser covers projects (Martina McBride's rote Timeless springs immediately to mind) and showcases both her passion for and her deep understanding of genre form.

On songs that have been covered many times over the years, Loveless finds previously unexplored nuances in even the most straightforward lines. Her reading of "He Thinks I Still Care," a classic bit of self-deception that is one of Jones's trademark hits, downplays the song's ironic remove, making for a far more melancholy, cutting performance. Even better is the desperate, intimate appeal of Hank Locklin's "Please Help Me, I'm Falling" and the nearly a capella opening of the anguished take on Hank Williams's "Cold, Cold Heart" that closes the album. The highlights of the album, though, are a pair of songs that have not previously been hits for other artists. "The Pain of Loving You," a masterful song of heartache co-written by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, boasts one of Loveless's most plaintive deliveries and the standout melody and unconventional rhyme schemes that are hallmarks of Parton's writing. Loveless's measured, powerful performance on the slow-burning title track, first performed by the Everly Brothers but later covered by Emmylou Harris, is just stunning. As with Yearwood's Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love, it's hard to believe that a veteran singer of such caliber can still find new ways to challenge herself and to sound better than ever, but that's exactly what Loveless does here.

What's just as impressive about the album and what makes it such an essential country record is Loveless's song selection. This is a collection of definite, deliberate thematic heft. Even "Why Baby Why," the fiery first single (and it's worth noting that, if there's a significant flaw to the album, it's that it could use a few more uptempo numbers like that one), and drinking anthem "There Stands the Glass" speak to a perspective on love that is hard-won and deeply pained. With so much of contemporary country mired in songs of dead-eyed populist uplift and nostalgia, this is an album that stands in stark contrast to such easy, shallow emotion. There's a natural tear and soulfulness in Loveless's voice that trades in pain, and, as she's done throughout her career, she's chosen songs like "That's All It Took" and "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" that play to her strengths and that cohere into a complex narrative of the many ways in which love can go deeply, irrevocably wrong.

As excellent as Loveless's mainstream country albums from her commercial peak in the mid '90s were, they often lacked the kind of broad structural depth of Sleepless Nights, let alone a track list on which every song is a time-tested classic. Having already recorded what is arguably the best, most critically rich album of this decade with 2001's landmark Mountain Soul (a record that plays like an honest-to-God ethnographic study of a region of the country few people approach with the sensitivity, empathy or grace she shows), Loveless has offered another unqualified masterpiece with Sleepless Nights and reasserted her place as one of the premier artists not just of the country genre but of contemporary popular music.

[iCF]

The album came out today! My copy hasn't arrived yet, but it probably should tomorrow.

I don't know if anybody knows this, but on iTunes, there's two BONUS tracks:
"If Teardrops Were Pennies" and "We'll Sweep Out the Ashes". Available for individual purchase now:
phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=289401894&s=143441

I'm doing it right now!

[fischbone]

I got this today and I must say that it's the best album I've heard all year. Absolutely fantastic and since I'm pretty new to country, this has opened me up to more classics that I wouldn't normally hear. I've had it on repeat all day!!