It’s early in June 2003. The assembly line on Music Row is hard at work churning out radio-ready product, but in a nondescript white house in East Nashville’s Lockeland Springs neighborhood, a far more intriguing convergence of country roots and contemporary rock is coming together.
“It started when I was in L.A. about a year-and-a-half ago, listening to [The White Stripes’] White Blood Cells, not realizing until I checked the liner notes that it was dedicated to Loretta,” recalls artist manager Nancy Russell, who was at the time developing a friendship with her soon-to-be-client Loretta Lynn. “I sent the record to Loretta, and she loved it.”
“It thrilled me to death,” Lynn says of learning about the album dedication. “They cut 'Rated X’ [a Lynn original the White Stripes issued as the B-side of the 'Hotel Yorba’ single]. That thrilled me too.”
So began what might seem an improbable musical partnership. Flattered to find they had dedicated an album to her, Lynn invited Jack and Meg White to her ranch last winter, where she cooked them chicken and dumplings and gave Meg a dress. The duo in turn invited Lynn to join them onstage last May at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. In June, Jack White came to Nashville to produce some demos for Lynn.
White originally suggested a studio in Memphis, but Russell suggested they lay down a few demo tracks at Eric McConnell’s eight-track living room studio. Though McConnell’s studio couldn’t compare technologically with the modern facilities on Music Row, it was a great fit for Lynn—and particularly White, whose distaste for all things digital has been well-documented. White played guitar and recruited the rhythm section from the Cincinnati garage rock band The Greenhornes, fiddler Dirk Powell and fellow Detroiter Dave Feeney on pedal steel guitar.
White was so pleased with the results that those seven tracks, recorded over a couple of days, became the foundation for Lynn’s forthcoming record. “I just threw up some mics and started recording,” McConnell recalls, adding that overdubs were minimal. White and his crew returned to McConnell’s studio in September to lay down a few more tracks and went to Memphis to mix the as yet untitled record, which is due out this spring.
Lynn wrote all of the material for the album. One of the highlights, according to Russell, is a Lynn-White duet called “Portland, Oregon.” “Her vocals were so good that people in town who’ve heard the tracks have asked if we used Pro Tools,” Russell says, referring to the digital editing software that can correct flawed vocal performances. Not a chance, given White’s anti-digital bias.
“Jack really surprised me as a producer,” Lynn says. “It had been a while since I’d done something that basic. We had a ball. We recorded when we wanted to, ate when we wanted to.... Me and Doo [Lynn’s late husband, Doolittle] used to do it like that. The record’s gonna be a little shocker, I believe.”
“Jack and Eric really hit it off,” Russell says, “and Loretta just loved hanging out on the front porch with Eric’s dogs between takes”—something most Music Row studios can’t provide.
—Jack Silverman
