Satan is Real

The Louvin Brothers

album cover

The Higher Power Has His Hands Full

Between verses of "Satan Is Real," the mandolin player and singer Ira Louvin offers a spoken allegory about the guy with the pitchfork. He knows that his listeners believe in God; his concern on this day is that they understand just how dangerous Satan is. "I grew selfish and unneighborly," the reverent man from the Alabama mountains confesses. "My friends turned against me, and finally my home was broken apart."

Even given the melodramatic bent of entertainment in the 1950s, such a cautionary tale seems transparent, the cheap ploy of a radio preacher. But Ira Louvin makes it work. A mandolin player with a distinctive keening tenor voice and a reputation as a mean drunk (he died in a car accident after drinking), he projects concern for not just his audience but all of humanity. Each time he starts up a new verse, he sounds more determined to affect change in the lives of his listeners. He's not judging anyone's choices, just trying to make sure that the lost have all the facts, which he and his brother Charlie, one of the most formidable brother harmony groups of all time, deliver with galvanizing force.

Everything on Satan Is Real—from the country weepers to the hillbilly rambles to the doright songs cautioning against sin—has the air of true-believer righteousness. Split between songs the Louvins wrote for the occasion ("There's a Higher Power," "Are You Afraid to Die?") and pieces written by Nashville tunesmiths, Satan Is Real is resolute country gospel pure and simple. Extolling the wonders of a caring God, the Louvins bring theology to the front porch in a way anybody who's strayed can understand.

Genre: Country
Released: 1960, Capitol
Key Tracks: "There's a Higher Power," "Satan Is Real," "The Kneeling Drunkard's Plea"
F.Y.I.: For the album's all-time camp-classic cover, Ira Louvin built a twelve-foot-tall devil out of plywood and sprayed rocks with kerosene. By the time of the final snap, Charlie Louvin recalls, the duo was in some danger: "Those rocks, when they get hot, they blow up."
Next Stop: Johnny Cash: Hymns by Johnny Cash
After That: The Everly Brothers: The Fabulous Style of the Everly Brothers
Book Pages: 455–456

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#1 from Adam Herbst, New Jersey - 11/27/2008 12:39

Do it because Charlie (?) is touring, is on the new Lucinda Williams album, and because this album has one of the greatest covers in all or recorded music (do you know a better one?).  Plus there are those songs that everyone things Gram Parsons wrote.

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