The Candor of Age
By Ralph Keyes While on a long drive I found myself listening to an interview with R & B singer Bettye LaVette that I might not have heard otherwise. Lavette is a great talker. Much of what the 61 year-old soul singer talked about was a decades-long interlude when her career was going nowhere, due in particular to a 1972 album that Atlantic Records chose not to release, then “lost”. (Fortunately its master was eventually found & the record finally released.) This interview was interleaved with excerpts of LaVette’s latest album, Scene of the Crime. At first my ears said “This woman’s voice is shot. What’s she doing still recording songs?” Then I listened more closely to a mesmerizing voice that could no longer fall back on technique. Its grit, feeling, and depth dialed direct from long experience. The songs of an older LaVette were far more powerful than ones they played by her younger self.
I’ve noticed this recently with a number of other older singers, most notably Johnny Cash on the Cash Unearthed CDs he recorded shortly before his death. This singer’s once-dynamic voice was a whisper of its previous self. However, accompanied only by his guitar, Cash sang from within with a poignancy that is almost painful to listen to. The same thing is true of Ralph Stanley on his eponymous Ralph Stanley album, his a cappella songs in particular. Charlie Louvin is another older performer who has recently given us the benefit of his experience if not the singing he was once was capable of on his Charlie Louvin album.
Most recently I’ve been hearing interviews with Levon Helm, the onetime Band drummer, and excerpts from his Dirt Farmer album. In Helm’s case throat cancer adds another dimension to his story and his voice. For years he couldn’t sing at all, and could barely speak. When helm’s voice finally returned, he gave a riveting portrayal of an old blind man pleading to be shot in Tommy Lee Jones’s underrated movie The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Dirt Farmer itself has earned raves. The way Helm sings today is harsh, almost grating, at first off-putting but ultimately gripping in the same way that Cash, LaVette and so many other older singers grip us with their candor.
A Russian writer once said of her constant anxiety that she “had no skin.” Any-thing worth knowing about her was out there for others to see. The same thing is true of these singers.
Candor sure beats craft.
February 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Very nice essay! If a person’s life experience is reflected in the face, why should we be surprised if it is reflected in the voice as well? Some aspects may deteriorate, but other aspects make up for it.
Keith Richards, when asked in an interview if the Rolling Stones were too old to perform, commented that many people seem to think that music is like sports, which it’s not. I thought that was an interesting comparison. Excellence in sports is objective, being a matter of statistics. A player either hits the ball, makes the basket, completes the pass, or the player fails. Excellence in music is subjective, being a matter of aesthetics.
February 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
Ralph, I can testify to your crntral thesis. My mother was an opera singer who when I was a kid dspaired of teaching me to btreath peoperly (I was trying to emulate the non-breathing-properly Bing Crosby.) Aftwe decades of glee club and choir singing I won the personal of our director at an church auction and this time I was ready to breathe. The result: in my eightioes I am finally singing solos in choral groups and in chuirch!.
Moral: “Candor sure beats craft” is only partly true; try fixing up craft and then adding cando!r