The apostrophe at the end tells it all. Lissie’s recently released single, “Little Lovin’” is a solid artifact of post-millenial approximation of that wonderful era of country, the one that came after the seminal gents now thought of as “old country” – the kind hipsters feel comfortable hat-tipping on their facebook profiles – but before the CMT-driven new country dreck that polluted the airwaves in the 90s.
As a track, “Little Lovin’” immediately earns “play on repeat” status for me. Twenty seconds in, you get a real good idea of what it is – a Marshall Tucker Band style arrangement composed for some singular amalgamation of all three Judd ladies. (That’s right, all three. I’m including Ashley in this hypothetical genetic mash-up. Any guess why?) The only thing that could make it more so would be if the Lissie busted out a random flute solo somewhere in the second minute of the track. As it is, I’m ready for her to drop references to her property line and previously heard love songs (which, me being a MTB fan from way back, tickle my music enthusiast funny bone like crazy).
So, like I said, what we have here on “Little Lovin’” is a prime example of a certain kind of retro country experiment. So what’s a review of it doing on an indie rock website? Well, I guess that’s probably where Bill Reynolds, the album’s producer and also bass player for Band of Horses, comes in. Sure, the track sounds like something off of Country Tucker, at least for the first couple of minutes, but around the 2:45 mark (or, as I like to say, the beginning of the last quarter of the third minute) a gritty, grungy rock bottom comes up underneath the rest of the track and escorts it the rest of the way home. Preceded by what sounds quite a lot like tubas (!) at just after the two minute mark, the dark hoe down makes a stark break from the early moments in the song and, in fact, serves to cleave the track into almost a story with two separate sonic chapters. Listen to this part a couple times and you won’t be thinking about the missing flute anymore, you’ll be fighting the urge to blaze a Johnny Cash sneer the rest of the night.
“Little Lovin’” appears on Lissie’s forthcoming EP, Why You Runnin’, which will be released on Fat Possum on November 10th. Through November she’ll be opening for Ray LaMontagne on a dozen or so dates across the country.
