Review: Loretta Lynn, ‘Full Circle’

“Oh, Lord,” Loretta Lynn says with a chuckle at the onset of Full Circle, topping off of a minute of studio bantering that’s an obvious setup for what it is to follow — specifically, a blast of living country history that the Kentucky native, at age 83, ignites with a command that serves as a figurative snap of the fingers.

“Let it rip, boys.”

With that, Lynn spins back the years to revisit the first song she ever composed, the startling Whispering Sea. The inspiration for the tune, as culled from her album-opening chat, wasn’t her Butcher Holler upbringing or her ribald story-songs of marital misconduct. It is something more succinct and exact, yet notably less dramatic: fishing. But once the song’s regal, waltz-like melody unfolds, Lynn lets loose with a voice that is clear, endearing and remarkably free from any real ravages of age.

Produced by John R. Cash (son of Johnny Cash) and Patsy Lynn Russell (Lynn’s daughter), Full Circle spends much of its time reviewing the past, whether in re-cutting songs that Lynn recorded decades ago (Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven) or approaching roots-music staples from the singer’s childhood (two A.P. Carter nuggets, Black Jack David and I Never Will Marry). A pair of splendid new works then close out her first full studio album since 2004’s Grammy winner, Van Lear Rose.

Of the oldies, Fist City is the unavoidable high point. Originally a hit for Lynn in 1968, the song has lost none of its cat-fighting spirit, choosing to target the forwardness of an intruding woman rather than the waywardness of a philandering husband (“The man I love, when he picks up trash, he puts it in the garbage can”). But it is the assertiveness of the present-day Cash’s elder stance and the sheer strength of her vocals that sell this new version.

Curiously, Everything It Takes, a new work that Lynn wrote with Todd Snider, follows a similar but vulnerable path, in which marital encroachment becomes a more pronounced, pathos-laden threat (“She’s got everything it takes to take everything you got”). Elvis Costello harmonizes on the song, but he’s a mostly invisible presence. Lynn’s regal wail rules this little aria.

Best of all, Full Circle promises to be the first of many albums slated to be pulled from the nearly 100 songs that Lynn and Cash have cut since 2007. Such a legacy-oriented project could well rival Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series, which stands as one of the great career victory laps by an iconic Americana artist. Judging by Full Circle, though, Lynn has plenty of performance fuel left in the tank before her race is run.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 3:48 PM with the headline "Review: Loretta Lynn, ‘Full Circle’."