Country music legend Charlie Louvin entered into eternal rest on January 26, 2011 due to complications from his pancreatic cancer. He was 83 years old.
Born Charles Elzer Loudermilk on July 7, 1927, Charlie made it big, along with his brother Ira, as the Louvin brothers. The duo were innovators of the close-harmony style that influenced The Everly Brothers and, then later, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Gram Parson’s version of The Byrds and The Beach Boys. Ira was notorious for drinking and reckless behavior which led Charlie to eventually fire his brother. The next year, after a period of sobriety, Ira was killed when a drunk driver struck his car.
The Louvins were famous for singing about death, tortured relationships, drinking, sin, murder, and the eviscerating emptiness of this corrupt world.
"The Louvin Brothers preached a fire-and-brimstone theology of bottomless torment and endless grace. They sneered at moral relativism and shades of grey, opting for a black-and-white worldview that separated the world cleanly into sinners and saints, the redeemed and the damned. "-Nathan Rabin
"The Louvins’ Jesus isn’t some longhaired, namby-pamby peacenik in sandals and beads preaching brotherhood and love. No, he’s a badass warrior in perpetual combat with Satan’s hordes. "
"I'm not afraid of dying," Louvin told The Associated Press a few days after the diagnosis. "We're all going to do that. And I've had 83 years of almost uninterrupted good health, so I know that's not by accident. So I've been blessed that long, and I could use a couple more."
