Album Review: COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn

2011 saw the release of at least two country music tribute albums.  One of these collections is a long-overdue salute to country queen, Loretta Lynn.  Appropriately titled "Coal Miner's Daughter: A Tribute To Loretta Lynn", this colletion features twelve songs from a variety of artists that span various genres of music. 
There are several highlights on this album, all of which are the songs by actual country music artists.  The other acts fall short in their efforts to put their own spin on these classic songs.  As we hear from some of country's best, you just don't mess too much with the real thing.  Take Faith Hill's rendition of "Love Is The Foundation" as an example.  This is the best tribute you can ask for.  Faith simply lent her voice to a beautiful song and kept the arrangement the same as the original.  I wouldn't be surprised if Loretta felt this song was the best on the album.  Faith Hill needs to record her own album of tribute songs.

Other memorable recordings on "Coal Miner's Daughter..." included Carrie Underwood's very nice version of "You're Lookin' At Country".  Gretchen Wilson leads the album off with "Don't Come Home A Drinkin" (with lovin' on your mind)".  Alan Jackson and Martina McBride have one of two of the albums Lorretta Lynn/Conway Twitty duets.  Their version of "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" is one of the album's best songs.  The last song on the album is Lorett's signature song, "Coal Miner's Daughter", performed by Loretta herself, with Sheryl Crow and Miranda Lambert.  Loretta and Miranda were fine, but I could have done without Sheryl.  Dolly Parton would have been much better on this song.

That leads me to the other (mostly non-country) acts who contributed to this album.  What's the point here?  Kid Rock? The White Stripes? Paramore???  Ok, scratch Paramore.  The female rock band actually did a pretty nice job on "You Ain't Woman Enough (to take my man)".  But the others were terrible.  Lucinda Williams sounded like a drunken Lacy J. Dalton on "Somebody Somewhere".  On the Loretta/Conway song "After The Fire Is Gone", Steve Earle and Allison Moorer showed us how NOT to do a duet.  Don't ask Steve Earle to sing with you. 

Reba teams up with The Time Jumpers to sing the little known western swing song, "If You're Not Gone Too Long".  This is one that I'm not very familiar with.  I had to listen to it three times before I could write something.  At the end of the day, it's not bad.  Equally not bad is Lee AnnWomack's version of "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl".  It's just ok, compared to the other country songs on the cd.  Finally we return to The White Stripes and Kid Rock who had their own contributions to this cd.  The Stripes did "Rated X".  It was fairly miserable to listen to.  But compared to Kid Rock's version of "I Know How", it guess it was decent.  Why somebody would ask Kid Rock to sing on a Loretta Lynn tribute is beyond me?

This is a pretty good album that could have been great.  All they had to do was keep it country, with country singers and country arrangements.  Just listening to the contrast between The White Stripes and Carrie Underwood (who's songs are next to each other) you can tell the differenc between a country album and the other.  But if you love Loretta Lynn, this cd is woth the purchase price, if only for songs 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 12.  I give this album 3 out of 5 cowboy hats.