Album of the Month (March 2016): Loretta Lynn, ‘Full Circle’

By less than 2 percent, The Boot's readers have named Loretta Lynn's Full Circle the March 2016 Album of the Month. The country icon's new project beat out upcoming releases from, among others, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Granger Smith and producer Dave Cobb.

Due out on March 4, Full Circle will be Lynn’s first studio record under a multi-album deal with Legacy Recordings. She recorded the 14-track disc at Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tenn., with Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash as producers.

According to a press release, Full Circle “takes listeners on a journey through Loretta’s musical story, from the Appalachian folk songs and gospel music she learned as a child, to new interpretations of her classic hits and country standards, to songs newly written for the project.”

Among the tracks on Full Circle are a duet with Willie Nelson ("Lay Me Down") and "Everything It Takes," a song featuring guest vocals from Elvis Costello. Lynn calls the track, which she wrote herself, a “woman song — something more for a woman.”

“I wrote “Everything It Takes” real fast. I probably wrote it in 30 minutes,” Lynn recalls. “Sometimes I can write a song real fast, and sometimes it’ll take me two, three days. And I get so aggravated that I’ll probably lay it down and go back to it later. But that song came easy. I’ll come up with the title first and, when I come up with the title, I always know I got a good title.”

Lynn first met Costello four or five years ago, for work on a different project, and while the generational difference between the 83-year-old country legend and the 61-year-old British singer was instantly noticeable, the pair ended up working well together.

“We sat down in the studio to write a song. I had a piece of paper and a pencil, and he had a computer,” Lynn remembers. “So we looked at one another like, ‘What’s going to come out of this?’ He was laughing about it, but I didn’t think it was funny because that’s the way I write all my songs. When I write a song, I don’t want to be on a computer.”

Full Circle's complete track listing is below. Lynn’s first album of new recordings since 2004’s Van Lear Rose, her critically acclaimed collaboration with Jack White, the new release acts as Vol. 1 of the Cash Cabin Recordings, which will be a series of new projects created at Cash Cabin Studio. It is available for pre-order via Amazon and iTunes.

On Full Circle's release day, a new documentary, Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl, will make its debut on PBS. The show will explore Lynn’s road to stardom, from a rural Kentucky farm girl to a world-class superstar; it will also show the singer trying to maintain balance in her home life and career.

“I think I’ve done quite a bit,” Lynn reflects. “I’m probably one of the girl singers who have helped other girl singers get in the business, because it is harder for girls to get on labels and be out there.”

Loretta Lynn, Full Circle Track Listing:

1. “Whispering Sea (Introduction)”
2. “Whispering Sea”
3. “Secret Love”
4. “Who’s Gonna Miss Me?”
5. “Black Jack David”
6. “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven”
7. “Always on My Mind”
8. “Wine Into Water”
9. “In the Pines”
10. “Band of Gold”
11. “Fist City”
12. “I Never Will Marry”
13. “Everything It Takes” (featuring Elvis Costello)
14. “Lay Me Down” (featuring Willie Nelson)

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