Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose

Van Lear Rose, the 2004 album that paired Loretta Lynn with producer Jack White, comes back remastered and expanded with a bonus track, still one of the boldest late-career records in all of country music.

Lynn was 72 when she made it, and White, then 28, approached the job with obvious reverence and a healthy dose of garage-rock grit. She wrote the songs, most of them on her own, and the record became a major crossover success, winning two Grammy Awards. After it vanished from streaming services in 2021, its return through Third Man Records, the label White founded, feels long overdue.

The title track is a tender portrait rooted in the Kentucky coal country of her childhood, and Portland, Oregon is a swaggering, boozy duet with White that crackles with chemistry and humour. Little Red Shoes finds Lynn telling a childhood story in spoken word over hazy, drifting guitar.

This edition adds Just To Have You Back, a song that was previously available only to Third Man's vault subscribers and makes a fitting encore to the original running order.

Raw, funny and fearless, it is the sound of a country legend with nothing left to prove, still choosing to swing for the fences at every turn.