 One of the most popular female singers of the new traditionalist movement,
Patty Loveless rose to stardom thanks to her blend of honky tonk and
country-rock, not to
mention a plaintive, emotional ballad style. Her late-'80s records for MCA were
generally quite popular, earning her comparisons to
Patsy Cline, but most critics agreed that she truly came into her own as an
artist when she moved to Epic in the early '90s.
Patty Loveless was born
Patricia Lee Ramey in Pikeville, KY, in 1957, and spent most of her
childhood in nearby Elkhorn City, where her father worked in the coal mines. Her
immediate family loved music, and two of her distant cousins later found fame as
Loretta Lynn and
Crystal Gayle. Unfortunately, her father contracted black lung disease,
forcing the family to move from their rural home to Louisville for the sake of
convenient medical treatment.
Patty Loveless found escape from the culture shock in music, and her father gave her
a guitar when she was 11. Soon she was singing and writing songs with her older
brother Roger, and the two started performing at local country jamborees. At one
such show,
the Wilburn Brothers caught their act and gave them a standing invitation to
Nashville. Roger and a 14-year-old
Patty Loveless made the trip on a weekend when
the Wilburns were out of town, but managed to talk their way into
Porter Wagoner's office instead, impressing him with a performance of
Patty Loveless' original "Sounds of Loneliness."
Wagoner took
Patty Loveless under his wing, inviting her to perform with him and
Dolly Parton on the weekends. In 1973, after finishing high school, she
became a featured vocalist with
the Wilburn Brothers' band (a post once held by
Loretta Lynn), and also signed with their publishing company. She later
married the band's drummer, Terry Lovelace, and moved to his hometown near
Charlotte, NC, in 1976. There she sang pop, rock, and R&B material with a local
cover band for several years, and endured bouts with alcoholism and drug use. In
the early '80s, she returned home, hired her brother Roger as her manager, and
altered the spelling of her married name to
Patty Loveless. After traveling to Nashville to record demos of country songs, she
landed a publishing deal with Acuff-Rose, and moved to Nashville permanently in
1985; she also divorced Lovelace around the same time, and her demo tape
impressed MCA exec
Tony Brown enough that he offered her a contract later that year.
With Roger's producer friend
Emory Gordy, Jr. at the controls,
Patty Loveless released her first chart single, "Lonely Days, Lonely Nights," and
her self-titled debut album in 1986. She enjoyed some modest success, but didn't
really make a splash until the 1988 follow-up If My Heart Had Windows, which
gave her two Top Ten hits in the title cut (originally recorded by
George Jones) and
Steve Earle's "A Little Bit of Love." Late in 1988, she released the
follow-up album that made her a star, Honky Tonk Angel. "Timber, I'm Falling in
Love" became her first number one hit in 1989, and three more singles -- "Blue
Side of Town," "Don't Toss Us Away," and "The Lonely Side of Love" -- reached
the Top Ten before year's end, by which time
Patty Loveless had married producer
Gordy. In 1990, the album's fifth single, "Chains," became her second number
one. Her next album, On Down the Line, came out later that year and brought her
two Top Five hits in the title cut and "I'm That Kind of Girl." Following 1991's
Up Against My Heart and its Top Five hit "Hurt Me Bad (In a Real Good Way),"
Patty Loveless made some major changes in her career. She parted ways with her
brother as manager, and switched labels to Epic, taking husband
Gordy with her as producer; moreover, she was forced to undergo throat
surgery to repair her vocal cords before she was able to complete her label
debut.
Only What I Feel was released in early 1993 and earned
Patty Loveless the best reviews of her career to date, thanks to a newfound level
of confidence. The number one smash "Blame It on Your Heart" helped the record
go platinum, and "How Can I Help You Say Goodbye?" and "You Will" also went Top
Ten. 1994's When Fallen Angels Fly won equal acclaim, not to mention the CMA's
Album of the Year award; it spun off four Top Ten hits in "I Try to Think About
Elvis," "Halfway Down," "You Don't Even Know Who I Am," and "Here I Am." 1996's
The Trouble With the Truth continued
Patty Loveless' renaissance with two more number one smashes, "You Can Feel Bad
(If It Makes You Feel Better)" and "Lonely Too Long," and the Top Five "She Drew
a Broken Heart"; that year, she won the ACM's Female Vocalist of the Year award.
However, 1997's Long Stretch of Lonesome abruptly halted her commercial
momentum; despite a similar level of consistency, none of its singles made the
Top Ten. Perhaps a shift toward slick country-pop played a role in
Patty Loveless' sales slump, as 2000's solid Strong Heart met with a similar fate.
In response,
Patty Loveless turned away from hitmaking and embraced the acoustic Kentucky
bluegrass of her youth, which was enjoying a renaissance of its own thanks to O
Brother, Where Art Thou? The result, Mountain Soul, was released in 2001 and
earned numerous critical plaudits, also selling decently in spite of its lack of
concern for commercialism.
Patty Loveless kept that acoustic approach for her 2002 holiday album Bluegrass
and White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, and it also informed her proper follow-up,
2003's On Your Way Home. The ambitious Dreaming My Dreams appeared two years
later. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
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