NASHVILLE, Tenn. — When Charlie Louvin paired his voice with his brother Ira’s on their first recordings in the late 1940s, they released a sound wave that still ripples through music six decades later.
As half of the Louvin Brothers, Charlie Louvin helped perfect a brand of harmony that enchanted listeners with its purity and honesty. The influence can still be heard at the top of the charts today in pop, country and rock ‘n’ roll.
Louvin, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Grand Ole Opry, died Wednesday at his home in Wartrace, about 50 miles southeast of Nashville. The 83-year-old had suffered pancreatic cancer for about six months.
The Louvin Brothers’ sound spread hypnotically over the airwaves and through the loving touch of a phonograph arm, instantly charming and inciting listeners to go ahead and try to reach the perfection of two brothers joined in making a sound that is nearly impossible to reproduce.
“He really changed the world of music, Charlie did,” Emmylou Harris said in an e-mail. “I know that, for me, hearing the Louvin Brothers brought me that fierce love of harmony.”
Like a game of 6,000 degrees of separation, their influence was passed around from the Everly Brothers to the Beatles and the Beach Boys, from Gram Parsons to Harris and the Byrds, and passed on again and again to the kids of a new century like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, the Secret Sisters and legion high harmony lovers.
The Louvin Brothers disbanded in 1963, and Ira was killed two years later in a Missouri auto accident. John Rumble, senior historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said Charlie Louvin helped keep the duo’s memory alive throughout the rest of his career, often incorporating Louvin Brothers material with his own.
They had just a dozen hits or so in the 1950s and early ’60s, most notably “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby,” which was No. 1 in 1955. Rumble noted that the song managed to ascend to No. 1 despite the spread of rock ‘n’ roll by then.
The brothers decided to disband their duo after differences in personality and Ira’s drinking created friction between them, but Charlie said they probably would have reunited if Ira had lived.
Louvin recorded regularly after his brother died, most recently releasing “The Battle Rages On,” a collection of war songs, last winter. His biggest solo hits were “I Don’t Love You Anymore” in 1964 and “See the Big Man Cry” in 1965.
