"People forget that I'm a songwriter,"
Loretta Lynn once said. "They think of me as just a lady up on the stage, with a band backing her up. Well, let me tell you, I've sat in my room all night, scratching out most of my songs."
Lynn still scratches out songs that scratch the soul -- with or without recent collaborator Jack White's imprimatur. Lest we forget, her honky-tonk albums of the last two decades (especially 2000's
Still Country) quash the facile notion that country is a conservative soundtrack. The voice behind "Rated 'X'," "The Pill" and "Dear Uncle Sam" -- which succinctly told the truth about war and has returned to her live sets -- has always begged to differ. Lynn's "Fist City" isn't a place. It's a promise -- literally to punch out a hussy, metaphorically to assert her brand of feminism -- that her contrarian wit and unrepentant honesty still keep.
Show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $21.32 to $63.95; call 314-770-8100 for more information.
