Gold mine of country music hits
Loretta Lynn Singer-songwriter BORN APRIL 14, 1932 – DIED OCTOBER 4, 2022, AGED 90
REGARDED by many as the queen of country music, Loretta Lynn championed the voices of working class women and broke taboos with her lyrics, making her a standard bearer for women in the traditionally maledominated industry.
From impoverished beginnings in rural Kentucky, she emerged on the 1960s music scene with a clear, powerful voice. Her songs about infidelity, divorce, child-rearing and birth control, on feminist record The Pill, resonated with women. The singer’s biggest hits included Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind), You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man), Coal Miner’s Daughter and One’s On The Way.
Lynn was nominated for 18 Grammys and won three.
She wrote forthright lyrics from experience. She was born in the mining village of Butcher Hollow, the second of eight children to coal miner Melvin “Ted” Webb and Clare, who named her after her favourite film star, Loretta Young.
The family lived in a one-bedroom log cabin, miles away from the nearest town and Lynn received little formal education.
Her dresses were made of flour sacks, though lovingly sewn by her mother. She grew up listening to country music and was encouraged to sing at church from an early age.
Just before her 16th birthday, she married Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn.The couple moved to the logging town of Custer, Washington, and she had four of her six children before turning 19.
“Doo” bought her a cheap guitar so she could play for the children. Lynn’s early tracks centred on domestic frustrations and her husband’s violence, which she attributed to hard drinking.
She released I’m A Honky Tonk Girl in 1960 and signed with Zero Records. A year later she agreed a deal with Decca and 1962 hit Success was the first of 16 top 10 tracks that decade.
Settling in Nashville, Lynn toured with her band The Trailblazers and in the 70s formed a partnership with Conway Twitty.
The star was then absent from the music scene for 15 years while caring for her husband until his death in 1996. She enjoyed a minor career resurgence in the noughties but stopped touring after suffering a stroke in 2017.
The three-time Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988.
Lynn died peacefully at her home in Tennessee and is survived by four of her children.