Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn was a country-music icon and one of the few from country's '60s heyday to still be making hits in the late 2010s. As one of her signature songs says, she was a "coal miner's daughter" born in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky; she had seven siblings including Crystal Gayle, also a future country star. After her family moved to northern Washington, she got a guitar and played clubs with her first band, Loretta & the Trailblazers. During a California stay in February 1960 she cut her first single, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl." Released on the tiny Zero label, it wasn't a hit initially but showed its importance over time. It was an early example of the "Bakersfield sound"-- country with a string backbeat, steel guitar and stripped-down production. And its lyrics told a gritty real-life story, a trademark of Lynn's hits to come. She came to Nashville soon after and joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1962. Famed producer Owen Bradley oversaw that year's single, "Success," the first of many Top Ten hits. Though Lynn didn't write the latter, she did write most of the hits that followed. She addressed the Vietnam War on "Dear Uncle Sam" but her preferred territory was sexual politics. "Fist City," "Rated X" and "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' (With Loving on Your Mind)" all showed her to be one of the most outspoken women of the time; and while she was occasionally banned on country radio, the songs were all successful. The songs also reflected the turmoil in her marriage to her manager, Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn, yet they remained married until his death in 1996. The '70s began with the success of "Coal Miner's Daughter" and brought two wildly different takes on motherhood, "One's on the Way" and "The Pill." With the 1980 release of the biographical movie "Coal Miner's Daughter," Lynn was fully established as a legend; Sissy Spacek won the Oscar for portraying her. Though the hits leveled off somewhat she continued making albums-- including numerous duets with Conway Twitty and a high-profile trio album with Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette, 1993's "Honky Tonk Angels." She won numerous awards including a Lifetime Achievement Grammy and in 2013 was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. She also had a late-career surprise hit with 2004's Van Lear Rose, produced by rock star Jack White who emulated the sound and spirit of her earliest records. She waited another dozen years to record again, this time with a trio of albums produced by her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell and John Carter Cash. 2016's "Full Circle" included duets with Elvis Costello (who had previously covered both "Success" and "Honky Tonk Girl") and Willie Nelson. 2018 brought "Wouldn't It Be Great" combining new original songs with remakes of tunes from different points in her career. The album's release was delayed due to health issues; in late 2018 she was recovering from a stroke and a broken hip. Loretta Lynn died on October 4, 2022 in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, at the age of 90.