NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Loretta Lynn, the daughter of a Kentucky coal miner whose heartfelt songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia lifted her from poverty to become a country music mainstay, has died. She was 90.
In a statement provided to the Associated Press, Lynn’s family said she died Tuesday at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
Lynn already had four children before starting her career in the early 1960s, and her songs reflected her pride in her rural Kentucky background.
As a songwriter, she created an image of a defiantly tough woman, unlike the stereotypical image of most country singers. The Country Music Hall of Famer wrote fearlessly about sex and love, cheating, divorce and birth control, and sometimes got in trouble with radio programmers for material that even rock artists once shied away from.
Her biggest hits came in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ ( With Lovin’ on Your Mind), “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at the Country”. She was known for appearing in sweeping floor-length gowns with intricate embroidery or rhinestones, many of which were created by her longtime personal assistant and designer, Tim Cobb.
Her honesty and unique place in country music has been rewarded. She was the first woman ever to be named Entertainer of the Year at two of the genre’s top awards ceremonies: first by the Country Music Association in 1972 and then by the Academy of Country Music three years later.
“That’s what I wanted to hear and what other women wanted to hear,” Lynn told the AP in 2016. – I did not write for men; I wrote for us women. And the men liked it, too.”
In 1969, she published her autobiographical book, The Miner’s Daughter, which helped her reach the widest possible audience.
“We were poor, but we had love / That’s the only thing daddy made sure of / He dug coal to make a poor man’s dollar,” she sang.
The Miner’s Daughter, also the title of her 1976 book, was made into a 1980 film of the same name. Sissy Spacek’s portrayal of Lynn won her an Academy Award, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture.
Long after her commercial peak, Lynn won two Grammys in 2005 for her album Van Lear Rose, which featured 13 songs she wrote, including “Portland, Oregon,” about a drunken one-night stand. “Van Lear Rose” was a collaboration with rocker Jack White, who produced the album and played guitar parts.
Born Loretta Webb, the second of eight children, she claimed her birthplace as Holler Butcher, near the coal-mining town of Van Lear in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. But in fact there was no Butcher-Huler. She later told a reporter that she came up with the title for the song based on the names of the families who lived there.
Her dad played the banjo, her mom played the guitar, and she grew up listening to the songs of the Carter family.
“I think I was singing when I was born,” she told the AP in 2016. – Dad would go out on the porch, where I would sing and rock the babies to sleep. He was saying, “Loretta, shut up” that big mouth. People all over that scream can hear you. And I say, “Dad, what’s the difference? They are all my cousins.’
She wrote in her autobiography that she was 13 when she married Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, but the AP later uncovered government documents that showed she was 15. Tommy Lee Jones played Mooney Lynn in the biopic.
Her husband, whom she called “Doo” or “Doolittle,” encouraged her to sing professionally and encouraged her early career. With his help, she got a recording contract with Decca Records, later MCA, and performed on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Lynn wrote her first hit, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” released in 1960.
She also teamed up with singer Conway Twitty to form one of the most popular duos in country music, with hits like “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” and “After the Fire is Gone,” which won them a Grammy Award. Their duets and her singles have always been mainstream country rather than crossover or pop-tinged.
The Academy of Country Music named her Artist of the Decade of the 1970s, and she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988.
In “Fist City,” Lynn threatens a hair-pulling fistfight if the other woman doesn’t stay away from her man: “I’m here to tell you, girl, fire my man / If you don’t wanna go to fist town.” This strong-willed but traditional country woman reappears in other Lynn songs. In “The Pill,” a song about sex and birth control, Lynn writes about how she’s tired of being trapped at home to take care of the kids: “Now feeling good comes easy / Because I’ve got the pill,” she sang.
In the 1990s, she moved to Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, outside of Nashville, where she created a ranch with a replica of her childhood home and a museum that is a popular roadside tourist stop. The dresses she was famous for are also there.
Lynn knew her songs were groundbreaking, especially for country music, but she was simply writing the truth that many country women like herself felt.
“I saw other women going through the same thing because I worked in the clubs. I wasn’t the only one who lived that life, and I’m not the only one who will be living it today,” she told the AP in 1995.
Even in her later years, Lynn never seemed to stop writing, signing a multi-album deal in 2014 with Legacy Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. In 2017, she suffered a stroke, due to which she was forced to postpone the shows.
She and her husband were married for almost 50 years until his death in 1996. They had six children: Betty, Jack, Ernest and Clara, followed by twins Patsy and Peggy. Had 17 grandchildren and four adopted grandchildren.
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