REAL
COUNTRY
MUSIC
JUKEBOX
Loretta Lynn
Loretta Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932, in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. She is the eldest daughter and second child born to Clara Marie "Clary" and Melvin "Ted" Webb. Ted was a coal miner and subsistence farmer. She was named after the film star Loretta Young. On January 10, 1948, 15-year-old Loretta Webb married Oliver Vanetta "Doolittle" Lynn better known as "Doolittle", "Doo", or "Mooney". They had met only a month earlier. The Lynn's left Kentucky and moved to the logging community of Custer, Washington, when Loretta was seven months pregnant with the first of their six children. The happiness and heartache of her early years of marriage would help to inspire Lynn's songwriting. In 1953, Doolittle bought her a $17 Harmony guitar. She taught herself to play the instrument, and over the following three years, she worked to improve her guitar playing. With Doolittle's encouragement, she started her own band, Loretta and the Trailblazers, with her brother Jay Lee playing lead guitar. She often appeared at Bill's Tavern in Blaine, Washington, and the Delta Grange Hall in Custer, Washington, with the Pen Brothers' band and the Westerneers. She cut her first record, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl", in February 1960. She became a part of
the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s. In 1967, she had the first of 16 No. 1 hits, out of 70 charted songs as a solo artist and a duet partner. Her later hits include "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter".
Lynn focused on blue-collar women's issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses. Her music was inspired by issues she faced in her marriage. She pushed boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control ("The Pill"), repeated childbirth ("One's on the Way"), double standards for men and women ("Rated 'X'"), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War ("Dear Uncle Sam").
Country music radio stations often refused to play her music, banning nine of her songs, but Lynn pushed on to become one of country music's legendary artists.
Her best-selling 1976 autobiography, Coal Miner's Daughter, was made into an Academy Award–winning film of the same title in 1980, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. Spacek won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as Lynn. Her album Van Lear Rose, released in 2004, was produced by the alternative rock musician Jack White. Lynn and White were nominated for five Grammys and won two.
Lynn has received numerous awards in country and American music. She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008, and she was honored in 2010 at the Country Music Awards. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2013. Lynn has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since joining on September 25, 1962. Her debut appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was on October 15, 1960. Lynn has recorded 70 albums, including 54 studio albums, 15 compilation albums, and one tribute album.
​
Lynn began singing in local clubs in the late 1950s. She later formed her own band, the Trailblazers, which included her brother Jay Lee Webb. Lynn won a wristwatch in a televised talent contest in Tacoma, Washington, hosted by Buck Owens. Lynn's performance was seen by Canadian Norm Burley of Zero Records, who co-founded the record company after hearing Loretta sing.
Zero Records president, Canadian Don Grashey, arranged a recording session in Hollywood, where four of Lynn's compositions were recorded, including "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl", "Whispering Sea", "Heartache Meet Mister Blues", and "New Rainbow". Her first release featured "Whispering Sea" and "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl". Lynn signed her first contract on February 2, 1960, with Zero. Her album was recorded at United Western Recorders in Hollywood, engineered by Don Blake and produced by Grashey. Musicians who played on the songs were steel guitar player Speedy West, fiddler Harold Hensely, guitarist Roy Lanham, Al Williams on bass, and Muddy Berry on drums. Lynn commented on the different sound of her first record: "Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville sound ... It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat".
The Lynns toured the country to promote the release to country stations, while Grashey and Del Roy took the music to KFOX in Long Beach, California. When the Lynns reached Nashville, the song was a hit, climbing to No. 14 on Billboard's Country and Western chart, and Lynn began cutting demo records for the Wilburn Brothers Publishing Company. Through the Wilburns, she secured a contract with Decca Records. The first Loretta Lynn Fan Club formed in November 1960. By the end of the year, Billboard magazine listed Lynn as the No. 4 Most Promising Country Female Artist.
Lynn's relationship with the Wilburn Brothers and her appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, beginning in 1960, helped Lynn become the No. 1 female recording artist in country music. Her contract with the Wilburn Brothers gave them the publishing rights to her material. She unsuccessfully fought the Wilburn Brothers for 30 years to regain the publishing rights to her songs after ending her business relationship with them. Lynn stopped writing music in the 1970s because of the contracts. Lynn joined The Grand Ole Opry on September 25, 1962.
Lynn has credited Patsy Cline as her mentor and best friend during her early years in music. In 2010, when interviewed for Jimmy McDonough's biography of Tammy Wynette, Tammy Wynette: Tragic Country Queen, Loretta said of having best friends in Patsy and Tammy during different times: "Best friends are like husbands. You only need one at a time.
Lynn released her first Decca single "Success" in 1962, and it went straight to No. 6, beginning a string of top 10 singles that would run throughout the 1970s. Lynn began to regularly hit the Top 10 after 1964 with songs such as "Before I'm Over You", which peaked at No. 4, followed by "Wine, Women and Song," which peaked at No. 3. In late 1964, she recorded a duet album with Ernest Tubb. Their lead single, "Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be", peaked within the Top 15. Together, the pair recorded two more albums, "Singin' Again" (1967) and "If we Put Our Heads Together" (1969). In 1965, her solo
career continued with three major hits, "Happy Birthday", "Blue Kentucky Girl" and "The Home You're Tearing Down". Lynn's label issued two albums that year, "Songs from My Heart" and "Blue Kentucky Girl".
Lynn's first self-penned song to crack the Top 10, 1966's "Dear Uncle Sam", was among the very first recordings to recount the human costs of the Vietnam War. Her 1966 hit "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" made Lynn the first country female recording artist to write a No. 1 hit. She continued to have top 10 hits throughout the 60's.
In 1971, Lynn began a professional partnership with Conway Twitty. As a duo, Lynn and Twitty had five consecutive No. 1 hits between 1971 and 1975, including "After the Fire Is Gone" (1971), which won them a Grammy award, "Lead Me On" (1971), "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" (1973), "As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone" (1974), and "Feelins'" (1974). For four consecutive years, 1972–1975, Lynn and Twitty were named the "Vocal Duo of the Year" by the Country Music Association. The Academy of Country Music named them the "Best Vocal Duet" in 1971, 1974, 1975 and 1976. The American Music awards selected them as the "Favorite Country Duo" in 1975, 1976 and 1977. The fan-voted Music City News readers voted them the No. 1 duet every year between 1971 and 1981, inclusive. In addition to their five No. 1 singles, they had seven other Top 10 hits between 1976 and 1981.
Even with her great success as a duet, Lynn continues to cut singles on her own and in 2000, Lynn released the studio album Still Country. While earning strong reviews, the set did not match her earlier successes in terms of sales. Lynn explored other outlets around this time as well, penning the 2002 memoir Still Woman Enough. She also struck up an unlikely friendship with Jack White of the alternative rock band the White Stripes. Lynn performed with the band in 2003, and White ended up producing her next album, Van Lear Rose (2004).
A commercial and critical smash hit, Van Lear Rose injected new life into Lynn's career. "Jack was a kindred spirit," Lynn explained to Vanity Fair magazine. White was similarly effusive in his praise: "I want as many people as possible on earth to hear her, because she's the greatest female singer-songwriter of the last century," he told Entertainment Weekly. The pair won two Grammy Awards for their work, for best country collaboration with vocals for the song "Portland, Oregon" and for best country album. Lynn has had several health scares and is taken it easy now days but still enjoys reminiscing about her career and success.
