Loretta Lynn performing on stage in California in 1972.
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Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Loretta Lynn performing on stage in California in 1972.
Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Loretta Lynn, the country music icon who brought unparalleled light on the domestic realities of working-class women into country music composition – and taught those who came after her to speak her mind, too. they – passed away today at her home in Tennessee. She was 90 years old.
“Our precious mother, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, sleeping at home on her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” her family said in a statement.
“The story of Loretta Lynn’s life is unlike any other, but she draws from it a work that resonates with those who may never fully understand the bleak childhood and her remoteness, her difficult early days, or her adventures as a famous and beloved celebrity,” said Kyle Young, CEO of the Museum and Country Music Hall, said in a statement. “In a music business often concerned with aspiration and fantasy, Loretta is determined to share her own brave and courageous truth.”
Born Loretta Webb, the singer grew up in a remote coal mining community in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. One of the biggest songs of her career, “Miner’s Daughter,” proudly recounts her background.
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Lynn was just a teenager when she started a family of her own with a 21-year-old military veteran, Oliver Lynn, better known as “Mooney” or “Doolittle”. They wasted no time having the first of their six children, and immigrating to Washington state. It was there that her husband heard her bedtime lullabies and motivated her to start performing publicly. In a 2010 interview with Clean airShe insists she wouldn’t do it otherwise: “I wouldn’t go out in front of people. I’m really shy and I would never sing in front of anyone.”
When her husband started paying for her gigs, Lynn taught herself to write songs, says journalist and country music historian Robert Oermann.
“She has a copy of Country song Roundup“Speaks Oermann – a magazine that prints country lyrics and stories about musicians.” She’ll read country lyrics in the magazine, and she’ll say, “It’s okay. I can do it.’ And she could, and has been.”
Lynn and her husband drove around the radio stations, where she would introduce herself to the DJs and try to get them to spin her record. These efforts began to be noticed by Lynn when the pair landed in Nashville in 1960. Artists such as Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline – who became Lynn’s mentor – enjoyed much success with a sweet, lush production style known as Nashville Sound. Lynn has worked with Cline’s producer, Owen Bradley, but still clings to her volatile relationship.
Country songs often depict hardship from a male perspective, but Lynn isn’t afraid to speak out about the outrages she endured in her marriage, or the double standards she sees other women. faced with divorce, pregnancy, and birth control. She found that Nashville was not used to this kind of frankness.
Eastern Kentucky musician Angela Presley was raised on her mother’s Loretta Lynn profile, and realized what they must have meant to women in previous generations.
“I assert that there were probably a lot of women during that time, especially in the country,” she said, “who thought, “I really am not allowed to say anything if my husband wants to drink.” alcohol. He does it all. daytime. He deserves to drink at night and come home and do what he wants. And I will clean the house and raise the children. ‘ And [Lynn] say no. It’s not okay, and you can say it’s not okay. ‘”
Presley says Lynn’s views “have contributed greatly to the feminist movement,” especially in rural areas of the country. “I felt she was the voice,” says Presley, “even if she’s never actively spoken out as a feminist, her songs certainly have.”
No less than 51 songs among them became Top 10 country songs on the Billboard charts. In 1972, Lynn was the first woman to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. She was subsequently inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1988, and the Composers Hall of Fame in 2008. She was also recognized with the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the Honors. Presidential Freedom chapter in 2013.
Though their relationship was complicated, Lynn and Doolittle remained married until his death in 1996. (Lynn also made sure fans know that her long-term musical partnership with Conway is. Twitter is just business.) Lynn continues to perform and record into the new millennium, engaging younger audiences through her collaborations with Jack White.
But the key to Lynn’s enduring appeal is that she never loses touch with her identity as a modern and idyllic country woman who can convey that to the crowd in throughout his career.
“The idea that I could be here on stage singing this song, but I’m no better than you. I to be you,” said journalist Oermann. That kind of message. That humility is a really powerful and beautiful thing. “
That approach has always informed her writing; Lynn’s courage is as evident today in the music she left behind.
“I like real life, because that’s what we’re doing today,” Lynn told All things Considered in 2004. “And I think that’s why people buy my records, because they live in this world. And so do I. So I see what’s going on and I take hold of it. take it.”
