Country music legend, Loretta Lynn, who revolutionized the role of women in Nashville, has died. She was 90.
Her family confirmed that she passed away at her residence in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” the family said. They asked for privacy as they grieve and said a memorial will be announced later.
“It is not enough to say today that country music has lost Loretta Lynn, but rather the world has lost a true music legend,” says Sarah Trahern, CEO of the Country Music Association.
“Loretta was a woman whose contributions and impact inspired countless artists and transformed the country genre into a universal art form.
“She was a Country Music Hall of Fame member and the first woman to receive a CMA Award for Entertainer of the Year. As a trailblazing songwriter, she bravely wrote about socially and culturally relevant topics that came to define a generation. I’ll personally remember Loretta for her spirit, artistry and genius that rivaled contemporaries like Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney.”
She was born Loretta Webb in 1932, one of eight Webb children raised in Butcher Hollow in the Appalachian mining town of Van Lear, Kentucky.
Growing up, Lynn sang in church and at home, even as her father protested that everyone in Butcher Hollow could hear.
Lynn, who had no formal music training but spent hours every day singing her babies to sleep, was known to churn out fully textured songs in a matter of minutes. She just wrote what she knew.
Her family had little money. But those early years were some of her fondest memories, as she recounts in her 1971 hit, “Coal Miner’s Daughter”: “We were poor but we had love; That’s the one thing that daddy made sure of.”
As a young teenager, Loretta met the love of her life in Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, whom she affectionately called “Doo.”
The pair married when Lynn was 15 — a fact cleared up in 2012, after the Associated Press discovered Lynn was a few years older than she had said she was in her memoir — and Lynn gave birth to their first of six children the same year
She lived in poverty for much of her early life, began having kids by age 17.
The couple soon headed to Washington state in search of jobs.
Music wasn’t a priority for the young mother at first. She’d spend her days working, mostly, picking strawberries in Washington state while her babies sat on a blanket nearby.
But when her husband heard her humming tunes and soothing their babies to sleep, he said she sounded better than the girl singers on the radio.
He bought her a $17 Harmony guitar and got her a gig at a local tavern.
She spent years married to a man prone to drinking and philandering — all of which became material for her plainspoken songs.
Lynn’s life was rich with experiences most country stars of the time hadn’t had for themselves — but her female fans knew them intimately.
Lynn scored hits with fiery songs like “Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” which topped the country charts in 1966 and made her the first female country singer to write a No. 1 hit.
Her songs recounted family history, skewered lousy husbands and commiserated with women, wives and mothers everywhere.
The success of her first single landed Lynn on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and, soon, a contract with Decca Records. She quickly befriended country star Patsy Cline, who guided her through the fame and fashion of country stardom until her shocking death in a plane crash in 1963.
She documented her upbringing in the bestselling 1976 memoir “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” co-written with George Vecsey.
A 1980 biographical film by the same name won an Academy Award for actress Sissy Spacek and brought Lynn wider fame.
Lynn’s success also helped launch the music careers of her sisters, Peggy Sue Wright and Crystal Gayle.
Lynn won numerous awards throughout her career, including three Grammys and many honors from the Academy of Country Music.
She earned Grammys for her 1971 duet with Conway Twitty, “After the Fire is Gone,” and for the 2004 album “Van Lear Rose,” a collaboration with Jack White of the White Stripes that introduced her to a new generation of fans.