Loretta Lynn Reflects on 50 Years of Excellence and Many More to Come

By Robert K. Oermann

© 2010 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association® Inc.

Even though she is marking her 50th anniversary in show business with more than 50 albums released, Loretta Lynn isn’t missing a beat. In fact, she pointed out, “I’ve been recording my butt off. You know, I’ve only ever had one Christmas album, so I’m recording another one. I’m doing all of my biggest hits all over again, so that I’ll own them instead of a record company. I’ve done a religious album. I’ve got 50-some songs cut. So I’ve been real busy.”

Lynn is constantly writing songs too, with collaborators including Shawn Camp. She remains involved with and gives special concerts at the Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. She also continues to tour. What’s more, she still sells out her solo concerts.

“Are you ready for this one?” she asked. “I’ve been in this business 50 years. And I turn them away. In San Antonio, Texas, they were in line at least three blocks, trying to get in. I got onstage and told them, ‘I don’t know what you all see in me. The last time I looked in the mirror, I scared me!’

“I just keep on truckin,’” the Kentucky native continued. “I never knew how long I’d been in the business. I didn’t realize it was my 50th anniversary until my daughter Patsy told me.”

Observance of this milestone is taking several forms. Lynn is, for example, the focus of this year’s Grammy Salute to Country Music, marked by a gala at the Ryman Auditorium in October and highlighted by presentation of The Recording Academy President’s Merit Award to Lynn “in honor of her dynamic career and contributions to Country Music.”

“We are delighted to be paying homage to Loretta Lynn,” said Neil Portnow, President/CEO, The Recording Academy. “She has worked diligently to ensure that Country Music remains a vital part of our culture and has paved the way for many of today’s talented artists and likely for generations to come.”

2010 is also the 30th anniversary of the Oscar-winning film “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” Lynn’s autobiography, which inspired the film, has been republished and issued as an e-book and as an audio book narrated by Sissy Spacek, who won an Academy Award for portraying Lynn in the film. Published originally in 1976, Coal Miner’s Daughter was on The New York Times best seller list; the reissue includes a new foreword by Lynn.

“I have reread Coal Miner’s Daughter, and I think it’s still a good book,” Lynn said. “I really do. I think that’s why it was such a seller. It stayed No. 1 on the book-selling lists for four or five weeks.”
On Nov. 9, another honor comes to Lynn as Columbia Nashville releases Coal Miner’s Daughter: A Tribute to Loretta Lynn, an all-star celebration of her timeless tunes. Performers include Steve Earle and Allison Moorer (“After the Fire Is Gone”), Faith Hill (“Love Is the Foundation”), Alan Jackson and Martina McBride (“Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man”), Kid Rock (“I Know How”), Reba McEntire featuring the Time Jumpers (“If You’re Not Gone Too Long”), Paramore (“You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man)”), Carrie Underwood (“You’re Lookin’ at Country”), The White Stripes (“Rated X”), Lucinda Williams (“Somebody Somewhere (Don’t Know What He’s Missin’ Tonight)”), Gretchen Wilson (“Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind)”) and Lee Ann Womack (“I’m a Honky Tonk Girl”). Additionally, Sheryl Crow and Miranda Lambert join Lynn on “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

“Loretta was the driving force in choosing the artists,” said Gary Overton, Chairman/CEO, Sony Music Nashville. “Among the artists on this album, there’s a genuine reverence for her and a real pride in being part of her 50th year of making music. If anyone has earned the right to be considered Country royalty, it’s Loretta.”

“Every one of them on the album wanted me to call them and pick their song,” said Lynn. “I said, ‘No, I want you to pick the song.’ I wanted them to pick the song that they can sing best. Miranda was cutting ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter.’ When she started singing, she started crying — like to never got her stopped. Her mother was crying. Her father was crying. But she did a real good job.”

Other contributions were equally memorable. “Of course, me and Martina have always been close, ever since she came to Nashville and got on the Grand Ole Opry,” Lynn said. “But you know what? I’m almost afraid to get too close to other singers. Patsy (Cline) was my close friend, and she passed away. Tammy (Wynette) was my second closest friend, and we lost her. So I’m scared to get so close to singers anymore.”

Coincidentally, this year’s celebration began almost on the exact date of her anniversary in the business. At the Grammy Awards on Jan. 31, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy. And on Feb. 1, 1960, she signed her first recording contract.

“I did not know that!” she exclaimed, when told of this happenstance. “Hey, that’s great. You know where I was when they discovered me? Some people had this chicken house. They fumigated and turned it into a club.”

That venue, appropriately named The Chicken Coop (in Vancouver British Columbia, Canada), drew a stellar assembly one night that Lynn was performing there. “We went into that chicken house, and there were a bunch of bigwigs who came in to listen to me,” she recalled. “It was Norm Burley; he owned a big lumberyard in Vancouver. He came over to me and said, ‘Let’s make a record.’ I said, ‘I don’t know how.’ He said, ‘I don’t either. But we’ll learn together.’ That’s how it started. I hadn’t been singing three months (in front of audiences) when I first recorded.”

Within a week of signing with the Burley-backed Zero Records label, Lynn was in Los Angeles, recording her self-penned debut single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” Zero manager Don Grashey accompanied her to L.A. and supervised the session.

“I almost passed out,” Lynn said. “They flew me to L.A. — scared me to death. Doo (husband Oliver “Mooney” Lynn) had gotten me a little old pocketbook, the first pocketbook I ever had. And I twisted the handles off of that pocketbook as we were going up in that plane. I had never flown before. I hadn’t done nothing before. I got married too young (at 13). I had four kids before we even thought about me singing.”

That thought occurred one night when, as Lynn recalled, “Doo heard me singing, getting the babies to sleep. One day he said to me, ‘I think I’m going to put you out in a tavern and see if you can’t make us some money.' I said, ‘Doing what?’”

Once people heard her, things moved quickly. In Tacoma, Wash., she won a talent contest hosted by Buck Owens. Within months, she was appearing on Pacific Northwest radio and television shows. In the spring of 1960, she and her husband drove across the country, promoting “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl” at every radio station they could find. Against all odds, it worked. The song became a hit, and her career was born.

“I sure do miss going to the radio stations,” she said wistfully. “Me and the disc jockeys always worked with one another. Every time they wore out one record of mine, they got a new one. We were real close. Now the disc jockeys don’t even get to pick the music they play. This is terrible.”

The radio journey brought her to Nashville, where Lynn became a popular favorite on the Grand Ole Opry stage. She was inducted into the show’s cast in 1962. In 1967, she won her first CMA Award as Female Vocalist of the Year. She repeated her Female Vocalist wins in 1972 and 1973, and she and Conway Twitty won four consecutive CMA Awards for Vocal Duo of the Year from 1972 through 1975. In 1972, she became the first woman to win CMA Entertainer of the Year.

Lynn’s humorous candor and verve endeared her to TV talk show hosts and national magazines. Her feisty individualism delighted fans with both her writing and performance on “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind)” (a co-write with Peggy Sue Wells), “Fist City,” “The Pill,” “Rated X” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man),” among many other titles. She was equally believable when interpreting the songs of others, including Johnny Mullins’ “Blue Kentucky Girl,” William Cody Hall’s “Love Is the Foundation” and Shel Silverstein’s “One’s on the Way.”

Lynn continues to produce vital new work long after achieving legend status. Inducted into the CMA’s Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988, she joined Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette five years later for their landmark Honky Tonk Angels album. More recently, after being feted at the annual Kennedy Center Honors in 2003, she followed in 2004 with Van Lear Rose, produced by rocker Jack White of The White Stripes. The project won Lynn her second and third Grammy Awards, for Best Country Album and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals; her first had come in 1971, when “After the Fire Is Gone,” which she recorded with Twitty, won for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Reflecting on her half-century career, Lynn insisted, “Listen, you don’t do this by yourself. You don’t make it by yourself. It’s the people out there that make you.”

But Overton puts it this way: “The magic of Loretta Lynn is that she has never changed. For five decades, she has been writing and singing about real life as she’s known it, connecting with generations of fans who’ve found themselves drawn to a woman who is entertaining, fun and always wonderfully genuine. To know Loretta Lynn is to love Loretta Lynn.”

There will be a special tribute to Loretta Lynn on “The 44th Annual CMA Awards,” broadcast live on the ABC Television Network on Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 8/7c from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

CMA created the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 to recognize individuals for their outstanding contributions to the format with Country Music’s highest honor. Inductees are chosen by CMA’s Hall of Fame Panels of Electors, which consist of anonymous voters appointed by the CMA Board of Directors.