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| The Jay Moore in the Morning Show Classic Country radio station MOOSE COUNTRY 106.7 WATQ-FM hit the air waves on May 26, 1997 with Jay at the helm. This page will spotlight some of the artists that formed the foundation of Country music as we love it. |
PERFORMER: LORETTA (WEBB) LYNN – Born in Butcher Hollow,
Kentucky, April 14,1935 (Her Johnson County, Kentucky birth certificate #189-
91253 gives her date of birth as April 14, 1932, however, 1935 is most often
recognized at the correct date.) Was named after screen legend Loretta Young. She
has Native American Cherokee ancestry on her mother’s side. Loretta Lynn is 5'2"
and measures 37-25-36 (according to her dresser).
Her parents are Melvin "Ted" Webb, a coal miner by trade, and Clara Marie
(Ramey) Webb Butcher (married Tommy Butcher, Butcher Hollow in Kentucky was
named for his family, after Ted died), a nurse. Loretta was the second of eight
children. Three of her siblings also pursued country careers—her youngest sister,
Crystal Gayle, sister Peggy Sue and brother Jay Lee Webb.
HOW DID SHE GET STARTED?
Born and raised in the poor coal mining mountains of Kentucky, Loretta gained her
earliest musical experiences by singing at church. She remembers at age seven
crying her eyes out when the family hog chewed the only dress she owned that
wasn’t made from flour sacks. Her parents struggled to put food on the table —
once a week, says Lynn, they ate possum, rabbit or raccoon caught in traps her
mother set.
1940
At age eleven Loretta met Oliver (Doolittle, Doo, Mooney) Lynn**, an older boy who
was joining the army. He came back and on January 10, 1948, at age 13, she
dropped out of the sixth grade to marry 21-year-old Mooney. Her parents were
heartbroken. “He kissed me," says Lynn. "Well, I had never been kissed before."
One month later, they were married. But the honeymoon was an ugly affair. "I had
no idea what was going on," recalls Lynn. "I knew one thing. I didn't like what was
going on." She adds that: "He'd hit me around, y'know, smack me and hit me, bloody
noses and blue eyes, and stuff like that. … I'm tellin' you things that's never been
told before. Lord have mercy!"
Soon after their marriage, she got pregnant. Doolittle left her for another girl for four
months. Loretta moved back home with her parents. He came back in her seventh
month of pregnancy and they started over.
In an effort to break free of the coal mining industry, Doolittle hitchhiked to Custer,
Washington, got a job on a farm there, and sent for Loretta, who arrived soon after
by train. They lived on a farm, where Doolittle had set up a still and sold moonshine
to the locals (he got the nickname "Mooney"). Loretta cleaned houses, picked
strawberries, and cooked for the other farmhands. In '49 she gave birth to her first
daughter. By the time she was 17, Lynn was the mother of four. In all, the Lynns had
six children - Betty Sue, Jack Benny, Clara Marie (Cissy), Ernest Ray, and twins
Peggy and Patsy (named after Patsy Cline).
1950
Before her marriage, Loretta regularly sang at churches and in local concerts. After
she married, she stopped singing in public, wishing rather to focus on her family life.
On her 18th birthday, Mooney bought her a $17.00 Harmony guitar. She taught
herself to play and when she was 24, on her wedding anniversary, he encouraged
her to become a singer. Lynn started writing songs. "I thought you have to write to
sing, you know," she says. "I thought everybody that sang wrote their own songs."
She started singing at the Delta Grange Hall in Washington State with the Pen
Brothers' band, The Westerners.
After that, Loretta began singing in local clubs in 1959 and later formed her own
band, The Trailblazers, which included her brother Willie Lee “Jay” Webb (he died of
pancreatic cancer in 1994).
Lynn appeared in a televised Tacoma, Washington talent contest, hosted by Buck
Owens, where she was discovered by Norm Burley, who founded Vancouver,
Canada-based label Zero Records solely to promote Loretta's music, cutting her
first record in February, 1960.
1960
Loretta had her first hit, “Honky Tonk Girl,” in 1960. She and Mooney independently
promoted the record, taking it to radio stations across America until they reached
Nashville. The Lynns then relocated to Nashville to jump-start her career, and began
recording demo records for the publishing company of Teddy and Doyle Wilburn.
One of these, Kathryn Fulton’s “Biggest Fool of All,” caught the ear of Decca
Records producer Owen Bradley. He thought the song would be perfect for Brenda
Lee, but the Wilburns worked a deal—you can have the song if you record Loretta.
Soon, Loretta was in the studio cutting sides with Bradley, producer at the time not
only for Lee but Patsy Cline, Bill Anderson, and Webb Pierce. Through the Wilburns,
Lynn was able to secure a contract with Decca Records and released the single
“Success” in 1962, which became a hit top-10 single. Lynn's contract with the
Wilburn Brothers gave them the publishing rights to her material. She was still
fighting to regain these rights 30 years after ending her business relationship with
them, but was ultimately denied the publishing rights.
At this time, she also befriended country singer Patsy Cline. Although Kitty Wells had
become the first major female country vocalist during the 1950s, by the time Lynn
recorded her first record, only three other women - Patsy Cline, Skeeter Davis, and
Jean Shepard - had become top stars. By the end of 1962, it was clear that Lynn
was on her way to becoming the fourth. Lynn credits Cline as her mentor and best
friend during those early years, and as fate would have it; Lynn would follow her as
the most popular country vocalist of the early 1960s and 1970s.
Her first self-penned song to crack the Top Ten, 1966’s "Dear Uncle Sam”, was
among the very first recordings to recount the human costs of the Vietnam War. In
the latter half of the decade, although she still worked within the confines of honky
tonk, her sound became more personal, varied, and ambitious, particularly lyrically.
Beginning with 1966's Number 1 hit in Cash Box, "You Ain't Woman Enough", Lynn
began writing songs with a feminist viewpoint, which was unheard of in country
music. This song made Loretta Lynn the first country female recording artist to pen a
#1 hit. Although, her involvement in the Feminist Movement was non-existent as
evidenced by a guest appearance on “The Dick Frost Show.” Loretta famously
dozed off while listening to feminist Betty Friedan talk theory.
She remained on the popular music charts with a string of 22 top-ten hits in the
period 1962–71. In the 1960s, health problems resulted as Loretta succumbed to
migraines and an addiction to prescribed pain pills. During her touring days she was
hospitalized nine times for exhaustion.
She became a first-time grandmother at the age of 29.
1970
Loretta also found great success singing duets with Ernest Tubb ("Mr. and Mrs.
Used To Be") and Conway Twitty ("Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man"), (The
Country Music Association named them Vocal Duo of the Year for four years in a
row, beginning in 1972.) and in business ventures that included a chain of western
wear clothing shops, a music publishing company and a traveling rodeo show.
Her 1971 song "One's On the Way" was penned by poet Shel Silverstein.
Several radio stations in the U.S banned her 1975 song, “The Pill,” about a woman’s
personal freedom as a result of birth control pills.
She won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award in 1972,
and was the first woman to do so. When she won the award, she brought the house
down with her speech: "I'd like to say that I've won a lot of awards ... I think this is
the only one I hadn't won. The only thing I'm sad about is my husband is gone huntin'
and he couldn't make it back to share my happiness with me"
Lynn’s 1970 single “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” was also the name of her
autobiography, which she penned in 1976 and which became a New York Times
bestseller.
She was the first country star to appear on the cover of Newsweek Magazine in
1973.
Loretta had her last Number 1 hit in early 1978 with her solo single, "Out of My Head
and Back In My Bed." In 1979, she had two Top 5 hits, "I Can't Feel You Anymore"
and "I've Got a Picture Of Us on My Mind", each from separate albums.
In 1979, she became the spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble's Crisco Oil, and did
TV commercials and print ads for them for a full decade ending in 1989.
1980
Loretta Lynn enjoyed enormous success on country radio until the early 1980s, when
a more pop-flavored type of country music began to dominate the market. Lynn was
able to stay within the country Top 10 up until the mid 1980's.
In 1980, the book was adapted into a film, Coal Miner’s Daughter, * starring Tommy
Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of
Lynn. The film received seven Academy Award nominations winning a Best Actress
Oscar for Sissy Spacek and a slew of other top honors including a gold album for
the soundtrack album, a Grammy nomination for Spacek's singing as Lynn, a
Country Music Association & Academy of Country Music awards plus several
Golden Globe awards as well.
Loretta took a hiatus from music beginning in the late 1980s, although her
accomplishments were recognized through her induction into the Country Music Hall
of Fame in 1988.
Her son, Jack Benny Lynn, drowned on July 22, 1984, while trying to ford the Duck
River at the family ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. He was 34 years old. The
coroner concluded he fell from his horse while crossing the stream, struck his head,
and was rendered unconscious and drowned.
Lynn was the first woman in country music to have 50 Top 10 hits. Her last Top 10
record as a soloist was "I Lie" in 1982, but her releases continued to chart until the
end of the decade. She continued to have Top 20 hits throughout the 1980s. One of
her last solo releases was 1985's "Heart Don't Do This to Me," which reached #19;
her last Top 20 hit. In 1993, Lynn stopped releasing singles and focused more on
touring than promoting.
1990
In the 1990s, Loretta continued to focus on her family, primarily her husband, who
was suffering from diabetes. She collaborated with Dolly Parton and Tammy
Wynette on Honky Tonk Angels in 1993, but did not release any solo efforts. Two
years later, she was honored with the Pioneer Award at the Academy of Country
Music Awards.
Mooney Lynn passed away in 1996. Even though they were married for nearly 50
years and had six children together, the Lynns' marriage was reportedly rocky up to
Doolittle's death in 1996. In her 2002 autobiography, Still Woman Enough, and in an
interview with CBS News the same year, Loretta recounts how her husband cheated
on her regularly and once left her while she was giving birth. Lynn and her husband
also fought frequently, but she said, "He never hit me one time that I didn’t hit him
back twice".
2000
Four years later, Lynn returned to music with 2000’s Still Country.
Her real comeback, however, came in 2004, with the release of Van Lear Rose,
which featured guitar arrangements by Jack White of The White Stripes, who also
produced the album. Lynn was nominated for five Grammy Awards, of which she
won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “Portland Oregon” and Best Country
Album.
In 2005, her son Ernest Ray pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in a DUI-related
accident.
In 2006, Lynn underwent shoulder surgery after injuring herself in a fall.
2010
Loretta Lynn's ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee is known as the 7th largest
attraction in Tennessee. It has a Concert pavilion, Food Service Facilities, an RV
park, swimming pool, a gift shop, log cabin rentals, a Grist Mill Museum, a fan and
doll museum, a recording studio, and 18,000 square foot "Coal Miner's Daughter
Museum". For over 30 years the ranch has hosted “Loretta Lynn's Amateur
Motocross National Championship”, the world's largest amateur motocross race, in
addition to GNCC Racing events. She no longer lives in the plantation home, but
tours of the house are available.
Loretta Lynn, the 'Queen of Country,' invites viewers into her legendary, and
HAUNTED, Tennessee estate. In this exclusive and highly personal special, world-
renowned medium Kim Russo travels to Loretta's home to reveal the darkest and
most surprising details of this true-life Celebrity Ghost Story. It's a rare glimpse into
the life of a legend as she re-connects with her lost loved ones and unlocks the past
of her famous home. http://www.travelchannel.com/Video/recap-loretta-lynns-house-
15837
ACCOLADES:
Loretta Lynn has 27 number one hits. Loretta Lynn has 17 number one albums.
Loretta Lynn has released 70 albums. Lynn could count 52 Top 10 hits and 16 #1’s.
INTERESTING FACTS:
Quotes:
- "For a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's
cornbread—stale and dry."
- "A woman's two cents worth is worth two cents in the music business."
- "When I was 14, I lived like a 35 year-old, and when I was 35, I lived like a 14 year-
old."
Loretta Lynn would sit for an hour or more on a stage giving autographs to her fans
after a performance. Once in Salisbury, Maryland, the town's newspaper editor
interviewed her while she was signing autographs. Editor Mel Toadvine asked her
why she took so much time to sign autographs while more than 100 people stood in
line all the way to the front of the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. "These people
are my fans", she told Toadvine. "I'll stay here until the very last one wants my
autograph. Without these people, I am nobody; I love these people", she said.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Shortly after Doolittle’s 1996 death, Loretta moved out of her family compound in
Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, and holed up in her house in Nashville. She stayed under
the covers, staring at the television, living in her nightgown for a year. Her life had
turned upside down.
At age 69, Loretta released the most critically acclaimed album of her life, Van Lear
Rose, collaboration with Jack White, the 29-year-old lead singer and guitarist of red-
hot garage-rock band The White Stripes.
[She still writes from the heart: "I write whatever is bothering me at the time. And
nobody believes that. They say, 'Loretta, you're gonna get in trouble one day 'cause
Doo's gonna understand that you're writing about him.'"
The fact is, many of Lynn's most powerful songs were inspired by turbulent times
with her husband, which is also reflected in her new song, "Portland, Oregon," about
a time when Lynn tried to make her womanizing husband jealous by pretending to
have an affair with her guitarist, Cal Smith.
"I got Cal and I said, 'Let's go down to the bar and act like we're getting drunk, and
act like we're lovers,'" says Lynn. "Boy, I've hated that ever since."
The song remembers that traumatic night on the road when Lynn's husband pointed
his gun at her.
"After the show, I went in to go to the bathroom and I seen that shower curtain move
a little bit. Scared me to death! So I opened the shower curtain," recalls Lynn.
"There, Doo stood with a quart of whiskey in one hand and a gun pointed right at
me. A loaded pistol! And if I'd had been in there with Cal Smith, he'd a killed us both.
I said, 'That's too close for comfort, Doo. Don't you ever do this again,'"]
The album earned five Grammy nominations, a clutch of lesser music industry
awards — and a whole new audience for both of them. When she learned that one
of L.A.’s hippest radio stations was playing Van Lear Rose, she called daughter
Patsy and exclaimed, “Honey, your mommy is a rock star!”
WEBSITE: http://www.lorettalynn.com/50/
*COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, THE MOVIE
Beverly D'Angelo and Sissy Spacek did all their own singing. Director Michael Apted
also wanted Spacek to sing all of the songs live, feeling he could capture the realism
in all of the performing scenes.
According to Loretta Lynn, her husband Doolittle wanted nothing to do with Tommy
Lee Jones, who was playing him, until shortly before shooting began in Butcher
Holler. Jones rented a Jeep, got drunk on moonshine and went tearing through the
town in the vehicle, only to get arrested for drunk driving, beat up for resisting arrest
and jailed. Doolittle liked him immediately after that.
Although Loretta Lynn handpicked Sissy Spacek to portray her on screen, the first
director of the film was against the casting, feeling that Spacek didn't have enough
of a resemblance to Lynn.
Sissy Spacek's Best Actress Oscar win for playing singer Loretta Lynn created a
rarity in the Academy's history in that the real-life Loretta Lynn was in the audience
witnessing the victory.
**OLIVER ("DOOLITTLE, “DOO”, “MOONEY”) LYNN
"He thought I was something special, more special than anyone else in the world,
and never let me forget it...Doo was a good man and a hard worker. But he was an
alcoholic, and it affected our marriage all the way through. He was also a
womanizer."
He was a central figure in most of his wife's most successful songs, including "Fist
City", "The Pill", "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)", and "You
Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)". Loretta said, "Doo really gave me a lot of
things to write about, you know. He was very...what do you call it? Inspirational".
One night when he turned abusive over dinner, she slapped an entire skillet of hot
creamed corn on his head. “He went around three days like that,” she says with a
laugh, her blue eyes dancing. “His face was pulled this a-way, and his hair was all
stuck up, but he wanted everybody to see what I’d done to him.”
Born in Butcher Hollow, near Paintsville, Kentucky in Johnson County, Oliver Lynn
was an uneducated resident of a town based around the coal mining industry. He
was uninterested in coal mining, and served in the U.S. military during World War II
and also made a living selling moonshine, earning him the nickname Mooney. Doo
became her second father and is as much responsible for raising her as her true
parents. ‘After we had kids of our own, Doo would take a belt to me as quick as he
would to one of them,’ she told biographer Joan Dew. ‘It’s funny how it’s the old
hurts that never heal.’”
With a shrug, she attributes much of his behavior to alcoholism, citing a long line of
hard drinkers in his family. What she can’t excuse, however, is his unfaithfulness.
Being Loretta Lynn called for nearly endless touring — She launched a six-week
USO show to Germany in 1964, when the last of her six children, twins Patsy and
Peggy (“they started coming in pairs!”), were only three weeks old. Her long
absences gave Doolittle nearly endless opportunities to stray.
But word of his indiscretions would inevitably catch up with her. She was once
onstage in Las Vegas, introducing “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man),”
when a female voice cried out in the audience, “Well, I’ll have to tell you, I was with
your old man!” The singer didn’t say a word; she merely unplugged her microphone
and started walking on tables, spilling drinks as she made her way toward the
woman. “They drug her out the side door, and it’s a good thing,” she says, shaking
her head. “I was gonna use that microphone on her.”
Kentucky, April 14,1935 (Her Johnson County, Kentucky birth certificate #189-
91253 gives her date of birth as April 14, 1932, however, 1935 is most often
recognized at the correct date.) Was named after screen legend Loretta Young. She
has Native American Cherokee ancestry on her mother’s side. Loretta Lynn is 5'2"
and measures 37-25-36 (according to her dresser).
Her parents are Melvin "Ted" Webb, a coal miner by trade, and Clara Marie
(Ramey) Webb Butcher (married Tommy Butcher, Butcher Hollow in Kentucky was
named for his family, after Ted died), a nurse. Loretta was the second of eight
children. Three of her siblings also pursued country careers—her youngest sister,
Crystal Gayle, sister Peggy Sue and brother Jay Lee Webb.
HOW DID SHE GET STARTED?
Born and raised in the poor coal mining mountains of Kentucky, Loretta gained her
earliest musical experiences by singing at church. She remembers at age seven
crying her eyes out when the family hog chewed the only dress she owned that
wasn’t made from flour sacks. Her parents struggled to put food on the table —
once a week, says Lynn, they ate possum, rabbit or raccoon caught in traps her
mother set.
1940
At age eleven Loretta met Oliver (Doolittle, Doo, Mooney) Lynn**, an older boy who
was joining the army. He came back and on January 10, 1948, at age 13, she
dropped out of the sixth grade to marry 21-year-old Mooney. Her parents were
heartbroken. “He kissed me," says Lynn. "Well, I had never been kissed before."
One month later, they were married. But the honeymoon was an ugly affair. "I had
no idea what was going on," recalls Lynn. "I knew one thing. I didn't like what was
going on." She adds that: "He'd hit me around, y'know, smack me and hit me, bloody
noses and blue eyes, and stuff like that. … I'm tellin' you things that's never been
told before. Lord have mercy!"
Soon after their marriage, she got pregnant. Doolittle left her for another girl for four
months. Loretta moved back home with her parents. He came back in her seventh
month of pregnancy and they started over.
In an effort to break free of the coal mining industry, Doolittle hitchhiked to Custer,
Washington, got a job on a farm there, and sent for Loretta, who arrived soon after
by train. They lived on a farm, where Doolittle had set up a still and sold moonshine
to the locals (he got the nickname "Mooney"). Loretta cleaned houses, picked
strawberries, and cooked for the other farmhands. In '49 she gave birth to her first
daughter. By the time she was 17, Lynn was the mother of four. In all, the Lynns had
six children - Betty Sue, Jack Benny, Clara Marie (Cissy), Ernest Ray, and twins
Peggy and Patsy (named after Patsy Cline).
1950
Before her marriage, Loretta regularly sang at churches and in local concerts. After
she married, she stopped singing in public, wishing rather to focus on her family life.
On her 18th birthday, Mooney bought her a $17.00 Harmony guitar. She taught
herself to play and when she was 24, on her wedding anniversary, he encouraged
her to become a singer. Lynn started writing songs. "I thought you have to write to
sing, you know," she says. "I thought everybody that sang wrote their own songs."
She started singing at the Delta Grange Hall in Washington State with the Pen
Brothers' band, The Westerners.
After that, Loretta began singing in local clubs in 1959 and later formed her own
band, The Trailblazers, which included her brother Willie Lee “Jay” Webb (he died of
pancreatic cancer in 1994).
Lynn appeared in a televised Tacoma, Washington talent contest, hosted by Buck
Owens, where she was discovered by Norm Burley, who founded Vancouver,
Canada-based label Zero Records solely to promote Loretta's music, cutting her
first record in February, 1960.
1960
Loretta had her first hit, “Honky Tonk Girl,” in 1960. She and Mooney independently
promoted the record, taking it to radio stations across America until they reached
Nashville. The Lynns then relocated to Nashville to jump-start her career, and began
recording demo records for the publishing company of Teddy and Doyle Wilburn.
One of these, Kathryn Fulton’s “Biggest Fool of All,” caught the ear of Decca
Records producer Owen Bradley. He thought the song would be perfect for Brenda
Lee, but the Wilburns worked a deal—you can have the song if you record Loretta.
Soon, Loretta was in the studio cutting sides with Bradley, producer at the time not
only for Lee but Patsy Cline, Bill Anderson, and Webb Pierce. Through the Wilburns,
Lynn was able to secure a contract with Decca Records and released the single
“Success” in 1962, which became a hit top-10 single. Lynn's contract with the
Wilburn Brothers gave them the publishing rights to her material. She was still
fighting to regain these rights 30 years after ending her business relationship with
them, but was ultimately denied the publishing rights.
At this time, she also befriended country singer Patsy Cline. Although Kitty Wells had
become the first major female country vocalist during the 1950s, by the time Lynn
recorded her first record, only three other women - Patsy Cline, Skeeter Davis, and
Jean Shepard - had become top stars. By the end of 1962, it was clear that Lynn
was on her way to becoming the fourth. Lynn credits Cline as her mentor and best
friend during those early years, and as fate would have it; Lynn would follow her as
the most popular country vocalist of the early 1960s and 1970s.
Her first self-penned song to crack the Top Ten, 1966’s "Dear Uncle Sam”, was
among the very first recordings to recount the human costs of the Vietnam War. In
the latter half of the decade, although she still worked within the confines of honky
tonk, her sound became more personal, varied, and ambitious, particularly lyrically.
Beginning with 1966's Number 1 hit in Cash Box, "You Ain't Woman Enough", Lynn
began writing songs with a feminist viewpoint, which was unheard of in country
music. This song made Loretta Lynn the first country female recording artist to pen a
#1 hit. Although, her involvement in the Feminist Movement was non-existent as
evidenced by a guest appearance on “The Dick Frost Show.” Loretta famously
dozed off while listening to feminist Betty Friedan talk theory.
She remained on the popular music charts with a string of 22 top-ten hits in the
period 1962–71. In the 1960s, health problems resulted as Loretta succumbed to
migraines and an addiction to prescribed pain pills. During her touring days she was
hospitalized nine times for exhaustion.
She became a first-time grandmother at the age of 29.
1970
Loretta also found great success singing duets with Ernest Tubb ("Mr. and Mrs.
Used To Be") and Conway Twitty ("Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man"), (The
Country Music Association named them Vocal Duo of the Year for four years in a
row, beginning in 1972.) and in business ventures that included a chain of western
wear clothing shops, a music publishing company and a traveling rodeo show.
Her 1971 song "One's On the Way" was penned by poet Shel Silverstein.
Several radio stations in the U.S banned her 1975 song, “The Pill,” about a woman’s
personal freedom as a result of birth control pills.
She won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year Award in 1972,
and was the first woman to do so. When she won the award, she brought the house
down with her speech: "I'd like to say that I've won a lot of awards ... I think this is
the only one I hadn't won. The only thing I'm sad about is my husband is gone huntin'
and he couldn't make it back to share my happiness with me"
Lynn’s 1970 single “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” was also the name of her
autobiography, which she penned in 1976 and which became a New York Times
bestseller.
She was the first country star to appear on the cover of Newsweek Magazine in
1973.
Loretta had her last Number 1 hit in early 1978 with her solo single, "Out of My Head
and Back In My Bed." In 1979, she had two Top 5 hits, "I Can't Feel You Anymore"
and "I've Got a Picture Of Us on My Mind", each from separate albums.
In 1979, she became the spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble's Crisco Oil, and did
TV commercials and print ads for them for a full decade ending in 1989.
1980
Loretta Lynn enjoyed enormous success on country radio until the early 1980s, when
a more pop-flavored type of country music began to dominate the market. Lynn was
able to stay within the country Top 10 up until the mid 1980's.
In 1980, the book was adapted into a film, Coal Miner’s Daughter, * starring Tommy
Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek, who won a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of
Lynn. The film received seven Academy Award nominations winning a Best Actress
Oscar for Sissy Spacek and a slew of other top honors including a gold album for
the soundtrack album, a Grammy nomination for Spacek's singing as Lynn, a
Country Music Association & Academy of Country Music awards plus several
Golden Globe awards as well.
Loretta took a hiatus from music beginning in the late 1980s, although her
accomplishments were recognized through her induction into the Country Music Hall
of Fame in 1988.
Her son, Jack Benny Lynn, drowned on July 22, 1984, while trying to ford the Duck
River at the family ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. He was 34 years old. The
coroner concluded he fell from his horse while crossing the stream, struck his head,
and was rendered unconscious and drowned.
Lynn was the first woman in country music to have 50 Top 10 hits. Her last Top 10
record as a soloist was "I Lie" in 1982, but her releases continued to chart until the
end of the decade. She continued to have Top 20 hits throughout the 1980s. One of
her last solo releases was 1985's "Heart Don't Do This to Me," which reached #19;
her last Top 20 hit. In 1993, Lynn stopped releasing singles and focused more on
touring than promoting.
1990
In the 1990s, Loretta continued to focus on her family, primarily her husband, who
was suffering from diabetes. She collaborated with Dolly Parton and Tammy
Wynette on Honky Tonk Angels in 1993, but did not release any solo efforts. Two
years later, she was honored with the Pioneer Award at the Academy of Country
Music Awards.
Mooney Lynn passed away in 1996. Even though they were married for nearly 50
years and had six children together, the Lynns' marriage was reportedly rocky up to
Doolittle's death in 1996. In her 2002 autobiography, Still Woman Enough, and in an
interview with CBS News the same year, Loretta recounts how her husband cheated
on her regularly and once left her while she was giving birth. Lynn and her husband
also fought frequently, but she said, "He never hit me one time that I didn’t hit him
back twice".
2000
Four years later, Lynn returned to music with 2000’s Still Country.
Her real comeback, however, came in 2004, with the release of Van Lear Rose,
which featured guitar arrangements by Jack White of The White Stripes, who also
produced the album. Lynn was nominated for five Grammy Awards, of which she
won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “Portland Oregon” and Best Country
Album.
In 2005, her son Ernest Ray pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in a DUI-related
accident.
In 2006, Lynn underwent shoulder surgery after injuring herself in a fall.
2010
Loretta Lynn's ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee is known as the 7th largest
attraction in Tennessee. It has a Concert pavilion, Food Service Facilities, an RV
park, swimming pool, a gift shop, log cabin rentals, a Grist Mill Museum, a fan and
doll museum, a recording studio, and 18,000 square foot "Coal Miner's Daughter
Museum". For over 30 years the ranch has hosted “Loretta Lynn's Amateur
Motocross National Championship”, the world's largest amateur motocross race, in
addition to GNCC Racing events. She no longer lives in the plantation home, but
tours of the house are available.
Loretta Lynn, the 'Queen of Country,' invites viewers into her legendary, and
HAUNTED, Tennessee estate. In this exclusive and highly personal special, world-
renowned medium Kim Russo travels to Loretta's home to reveal the darkest and
most surprising details of this true-life Celebrity Ghost Story. It's a rare glimpse into
the life of a legend as she re-connects with her lost loved ones and unlocks the past
of her famous home. http://www.travelchannel.com/Video/recap-loretta-lynns-house-
15837
ACCOLADES:
Loretta Lynn has 27 number one hits. Loretta Lynn has 17 number one albums.
Loretta Lynn has released 70 albums. Lynn could count 52 Top 10 hits and 16 #1’s.
INTERESTING FACTS:
Quotes:
- "For a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's
cornbread—stale and dry."
- "A woman's two cents worth is worth two cents in the music business."
- "When I was 14, I lived like a 35 year-old, and when I was 35, I lived like a 14 year-
old."
Loretta Lynn would sit for an hour or more on a stage giving autographs to her fans
after a performance. Once in Salisbury, Maryland, the town's newspaper editor
interviewed her while she was signing autographs. Editor Mel Toadvine asked her
why she took so much time to sign autographs while more than 100 people stood in
line all the way to the front of the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. "These people
are my fans", she told Toadvine. "I'll stay here until the very last one wants my
autograph. Without these people, I am nobody; I love these people", she said.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Shortly after Doolittle’s 1996 death, Loretta moved out of her family compound in
Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, and holed up in her house in Nashville. She stayed under
the covers, staring at the television, living in her nightgown for a year. Her life had
turned upside down.
At age 69, Loretta released the most critically acclaimed album of her life, Van Lear
Rose, collaboration with Jack White, the 29-year-old lead singer and guitarist of red-
hot garage-rock band The White Stripes.
[She still writes from the heart: "I write whatever is bothering me at the time. And
nobody believes that. They say, 'Loretta, you're gonna get in trouble one day 'cause
Doo's gonna understand that you're writing about him.'"
The fact is, many of Lynn's most powerful songs were inspired by turbulent times
with her husband, which is also reflected in her new song, "Portland, Oregon," about
a time when Lynn tried to make her womanizing husband jealous by pretending to
have an affair with her guitarist, Cal Smith.
"I got Cal and I said, 'Let's go down to the bar and act like we're getting drunk, and
act like we're lovers,'" says Lynn. "Boy, I've hated that ever since."
The song remembers that traumatic night on the road when Lynn's husband pointed
his gun at her.
"After the show, I went in to go to the bathroom and I seen that shower curtain move
a little bit. Scared me to death! So I opened the shower curtain," recalls Lynn.
"There, Doo stood with a quart of whiskey in one hand and a gun pointed right at
me. A loaded pistol! And if I'd had been in there with Cal Smith, he'd a killed us both.
I said, 'That's too close for comfort, Doo. Don't you ever do this again,'"]
The album earned five Grammy nominations, a clutch of lesser music industry
awards — and a whole new audience for both of them. When she learned that one
of L.A.’s hippest radio stations was playing Van Lear Rose, she called daughter
Patsy and exclaimed, “Honey, your mommy is a rock star!”
WEBSITE: http://www.lorettalynn.com/50/
*COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER, THE MOVIE
Beverly D'Angelo and Sissy Spacek did all their own singing. Director Michael Apted
also wanted Spacek to sing all of the songs live, feeling he could capture the realism
in all of the performing scenes.
According to Loretta Lynn, her husband Doolittle wanted nothing to do with Tommy
Lee Jones, who was playing him, until shortly before shooting began in Butcher
Holler. Jones rented a Jeep, got drunk on moonshine and went tearing through the
town in the vehicle, only to get arrested for drunk driving, beat up for resisting arrest
and jailed. Doolittle liked him immediately after that.
Although Loretta Lynn handpicked Sissy Spacek to portray her on screen, the first
director of the film was against the casting, feeling that Spacek didn't have enough
of a resemblance to Lynn.
Sissy Spacek's Best Actress Oscar win for playing singer Loretta Lynn created a
rarity in the Academy's history in that the real-life Loretta Lynn was in the audience
witnessing the victory.
**OLIVER ("DOOLITTLE, “DOO”, “MOONEY”) LYNN
"He thought I was something special, more special than anyone else in the world,
and never let me forget it...Doo was a good man and a hard worker. But he was an
alcoholic, and it affected our marriage all the way through. He was also a
womanizer."
He was a central figure in most of his wife's most successful songs, including "Fist
City", "The Pill", "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)", and "You
Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)". Loretta said, "Doo really gave me a lot of
things to write about, you know. He was very...what do you call it? Inspirational".
One night when he turned abusive over dinner, she slapped an entire skillet of hot
creamed corn on his head. “He went around three days like that,” she says with a
laugh, her blue eyes dancing. “His face was pulled this a-way, and his hair was all
stuck up, but he wanted everybody to see what I’d done to him.”
Born in Butcher Hollow, near Paintsville, Kentucky in Johnson County, Oliver Lynn
was an uneducated resident of a town based around the coal mining industry. He
was uninterested in coal mining, and served in the U.S. military during World War II
and also made a living selling moonshine, earning him the nickname Mooney. Doo
became her second father and is as much responsible for raising her as her true
parents. ‘After we had kids of our own, Doo would take a belt to me as quick as he
would to one of them,’ she told biographer Joan Dew. ‘It’s funny how it’s the old
hurts that never heal.’”
With a shrug, she attributes much of his behavior to alcoholism, citing a long line of
hard drinkers in his family. What she can’t excuse, however, is his unfaithfulness.
Being Loretta Lynn called for nearly endless touring — She launched a six-week
USO show to Germany in 1964, when the last of her six children, twins Patsy and
Peggy (“they started coming in pairs!”), were only three weeks old. Her long
absences gave Doolittle nearly endless opportunities to stray.
But word of his indiscretions would inevitably catch up with her. She was once
onstage in Las Vegas, introducing “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man),”
when a female voice cried out in the audience, “Well, I’ll have to tell you, I was with
your old man!” The singer didn’t say a word; she merely unplugged her microphone
and started walking on tables, spilling drinks as she made her way toward the
woman. “They drug her out the side door, and it’s a good thing,” she says, shaking
her head. “I was gonna use that microphone on her.”
