Loretta Lynn, one of country music's largest female stars who's seven decade career included the hits "Coal Miner's Daughter", "The Pill", and “Don’t Come Home a’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”, died Tuesday at her home in Tennessee. She was 90.
Lynn became a trailblazer in the 1960s when she broke into country music. A prolific songwriter, she was unafraid to take on subjects not talked about in country music at that time.
Standing her ground against "cheating men", homewreckers, and the life of women in the home, Lynn spoke to a group of fans who adored her honesty and fearlessness.
Loretta Lynn's autobiographical 1970 hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter” became a best-selling biography, which was later made into an Oscar-winning film. The song tells the story of a poor, difficult upbringing in Depression-era Kentucky that Lynn became famous for, even to people who never listened to country music.
Lynn was born Loretta Webb in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky on April 14, 1932. Her father, like it says in the song, worked in the coal mines up until his death in 1959. She was the second eldest of eight children.
At just 16 years old, she married Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn and they moved to Washington state and she quickly had six children. It was that early marriage, it's happiness and heartache, that started inspiring Lynn to write music. She purchased a guitar and taught herself to play in the 1950s, working to get better at it while raising her kids. Eventually, she started a band and started playing local shows around the area.
By 1960, she had cut her first record and started playing around the country with the encouragement of her husband. They eventually worked their way to Nashville, and by the end of the year she had appeared on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1967 she became a full-fledged country star when her song “Don’t Come Home a’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” became her first number one hit. That album became the first gold record ever by a female country performer. Lynn won the Country Music Association’s first Female Vocalist of the Year award and her career was launched.
Lynn's songs were sometimes controversial and she even had some banned by local radio stations who thought some subjects were too taboo for their audience. Her song "The Pill" which loudly celebrated birth control, was a big hit for her despite being banned by some stations.
Lynn's career inspired countless female stars in country music with many of them paying tribute to her with cover songs over the years. She continued to write and perform music all the way up until 2017 when she suffered a stroke. In 2018, she fell and broke her hip which ended her days of performing.
Lynn has written more than 160 songs and released 60 albums. She has had 10 No. 1 albums and 16 No. 1 singles on the country charts. Lynn has won three Grammy Awards, seven American Music Awards, eight Broadcast Music Incorporated awards, 13 Academy of Country Music, eight Country Music Association, and 26 fan-voted Music City News awards. Lynn remains the most awarded woman in country music history.
She was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983 and Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988.