Loretta Lynn, Country Music Royalty Dead, Coal Miner’s Daughter Dies at Age 90

Country news reveals the sad news that Loretta Lynn, the most famous of all Kentucky’s coal miner’s daughters, has died at the age of 90. Lynn’s family told the Associated Press that the Appalachian legend and Country Music Hall of Famer died Tuesday at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.

The Academy of Country Music chose her as the artist of the decade for the 1970s, and she was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Lynn remained relevant long after her commercial peak winning two Grammys in 2005 for her album “Van Lear Rose,” a collaboration with rocker Jack White.

Country News: Lorretta Lynn Country Music Queen

The family’s statement read: “Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills.” They said a memorial will be announced later.

Lynn debuted in the early 1960s, with songs that revealed the hardscrabble life she came from in rural Kentucky. She wrote songs about tough woman, and crafted a mini-genre, “about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control and sometimes got in trouble with radio programmers for material from which even rock performers once shied away.”

“Her biggest hits came in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at Country.” She was known for appearing in floor-length, lush gowns with elaborate embroidery or rhinestones.

Country News: Loretta Lynn is Country Music Royalty

Lynn was a tough cookie who told the AP in 2016: “It was what I wanted to hear and what I knew other women wanted to hear, too. I didn’t write for the men; I wrote for us women. And the men loved it, too.”

Lynn was beloved for her grit and became the first woman named entertainer of the year by the Country Music Association in 1972 and the Academy of Country Music three years later.

Country News: Loretta Lynn Dead

Her autobiographical song “Coal Miner’s Daughter” dropped in 1969, and is the song she is most associated with. Lyrics saw her sing: “We were poor but we had love/That’s the one thing Daddy made sure of/He shoveled coal to make a poor man’s dollar.”

“Coal Miner’s Daughter,” became a book in 1976 and a movie in 1980. Sissy Spacek nabbed an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lynn and the film was nominated for best picture.

Lynn was born Loretta Webb, the second of eight children, near the coal mining company town of Van Lear in the famed east Kentucky mountains.

Her parents were both musical and she grew up on the songs of the Carter Family.

She told the AP in 2016, “I was singing when I was born, I think. Daddy used to come out on the porch where I would be singing and rocking the babies to sleep. He’d say, ‘Loretta, shut that big mouth. People all over this holler can hear you.’ And I said, ‘Daddy, what difference does it make? They are all my cousins.’”

She was a teen bride to Oliver “Mooney” Lynn who, “urged her to sing professionally and helped promote her early career. With his help, she earned a recording contract with Decca Records, later MCA, and performed on the Grand Ole Opry stage. Lynn wrote her first hit single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” released in 1960.”

With singer Conway Twitty they were a popular duo in country music with “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” and Grammy Award winning “After the Fire is Gone.”

Her younger sister, Crystal Gayle, is also a Grammy-winning popular country singer, scoring crossover hits with songs like “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” and “Half the Way.”

“Loretta Lynn's life was unlike any other, yet she drew from it a body of work that resonates with people everywhere. In a music business that is often concerned with aspiration and fantasy, Loretta insisted on sharing her own brash and brave truth.”

—Kyle Young, CEO pic.twitter.com/pSJlkzT9aD

— Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum (@countrymusichof) October 4, 2022

Country News: Loretta Lynn RIP

In the 1990s Lynn moved to Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, outside of Nashville and created a replica of her childhood home and a museum popular with tourists.

In 2017, she suffered a stroke that forced her to postpone her shows and her husband died in 1996. They had six children: Betty, Jack, Ernest and Clara, and twins Patsy and Peggy. She had 17 grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.

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