Loretta Lynn was more than a coal miner’s daughter, she was the most influential woman in country music during the 1960s and 1970s. She became the first woman to have more than 50 Top 10 country hits.
Lynn died at her home outside of Nashville on October 4. She was 90.
Lynn had a talent for telling autobiographical stories in three-minute songs. And she had plenty of stories to tell. Her signature song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” was turned into an autobiography and a hit movie.
Her life was like a country song cliché. She was born in the coal-mining hills of Kentucky. She got married when she was 15 and became pregnant soon after. She had three children by the time she was 19.
Her husband liked her singing and bought her a guitar. She taught herself to play and began writing songs. He was her inspiration for many songs, which wasn’t always a good thing.
Many songs are about his drinking and infidelities. “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Fist City,” and our Song of the Day, “Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind)”, are a few of them.
The song became her first number one country hit in 1966. She was only the seventh female country singer to have a number one hit on the country chart. The song was the first of many controversial songs she wrote, including “Rated X,” about the double standard of divorce, and a previous SOTD, “The Pill,” about a woman who was tired of getting pregnant so she starts taking the pill.
She released her 46th solo studio album, "Still Woman Enough" just a year before her death, in 2021.
