“For some people, country music is what they do. Her legacy will outlive us all, which is so beautiful.” Martina McBride Getting to sing ‘Still Woman Enough’ with her and Reba was a moment I will never forget. I think we all sang into our hairbrushes trying to emulate the vocal styles of artists like Loretta. Strong, talented, smart, sassy women like Loretta Lynn are responsible for any of us having the opportunities in this business we have today. “And it’ll always feel like home, no matter what.”Īs artists, we all stand on the shoulders of the incredible artists that have come before us, but I think that is especially true for females in country music. When a song ain’t real, how’s it supposed to get anybody through anything? Country music will always take you back,” the proud Country Music Hall of Famer says. Part of what has continued to set Lynn apart is her longevity in country music, and part of that comes from how she sees the music. Photography: Jimmy Ellis/USA Today Network As Lynn herself has said, “You can’t be halfway in this business.” And she never has. She’s won plenty more CMA Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, and even the ACM Honors poet’s award in 2021, a lesser known but still prestigious honor that goes to the artists with longstanding lyrical contributions to country music. She did win the top prize that year and has continued to stockpile trophies since. When a song ain’t real, how’s it supposed to get anybody through anything? I think it’s good for people to realize that women can do things as good as a man,” Lynn said. I was just proud to be the first woman ever nominated. Then a decade later, when she was nominated for the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award in 1972, the nomination alone was history-making. In 1962, she was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry just a few years after the first female solo artists Jean Shepard, Kitty Wells, Margie Bowes and Patsy Cline were. She was trailblazing, whether she intended to or not. All she knows is that she has a good time every day and she gets well paid for it.”įor Lynn, all these years in the country music business weren’t just about making a living. Her late manager David Skepner once said, “Loretta has no idea what she’s worth. Now 62 years later, she likely still experiences the intense gratitude for the legendary career she’s put together, even though she’s never been one to flaunt her fortune. When they asked her for a repeat performance and paid her another $5, Lynn said, “I thought I was a millionaire.” She was eventually offered $5 to play there. In 1960, when the Lynns were living in Custer, Washington, they went to Delta Grange Hall in Lynden to hear country music. “Anything I go at, I go at hard, because I only do what I want.”īy the time Lynn was 28, it was time for her to take the stage and start playing her own songs for an audience of more than just her husband and children. First, I was singing Kitty Wells’ songs on it, but after a while I started making up my own,” she recalls in the pages of Coal Miner’s Daughter. “After a while, I got to where I could play a pretty good tune on it. A few years later, he told her she had a good voice. On her 18th birthday, her husband, Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, bought her a $17 Harmony guitar from Sears. While the song and the experience made an immediate impact, Lynn has admitted in the past that making music for herself was never her idea. The legend reaches her milestone 90th birthday on April 14, more than 80 years after she heard a tune on a radio for the first time at age 11 - Ernest Tubb’s “Walking the Floor Over You,” to be exact. Photography: (From L to R) Pictoral Press LTD/Alamy Stock Photo David McClister/Courtesy Essential Broadcast Media After selling more than 45 million albums and maintaining her status as the most awarded female country artist, Lynn still seems as affable and approachable as she was when she was just getting her start in the music business. No matter how you know her, you know her. You might have taken notice of her musical collaborations with everyone from the late Conway Twitty to the White Stripes frontman Jack White. You might have followed her storied career since her 1960 debut hit “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” Maybe you learned all about her life growing up in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, through the autobiography Coal Miner’s Daughter or the classic biopic film adapted from it. Loretta Lynn is one country artist that everybody knows.
Country stars join us in singing the praises of one of the most influential artists and songwriters of all time in her 90th birthday year.
0 kommentar(er)
