Loretta Lynn

Loretta Lynn

Born Loretta Webb on 14 April 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Van Lear of Johnson County, Kentucky, and died 4 October 2022 at her home in Hurricane Mills of Humphreys County, Tennessee) is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, Van Lear, Kentucky to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 15 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Lynn. Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he had affairs and she was headstrong. Their experiences together became inspiration for her music.

When she was 24 years old, Lynn's husband bought her a guitar. She taught herself to play and cut her first record the next year. She became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s, and in 1967 charted her first of 16 number 1 hits (out of 70 charted songs as a solo artist and a duet partner) that include "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "You Ain't Woman Enough", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter". She focused on blue collar women's issues with themes of philandering husbands and persistent mistresses, and pushed boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control ("The Pill"), repeated childbirth ("One's on the Way"), double standards for men and women ("Rated "X""), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War ("Dear Uncle Sam"). Country music radio stations often refused to play her songs. Nonetheless, she became known as "The First Lady of Country Music" and continues to be one of the most successful vocalists of all time.

Her best-selling 1976 autobiography was made into an Academy Award winning film, Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones in 1980. Her most recent album, Van Lear Rose, was released in 2004, produced by Jack White, and topping the country album charts. Lynn continues to tour and has received numerous awards in country and American music..."

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretta_Lynn

Birth:

Born April 14, 1932 in Butcher Hollow in Van Lear, Johnson County, Kentucky.

SOURCE: http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-05-18/loretta-lynn/5...

Lynn had claimed for decades to have been born in 1935 and to have been married at age 13. In 2012, the Associated Press was able to obtain a copy of her certified birth certificate, showing her actual birth date and proving that she was at least 15 at the age of marriage.

The Kentucky birth records index, however, lists her as having been born in neighboring Paintsville. This profile uses Butcher Hollow since that is what the Webb and Lynn families have consistently cited as the place of her birth, and because the certificate doesn't point to Paintsville as the location to be indexed. Please contact the curator if you have disputing information.