Queen Of Country Music Loretta Lynn Dies Aged 90

Loretta Lynn, who became a standard – bearer for women in country music with her songs of strength and independence,

died at the age of 90.

Her songs, most notably on the autobiographical Coal Miner’s Daughter, were rooted in real – life experience,

earning her the title “Queen of Country.”

Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’, Honky Tonk Girl, and the feminist anthem The Pill were also hits.

Lynn died on Tuesday at her home in Tennessee, according to her family.

“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, died peacefully in her sleep this morning, October 4th, at home in her beloved

ranch in Hurricane Mills,” the family said in a statement.

They requested privacy while they grieved and stated that a memorial would be announced later.

Loretta Webb was born in a one-room log cabin in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky in 1932. She was the second child of eight.

Her family eked out a living during the Depression, as she would later sing in Coal Miner’s Daughter, with her father earning

a “poor man’s dollar” by working all night in the coal mines and all day in the fields “a-hoein’ corn.”

Her family provided its own entertainment – her mother played guitar, with her father on banjo – and she grew up

listening to Carter Family songs.

“I was singing when I was born, I think,” she told the Associated Press in 2016. “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.’” 

When she was 15, she went to a “pie social,” where local girls baked pies and men bid to win both the

food and a meeting with the cook.

Oliver Lynn, a 21-year-old solider who swept Loretta off her feet, won Loretta’s pie, which was baked with salt instead of sugar.

They married a month later and moved to Custer, Washington, where they raised four children.

Her husband, whom she referred to as “Doo” or “Doolittle,” encouraged her to sing professionally and

purchased her a $17 (£14.80) Sears guitar, with which she formed Loretta and the Trailblazers,

which included her brother Jay Lee Webb.

Success, her first Decca record, was released in 1962, kicking off an impressive run of hits that lasted until the 1990s.

Lynn’s first number one hit was Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind) in 1966,

and she went on to top the US country charts 15 more times.

She released 60 albums in total and received 18 Grammy nominations, winning three.