Loretta Lynn death: ‘Original queen of country music’ dies aged 90

Singer wrote unapologetically about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control

Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter whose songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia touched millions, has died aged 90.

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, Lynn’s family said she died on Tuesday (4 October) at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Her cause of death has not been disclosed.

Lynn launched her career in the early Sixties, when she already had four children.

Her songs, which painted a portrait of the musician as a tough, defiant woman, were in stark contrast to the stereotypical image of most female country singers at the time. She wrote unapologetically about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control.

Lynn’s biggest hits came in the 1960s and 1970s, 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, capacious gowns with elaborate embroidery or rhinestones, many made by her longtime personal assistant and designer Tim Cobb.

Lynn was the first woman ever to be named Entertainer of the Year at the genre’s two major awards shows, first by the Country Music Association in 1972 and then by the Academy of Country Music in 1976.

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

In 1969, she released her autobiographical track “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, on which she sang: “We were poor but we had love/ That’s the one thing Daddy made sure of/ He shovelled coal to make a poor man’s dollar.”

The song also gave title to Lynn’s 1976 book and its subsequent 1980 film adaptation of the same name. Sissy Spacek’s portrayal of Lynn won her an Academy Award, with the film also nominated for Best Picture.

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Loretta Lynn and Sissy Spacek speak at the 44th Annual CMA Awards in 2010 (Getty Images)

Many years later, Lynn won two Grammys in 2005 for her album Van Lear Rose, which featured 13 songs she wrote, including “Portland, Oregon” about a drunken one-night stand.

Lynn wrote in her memoir that she was 13 when she got married to Oliver “Mooney” Lynn, but state records showed she was 15. Tommy Lee Jones played Mooney Lynn in the biopic.

Her husband encouraged her to sing professionally and helped promote her early career.

She also teamed up with singer Conway Twitty to form one of the most popular duos in country music with hits such as “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” and “After the Fire is Gone”.

Lynn continued to write into her later years, scoring a multi-album deal in 2014. In 2017, she suffered a stroke that forced her to postpone her shows.

Just last week, Lynn shared a throwback post on Twitter, reflecting on her appearance on Dolly Parton’s ABC variety show in 1988, when the legends joined forces for a medley of Lynn’s biggest hits.

Lynn and her husband were married nearly 50 years before he died in 1996. They had six children: Betty, Jack, Ernest, Clara, and twins Patsy and Peggy. She had 17 grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.