Loretta Lynn, coal miner's daughter and country music icon, dies at 90
Loretta Lynn, the pioneering country music artist best known for hits like "A Coal Miner's Daughter," "“You Ain’t Woman Enough" and "The Pill," has died.
Loretta Lynn, who was born a coal miner’s daughter before ultimately becoming one of the crown jewels of country music, has died.
She was 90.
Lynn’s family said in a statement that she died Tuesday at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” the family said in a statement. They asked for privacy.
Born as Loretta Webb in the remote Appalachian mountain village of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, she was the second of eight children, and the family lived in a log cabin with wallpaper made out of Sears Roebuck catalog pages. Her early life revolved around the coal mine where her father toiled and the church where she learned to sing. That hardscrabble beginning helped lay the groundwork for her status as the voice of working class women — most famously through her signature 1970 hit, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” an ode to her father, Melvin Webb, who died of black lung disease 11 years earlier.
Rating: 5