She was They asked for privacy as they grieve and said a memorial will be announced later. Lynn already had four children before launching her career in the early s, and her songs reflected her pride in her rural Kentucky background. As a songwriter, she crafted a persona of a defiantly tough woman, a contrast to the stereotypical image of most female country singers.
The Country Music Hall of Famer wrote fearlessly about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control and sometimes got in trouble with radio programmers for material from which even rock performers once shied away. Her honesty and unique place in country music was rewarded. She was the first woman ever named entertainer of the year at the genre's two major awards shows, first by the Country Music Association in and then by the Academy of Country Music three years later.
And the men loved it, too. Sissy Spacek's portrayal of Lynn won her an Academy Award and the film was also nominated for best picture. Sure makes me feel good that Mama went first so she could welcome Loretta into the hollers of heaven! Born Loretta Webb, the second of eight children, she wrote that her birthplace was Butcher Holler, near the coal mining company town of Van Lear in the mountains of east Kentucky.
She literally put the place on the map, according to Peter Cooper, senior director, producer and writer at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
Her daddy played the banjo, her mama played the guitar and she grew up on the songs of the Carter Family. People all over this holler can hear you. They are all my cousins. Tommy Lee Jones played Mooney Lynn in the biopic. Their duets, and her single records, were always mainstream country and not crossover or pop-tinged.
