#AtoZChallenge L is for Loretta Lynn

It's time again for the A to Z challenge. The challenge is to write posts 6 days a week (Monday through Saturday) during the month of April.  I've chosen the theme of Women in Music for this years challenge.


Loretta Lynn is a multiple gold album American country music singer-songwriter whose work spans almost 60 years. She has received numerous awards and other accolades for her groundbreaking role in country music, including awards from both the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music as a duet partner and individual artist. She remains the most awarded female country recording artist.

At age 15 in January 1948, Loretta married Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn. Their life together helped inspire the music she wrote.

In 1953 Doolittle bought her a $17 Harmony guitar. She taught herself to play. Over the following three years she worked to improve her guitar playing and with Doolittle's encouragement started her own band, "Loretta and the Trailblazers", with her brother, Jay Lee, playing lead guitar. She often appeared at Bill's Tavern in Blaine, Washington, and the Delta Grange Hall in Custer, Washington, with the Pen Brothers' band and The Westerneers. She eventually cut her first record, "Honky Tonk Girl", in February 1960.

She became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s, and in 1967 charted her first of 16 number-one 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".

Lynn focused on blue-collar women's issues with themes about philandering husbands and persistent mistresses, inspired by issues she faced in her marriage. She 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 music, banning nine of her songs, but Lynn pushed on to become one of country music's legendary artists. Lynn and contemporaries like Tammy Wynette provided a template for female artists in country music to follow. In 1980, her best-selling 1976 autobiography Coal Miner's Daughter was made into an Academy Award-winning film, Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones. Her most recent album, Van Lear Rose, released in 2004, was produced by fellow musician Jack White; Lynn and White were nominated for five Grammys and won two.

Lynn has received numerous awards in country and American music. She was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983, the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1988, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008, and she was honored in 2010 at the Country Music Awards. Her most recent honor is the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama (awarded also to Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Bob Dylan). Lynn has been a member of The Grand Ole Opry since joining on September 25, 1962; her first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry was on October 15, 1960. Lynn has recorded 70 albums, including 54 studio albums, 15 compilation albums, and one tribute album, and has sold over 48 million albums worldwide in her career.

Lynn's sisters, Peggy Sue and Crystal Gayle, and brother Jay Lee are also professional country music artists.

https://youtu.be/iFq6eZBS1iM


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** My mother passed away this morning (4/14/16)  I will be traveling for the next few days to attend her services. I will be respond to your comments and return blog visits when I return home.

What does tomorrow bring?

2016 A to Z challenge! 

Who will represent the letter M?

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