Loretta Lynn

Induction Year: 1983

Birth Name: Loretta Webb

Birth Date: 04-14-1935

Place of Birth: Butcher Hollow, Kentucky

Death Date: 10-04-2022

Place of Death: Hurricane Mills, Tennessee

Loretta Lynn's storied country music career spans five decades and includes more than 70 albums (10 of them were country #1s), 65 Top 40 hits (including 16 #1s), two best-selling autobiographies, an Oscar-winning movie about her life (Coal Miner's Daughter), countless awards and a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
As the first line of her signature song goes, she really "was born a coal miner's daughter." Raised dirt poor in an Appalachian coal-mining community, Loretta Webb was married at 13. By the time she was 18, she had four children. Hardly a promising start for a successful life in music. But in 1960, at the encouragement of her husband, Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn, she began singing in bars. After she cut her first single, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" (1960), she and her husband set out in their car, courting radio stations one by one, and basically inventing what became the do-it-yourself approach of every modern band.

In 1961, Loretta moved to Nashville. Championed by Ernest Tubb, Patsy Cline and the Wilburn Brothers, she started her slow, steady climb to the top. By the time she gained her first CMA Female Vocalist award in 1967, she had become one of country's most beloved and important artists, a stature only cemented through the years. On classic — and disarmingly frank — songs such as "Fist City," "Don't Come Home a'Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "The Pill," she delivered a strong, unfiltered female point of view as few women had in any musical genre.

I wrote it like women lived it," she said. "I guess I was different in writing about things that nobody would even talk about in public. I didn't realize that they didn't. I thought, 'Well, this is what's going on. I'll write about it.' I was writing about life."

With Conway Twitty, Lynn was also part of one of country's most successful duos in the '70s and '80s, with #1 country hits such as "After the Fire Is Gone" and "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man."

In 2004, she won a new, younger audience, thanks to Van Lear Rose, her Grammy-winning album collaboration with rocker Jack White. Going for live performances and first takes, the hip producer captured a raw, passionate side of Loretta that had too long been absent from her records.

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Song Catalog

 

"A Man I Hardly Know"

Loretta Lynn1966 #72 country
 

"Bartender"

(written with Margaret Vaughn)

Loretta Lynn & Ernest Tubb1967 
 

"Big Ole Hurt"

Cal Smith1967 
Loretta Lynn1970 

"Coal Miner's Daughter"

Loretta Lynn1970 #1 country, #83 pop
Norma Jean1971 
Sissy Spacek1980 #24 country
Loretta Lynn, Sheryl Crow & Miranda Lambert2010 
 

"Dear Uncle Sam"

Loretta Lynn1966 #4 country

"Don't Come Home a' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)"

(written with Peggy Sue Wells)

Loretta Lynn1967 #1 country
Tammy Wynette1967 
Norma Jean1970 
Gretchen Wilson2010 
 

"Fist City"

Loretta Lynn1968 #1 country
Warner Mack1969 
The Little Willies2012 
 

"Hundred Proof Heartache"

Loretta Lynn1963 
 

"I Know How"

Loretta Lynn1970 #4 country
Warner Mack1970 
 

"I Wanna Be Free"

Loretta Lynn1971 #3 country, #94 pop
 

"I'm a Honky Tonk Girl"

Loretta Lynn1960 #14 country
Sissy Spacek1980 
Elvis Costello1982 
Lee Ann Womack2010 
 

"I'm Gonna Make Like a Snake"

Ernest Tubb1968 #69 country
 

"I've Cried the Blue Right out of My Eyes"

Crystal Gayle1970 #23 country
Crystal Gayle1978 #40 country
 

"Miss Being Mrs"

Loretta Lynn2004 
 

"Portland Oregon"

Loretta Lynn & Jack White2004 
 

"Rated 'X'"

Loretta Lynn1972 #1 country
Neko Case & the Sadies1999 
The White Stripes2001 
 

"Red White and Blue"

Loretta Lynn1976 #20 country
 

"Sittin' Bull"

(written with Lorene Allen)

Charlie Louvin1970 #54 country

"The Pill"

(written with T. D. Bayless, Don McHan)

Loretta Lynn1973 #5 country, #70 pop
 

"Then You'll Be Free"

Loretta Lynn1982 
 

"To Make a Man (Feel Like a Man)"

Loretta Lynn1969 #3 country
 

"What Kind of Girl (Do You Think I Am?)"

(written with Teddy Wilburn)

Loretta Lynn1968 #5 country
Norma Jean1968 
 

"Wings Upon Your Horns"

Loretta Lynn1970 #11 country
 

"World of Forgotten People"

Loretta Lynn1963 
George Jones1966 
The Wilburn Brothers1965 
Connie Smith1967 
Conway Twitty1969 
Osborne Brothers1970 
 

"Wouldn't It Be Great"

Loretta Lynn1985 #72 country
Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton & Tammy Wynette1993 

"You Ain't Woman Enough"

Loretta Lynn1966 #2 country
Skeeter Davis1966 
Norma Jean1967 
Connie Smith1967 
Dottie West1967 
Lynn Anderson1969 
Tina Turner1974 
Martina McBride2005 
Paramore2010 
 

"You Wanna Give Me a Lift"

Loretta Lynn1970 #6 country
Asleep at the Wheel1980 

"You're Lookin' at Country"

Loretta Lynn1971 #5 country
Carrie Underwood2010 
 

"Your Squaw Is on the Warpath"

Loretta Lynn1969 #3 country

Other Media

Loretta Lynn

Induction Year: 1983