Country music superstar Loretta Lynn has died aged 90, her family has announced.
In a statement, Lynn’s family said 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 as they grieve and said a memorial will be announced later.
The music star was born Loretta Webb in the remote Appalachian mountain village of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky.
She went on to break new ground in country music.
Her career spanned six decades and multiple gold albums.
She had hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “One’s on the Way,” “Fist City,” and “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
In 1980, the film Coal Miner’s Daughter was made based on her life.
Lynn 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 an individual artist.
She was nominated 18 times for a Grammy Award, winning 3 times.
Lynn is the most awarded female country recording artist and the only female ACM Artist of the Decade for the 1970s.
Lynn scored 24 No. 1 hit singles and 11 number one albums.
She ended 57 years of touring on the road after she suffered a stroke in 2017 and then broke her hip in 2018.
In 1967, Lynn reached No. 1 with “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’” which became one of the first albums by a female country artist to reach sales of 500,000 copies.
Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky coal miner’s daughter whose frank songs about life and love as a woman in Appalachia pulled her out of poverty and made her a pillar of country music, has died. She was 90. https://t.co/ATdwml7dpA
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 4, 2022
From The AP:
Her biggest hits came in the 1960s and ’70s, 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, wide gowns with elaborate embroidery or rhinestones, many created by her longtime personal assistant and designer Tim Cobb.
Her honesty and unique place in country music were 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 1972 and then by the Academy of Country Music three years later.
“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 “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” which helped her reach her widest audience yet.
“We were poor but we had love/That’s the one thing Daddy made sure of/He shoveled coal to make a poor man’s dollar,” she sang.
