She's the queen of country music and Loretta Lynn has many more songs left to sing. Loretta recently faced some of the toughest times of her extraordinary life, with the death of her husband of 48 years. For all of those years Loretta sang songs from that difficult but always devoted marriage鈥on't Come Home Drinkin' (With lovin' on Your Mind), One's on the Way and Fist City. A strong woman with deep convictions that inspired millions of women had lost her inspiration. Loretta was one of eight children born in a tarpaper shack in Butcher Holler, Kentucky to a father who died from black lung disease. She and her siblings walked many miles to school each day until she was 14. It was then that she married a former coal-miner who was nick-named Mooney because he delivered moonshine for a living. By the time she was 18 she had four children with two more on the way. In her twenties she taught herself to play music on a $17 Sears and Roebuck guitar that Mooney bought for her through mail order. When she sang to her children, Mooney thought she sounded as good as anyone on the radio. Her destiny was being shaped and she never gave into failure. She followed her dreams while raising their six children. She pursued playing with local bands and primitive local radio shows. In 1960, Zero Records released her first single, I'm a Honkey Tonk Girl. "We made that song with two tape recorders. I was the first girl in country music to sing her own harmony." Mooney mailed copies to hundreds of radio stations around the county and they started their own tour to promote the record, logging 80,000 miles and subsisting on bologna, cheese-and-crackers. The song became a hit and she signed with Decca Records (Later MCA). By 1962 she cracked into the top 10 and became a member of the Grand Ole Opry (which celebrated it's 75th anniversary in 2000). The husband and wife team were notorious on the country music scene, as their fighting and making up became the inspiration for her hit records. She was more than a music pioneer, she was a revolutionary, using her emotions in her songs with more hits like, You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man, You're Squaw Is on the Warpath, I'm the Other Woman and The Home You're Tearing Down. Mooney worked hard to encourage and promote her career, but the riches and being in the spotlight were too much for the man who described himself as more of a good ole boy than a grandstander. Mooney also liked his whiskey which caused many heartaches and battles. But she always loved him dearly even when bad temperament got in the way. She always held steadfast to her dream and rode the swells of success with twenty-six number 1 hit records. She had become admired and worshiped by millions, but success could never stand still. During the 60's and 70's Loretta Lynn wasn't exactly looked up to as a women's libber, however her songs Fist City, about a threat to beat up her man and his mistress if she caught him messing around, and her hit The Pill where she lauded the form of birth control after she already had 6 children, in retrospect still are viewed as modern commentary. She tells how she persuaded her husband to undergo a vasectomy so they would not have any more children, "I sat in there and watched him to make sure it was done." However the worst times of Loretta's life were yet to come and her amazing strength and courage were about to be tested. Loretta was noticeably silent throughout the nineties as she retreated home to care for her sick husband. He battled diabetes, losing both of his legs, his eyesight and his hearing. We can only imagine the compassion and love that carried her courageously through this difficult and soul-trying time. In 1996 he died. The man who pulled her out of the harsh coal-mining environment of the Kentucky Mountains. The man who saved up and bought her first guitar. The man who pounded on every disk jockey's door around the country until they would play her record. The man also nicknamed Doolittle, who always stood by his woman. The man, who believed in her, was gone. "I don't remember nothin", she says. "That first year, I just don't remember. You know that one day you're going to lose 'em, but you're never ready for it鈥 lost 12 people in four years: two brothers, Conway Twitty, two aunts, four uncles, Tammy Wynett, and cousins". "I just was in denial that anything had happened. I had the house completely rebuilt, 'cause I could not live there the way it was. Too many memories." She eventually came to terms with the loss of her powerful husband after the renovations. Never one to stay down for long, she was eventually able to see the humor in life. "You're never going to believe what I found today", Loretta says with a smile. "I found the last pint of whiskey I hid from Doolittle! I'd hid it behind all the pots and pans and stuff that I didn't use unless it was a holiday. I got down there in all the drawers this week and I found it. And I said, This is going in my museum!" Lynn built her museum across the hill from her home and her new concert pavilion. And yes that last pint of Moonies whiskey is on display. During the decade she spent in seclusion, Nashville the city and country music itself had changed. Her groundbreaking revolution had paved the way for an industry dominated by 20-year-old executives and national artists. But this would never deter the courageous and inspirational Loretta Lynn. She assembled a stellar band, wrote and sang her songs and walked out of the recording studio with the best album of her life, Still Country. "Now country's hit the big time, me I'm still the same. Ain't above my raisin', ain't about to change." This beautiful, monumental album will bring tears of joy to your life with songs like, On My Own Again, Country In My Genes, and The Blues Ain't Working On Me. Her story is the classic American folk tale of perseverance. She has never given up. She stated in her humble tone, "All I've ever done is to try and help others, starting with my family. I never did this for myself." Thankfully for the women of the world, today Loretta Lynn is still woman enough to tell her stories and sing her songs. For the last several months we have listened to 'Still County' here in the Ladyfire offices. It has delighted and inspired us as we recognize a part of ourselves in her own life stories. It always leaves us with the determination to make the best of your life鈥y seeking that which you love most of all. Visit Loretta's web site language=javascript> |