Loretta Lynn: An Appreciation

Let me start by saying traditional country music isn’t very hip and cool. Now, there’s a crowd that appreciates it (which I fall into). Johnny Cash broke through 20 years ago and there are a few songs you will hear in a non country bar like “Jolene” or “Mama Tried” but they are few and that has only happened recently. And yes, a big country single sampled Webb Pierce last year but that age has gone It, however was the sound of my childhood when I spent time with my Grandma, which was often So this isn’t the Loretta Lynn appreciation post you thought it would be. I don’t need to tell you what a badass Loretta was. “Coal Miner’s Daughter” is on the short list of best populist American song ever written, and you can imagine how much competition that category has. There is the saying that Lynn has had more songs banned from country music than all male artists combined. She herself has listed 8 including legitimate classics like The Pill and X Rated. Check out the Cocaine and Rhinestones podcast for a breakdown of why that claim is likely true. At age 72, when most artists are resting on their laurels, she made the ambitious and acclaimed Van Lear Rose with Jack White. But this is not a post about that. There are plenty of places you can read about her place in history. I often was left with my grandma’s cassettes which were a history of country music. Now, it didn’t extend to that present moment (a time I actually followed the country charts and they were exciting) but it had a lot of the Nashville Sound orchestral ballads of the likes of Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold through the countypolitan 70s and the Urban Cowboy sound of the early 80s. Now, there are some great moments in country. I recognize that now and I recognized that somewhat then (for example, Freddy Fender wasn’t particularly exciting but he has some great moments), but I was looking for those kind of moments in what was not easily accessible music for me. I found it. Now, top of the list was Hank Williams, but I have written about him at length. The artist that stood out to me was Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Conway and Loretta are on the shortlist of country royalty. There’s George and Tammy (and George and Melba), Porter and Dolly (and Kenny and Dolly) and Johnny and June and in modern revisions, Emmylou and Gram, but there aren’t many others. Even if I wasn’t a big Twitty fan, there was something undeniable about the pairing. Oh come on, regardless of genre, is there a better back and forth duet than “You’re the reason our kids are ugly”. There was authenticity when the two sang which showed up in classic songs like “After the fire is gone”. These songs were 180 degrees from what I was otherwise listening to at the time, but it was the most compelling of a long list of possibilities. There’s a lot of Conway and Loretta references in Blake Shelton’s #1 “Honey Bee”. Country music has changed a lot but it will never forget Conway and Loretta.