Loretta Lynn, Country Singer Behind 'Coal Miner's Daughter,' Dies

NASHVILLE, TN — Country music icon Loretta Lynn died Tuesday in Tennessee, her family said. She was 90.

"Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home at her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” Lynn's family said in a statement posted on social media.

Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932, in a one-room log cabin in Kentucky, the daughter of a coal miner and the second of eight children, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. At 15, she married Oliver Lynn — also known as "Mooney" or "Doolittle" Lynn, the Associated Press reported — and had four children by the time she was 22.

“I was singing when I was born, I think,” she told the Associated Press in 2016. “Daddy used to come out on the porch where I would be singing and rocking the babies to sleep. He’d say, ‘Loretta, shut that big mouth. People all over this holler can hear you.’ And I said, ‘Daddy, what difference does it make? They are all my cousins.’”

Lynn got her start in country music with a $17 guitar from Sears and playing local gigs, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame, but she eventually rose to prominence, penning her signature song, "Coal Miner's Daughter," in 1970. She released a book in 1976 with the same name, which was made into the 1980 movie that won Sissy Spacek an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lynn, the Associated Press reported.

As a songwriter, Lynn presented herself as tough and defiant, writing fearlessly about love and sex, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control, according to the Associated Press.

“It was what I wanted to hear and what I knew other women wanted to hear, too,” Lynn told the Associated Press in 2016. “I didn’t write for the men; I wrote for us women. And the men loved it, too.”

Popular songs included "Out of My Head and Back in My Bed," “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Don't Come Home a Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)” and “Rated X.” By 1982, Lynn had more than 50 chart-topping hits, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame, into which she was inducted in 1988.

"We’ve lost a true Tennessee treasure today," U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, of Tennessee, tweeted Tuesday. "Loretta Lynn was a force to be reckoned with and a pioneer for women in country music."

Lynn was a frequent duet partner of Conway Twitty and Ernest Tubb, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame. She was the first woman to receive the Country Music Association's Entertainer of the Year Award in 1972. In 2003, Lynn was honored by the Kennedy Center, and her 2004 album, "Van Lear Rose," won the Grammy for Best Country Album. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013 and released her 50th studio album, "Still Woman Enough," in 2021, according to the obituary on her official website.

"She was an inspiration," singer-songwriter Carole King tweeted. "R.I.P. Loretta Lynn."

Lynn won four Grammys, seven American Music Awards and eight Country Music Association Awards, according to her obituary.

She and her husband were married nearly 50 years before he died in 1996, according to the Associated Press. They had six children: Betty, Jack, Ernest, Clara, and twins Patsy and Peggy. Lynn also had 17 grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.