uesday, October 4, 2022 – Trailblazing country superstar Loretta Lynn passed peacefully in her sleep early this morning at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. at 90.

Over the course of her 60-year career, the native of Butcher Hollow, Ky. amassed 51 Top 10 hits, won GRAMMY awards and induction nto the Country Music Hall of Fame, and broke down barriers for women everywhere. Lynn’s hits included “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.”

She sang about such topics as birth control (“The Pill”), repeated childbirth (“One’s on the Way”), double standards for men and women (“Rated ‘X'”), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War (“Dear Uncle Sam”). Some of her songs were banned by country radio.

“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home at her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills,” the family said in a statement.

Lynn’s rags to riches story was the subject of the Oscar-winning 1980 film “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” starring Sissy Spacek. The movie was based on Lynn’s 1986 autobiography of the same name. In recent years, she enjoyed another resurgence as Jack White spearheading the 2004 album “Van Lear Rose.”

Lynn was born Loretta Webb in Butcher Hollow, Ky. on April 14, 1932. She is the eldest daughter and second child born to Clara Marie “Clary” and Melvin Theodore “Ted” Webb. Ted was a coal miner and subsistence farmer. Singer Crystal Gayle is her lone remaining sibling.

On Jan. 10, 1948, Webb, 15, married Oliver Vanetta “Doolittle” Lynn, better known as “Doolittle” or “Mooney” after meeting one month earlier. The Lynns left Kentucky and moved to the logging community of Custer, Wash., when Loretta was seven months pregnant with the first of their six children. The marriage’s ups and down inspired Lynn’s songwriting.

In 1953, Doolittle bought her a $17 Harmony guitar. With Doolittle’s encouragement, she started her own band, Loretta and the Trailblazers, with her brother Jay Lee playing lead guitar. She cut her first record, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl”, in February 1960.

Lynn became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s. Lynn began cutting demo records for the Wilburn Brothers Publishing Co. Through the Wilburns, she secured a contract with Decca Records.

Lynn released her first Decca single, “Success”, in 1962, reaching number six. Lynn’s songs charted regularly with songs including “Before I’m Over You”, which peaked at four followed by “Wine, Women and Song” climbing to third.

In late 1964, she recorded a duet album with Ernest Tubb. Their lead single, “Mr. and Mrs. Used to Be”, peaked within the Top 15. The pair recorded two more albums, “Singin’ Again” (1967) and “If We Put Our Heads Together” (1969). In 1965, her solo career continued with three major hits, “Happy Birthday,” “Blue Kentucky Girl” and “The Home You’re Tearing Down”. Lynn’s label put out two albums that year, “Songs from My Heart” and “Blue Kentucky Girl.”