Country Music legend Loretta Lynn will perform at Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on Sunday, September 15, 2013 at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Saturday, June 22 at 11 a.m.
“To make it in this business, you either have to be first, great or different,” said living legend Loretta Lynn. “And I was the first to ever go into Nashville, singin’ it like the women lived it.”
The year 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of Lynn’s arrival on the music scene with her 1960 debut single, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.” Almost on the exact date of her golden anniversary in show business, the Recording Academy gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award.
In addition to being “first,” she was also “great” and “different.” Lynn’s instantly recognizable delivery is one of the greatest country-music voices in history. As for “different,” no songwriter has a more distinctive body of work. In lyrics such as “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’” and “Your Squaw Is on the War Path,” she refused to be any man’s doormat. She challenged female rivals in “You Ain’t Woman Enough” and “Fist City.” She showed tremendous blue-collar pride in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” and “You’re Lookin’ at Country.” She is unafraid of controversy, whether the topic is sex (“Wings Upon Your Horns”), divorce (“Rated X”), alcohol (“Wouldn’t It Be Great”), war (“Dear Uncle Sam”), or “The Pill,” her celebration of sexual liberation, which were among some of her songs to be banned by many radio stations.
As millions who read her 1976 autobiography or saw its Oscar-winning 1980 film treatment are aware, Loretta Lynn is a coal miner’s daughter who was raised in dire poverty in a remote Appalachian Kentucky hamlet. Living in a mountain cabin with seven brothers and sisters, she was surrounded by music as a child.
She famously married Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn when she was 13 (he was 21). By age 18, she had four children. Isolated from her native culture and burdened with domestic work, she turned to music for solace. Impressed by her voice, Doo bought her a guitar and told her to learn how to play it and write songs with it.
Lynn was “discovered” while performing in nightclubs. In a handmade fringed cowgirl outfit, she and Doo drove across the country promoting the single. The disc hit the charts in the summer of 1960, and by the time the couple made Nashville, Loretta was singing regularly at the Grand Ole Opry. The show’s Wilburn Brothers took her under their wings – Teddy Wilburn helped to polish Loretta’s startlingly original songwriting style while brother Doyle Wilburn took her “Fool #1” to producer Owen Bradley at Decca Records who turned it into a smash pop hit for Brenda Lee.
Lynn’s Decca chart debut came with 1962’s “Success.” It became the first of her 51 Top 10 hits and led to an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry cast later that year, alongside Patsy Cline. She also was featured on the Wilburns’ nationally syndicated TV series and memorably romanced and sassed Conway Twitty in a number of hugely popular duet performances.
In 1967, she began picking up various Female Vocalist of the Year trophies. She and Twitty also won a long string of Duet of the Year awards beginning in 1971. The industry showered her with BMI songwriting honors, gold records, a Grammy Award and other accolades. In 1972, she became the first woman in history to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year trophy.
By the mid-1970s, Loretta Lynn was an undeniable superstar with such empowering female statements as “You Wanna Give Me Lift” (1970), “I Wanna Be Free” (1971), “We’ve Come a Long Way Baby” (1978), “Hey Loretta” (1973), “Love Is the Foundation” (1973), and the hilarious “One’s on the Way” (1972).
She was featured on the covers of Newsweek, Redbook and many other mainstream national publications. With her kooky humor, scrambled grammar, and unpretentious manner, she became a TV talk-show favorite.
Lynn continued to dominate the charts as the ‘70s drew to a close, scoring major hits with 1976’s “Somebody Somewhere,” 1977’s “Out of My Head and Back in My Bed,” and 1979’s “I’ve Got a Picture of Us on My Mind.” Her 1982 smash hits “I Lie” and “Making Love from Memory” carried her into the new decade.
Two years after she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983, Lynn was back on the charts with the hit, “Heart Don’t Do This to Me.” In 1988, the year she entered the Country Music Hall of Fame, Loretta recorded with k.d. lang. She earned a Gold record in 1994 with Honky Tonk Angels, a trio CD with Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. In 2000, she released Still Country.
Lynn published a second memoir, Still Woman Enough, in 2002. She was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2003, yet pushed forward again the following year by winning two Grammy Awards for Van Lear Rose, collaboration with rocker Jack White. Also in 2004, she published a book of recipes and anecdotes titled You’re Cookin’ It Country. She was inducted into the national Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York in 2008.
Despite her success, Loretta Lynn’s life is still a work in progress. She’s still out there on the road, still writing songs and still recording them as only she can.
Tickets cost $59, $49 and $39*; all seats are reserved and available at all Ticketmaster outlets online at www.myhrl.com, www.ticketmaster.com or charge by phone: 1-800-745-3000. Doors open one-hour prior to show start time. *Additional fees may apply.