Loretta Lynn 067

Look closer for five song titles and three lyrics: Wine Women and Song; Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’; You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man); Blue Kentucky Girl; Fist City; “In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler”(Coal Miner’s Daughter); “You would laugh to know I kiss your photograph”(Before I’m Over You); “Gee I hope it ain’t twins again”(One’s On The Way)

The story

Loretta Lynn (Webb), (04-14-1932 to 10-04-2022) an American singer-songwriter whose career spanned six decades in country music, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had hits such as “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”. 

Lynn received many awards for her groundbreaking role in country music, both from the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music. She was nominated 18 times for Grammy Awards and won 3 times. As of 2022, Lynn was the most awarded female country recording artist. Lynn scored 24 No. 1 hit singles and 11 No. 1 albums. She ended 57 years of touring on the road after she suffered a stroke in 2017 and then broke her hip in 2018.

Early life – Lynn was the eldest daughter of eight children. Her youngest sister, Brenda Gail Webb, born in 1951, known as Crystal Gail, sang a 1977 hit “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”. On January 10, 1948, 15-year-old Loretta Webb married Oliver Vanetta “Doolittle” Lynn. They had met only a month earlier. The Lynns left Kentucky and moved to Custer, Washington, when Loretta was seven months pregnant with the first of six children. The happiness and heartache of her early years of marriage would help to inspire Lynn’s songwriting.

1960–1966: Early country success – Lynn began singing in local clubs in the late 1950s. She later formed her own band, the Trailblazers which included her brother Jay Lee Webb. Lynn won a wristwatch in a televised talent contest in Tacoma, Washington, hosted by Buck Owens. Lynn’s performance was seen by Canadian Norm Burley of Zero Records. . .  Lynn signed her first contract on February 2, 1960, with Zero. Her album was recorded at United Western Recorders in Hollywood, [with several west coast musicians.] Lynn commented on the different sound: “Well, there is a West Coast sound that is definitely not the same as the Nashville sound […] It was a shuffle with a West Coast beat”.

The Lynns toured to promote the release to country stations, while Grashey and Del Roy took the music to KFOX in Long Beach, California. When the Lynns reached Nashville, the song was a hit, climbing to No. 14 on Billboard’s Country and Western chart. By the end of the year, Billboard magazine listed Lynn as the No. 4 Most Promising Country Female Artist.

Lynn joined the Grand Ole Opry on September 25, 1962, which helped her become the No. 1 female recording artist in country music. She was under contract with the Wilburn Brothers who owned publishing rights to her material. After ending the contract with them, she unsuccessfully fought the Wilburn Brothers for 30 years for publishing rights. Lynn stopped writing music in the late 1970s because of the contracts. 

Lynn had released her first Decca single, “Success”, in 1962, and it went straight to No. 6, beginning a string of top 10 singles that would run throughout the 1970s. Lynn’s music began to regularly hit the Top 10 after 1964 with songs such as “Before I’m Over You”, which peaked at No. 4, followed by “Wine, Women and Song”, which peaked at No. 3. After three duet albums with Earnest Tubbs, in 1965, her solo career continued with three major hits, “Happy Birthday”, “Blue Kentucky Girl” (later recorded and made a Top 10 hit in the 1970s by Emmylou Harris), and “The Home You’re Tearing Down”. Lynn’s label issued two albums that year, Songs from My Heart and Blue Kentucky Girl.

Lynn’s first self-penned song to crack the Top 10, 1966’s “Dear Uncle Sam”, was among the first recordings to recount the human costs of the Vietnam War. Her 1966 hit “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” made Lynn the first country female recording artist to write a No. 1 hit.

1967–1980: Breakthrough success – In 1967, Lynn reached No. 1 with “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”, which became one of the first albums by a female country artist to reach sales of 500,000 copies.

Lynn’s next album, Fist City, was released in 1968. The title track became Lynn’s second No. 1 hit, as a single earlier that year. In 1968, her next studio album, Your Squaw Is on the Warpath, spawned two Top 5 Country hits, including the title track and “You’ve Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out on Me)”. In 1969, her next single, “Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone)”, was Lynn’s third chart-topper, followed by a subsequent Top 10, “To Make a Man (Feel Like a Man)”. Her song “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”, was an instant hit and became one of Lynn’s all-time most popular. Her career continued to be successful into the 1970s, especially following the success of her autobiographical hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Chart in 1970. It became her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 83. That song later served as the impetus for her bestselling autobiography (1976) and the Oscar-winning biopic, both of which share the song’s title.

-credit wikipedia

The artwork

Original illustration done in graphite and prisma colors: Violet Blue and Aqua Marine for Blue Kentucky Girl; Olive Green for the Army buddies her husband is “bringing home” in the song, One’s On The Way; Sunburst Yellow for her song, Keep on the Sunny Side; and Black for Coal Minor’s Daughter.

Artist: Tobin Bortner of Bastrop, Texas – drawing done in October of 2022 – ©Tobin Signs, LLC/Look Closer Illustrations 

DERIVATIVE Work photo credits: face from shropshirestar_com – WFSZFNXREZBVXFVNIXX5GD472Q; hand and microphone from rollingstone_com – gettyimages-621804204-a5b6795c-15cc-44e3-8395-31f13c9da149; dress and necklace from reseptalamtokyo_blogspot_com – ff424a-20120518-loretta-lynn

What you get:
$40 (36.95 + 3.05 tax)
11 x 14 Print Package with Authenticity Sheet
signed and numbered (run of 65)
Domestic Priority Mail $8 (Free shipping)