County icon Loretta Lynn died October 4 at the age of 90. Born a coal miner’s daughter in Butcher’s Hollow, Kentucky, she was a fixture of Nashville’s music scene since the 1960s. She performed several times at the Grand Ole Opry and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983. It was in Nashville that her autobiographical, Oscar-winning film Coal Miner’s Daughter first debuted in 1980.
Today, we’re diving into the legacy Loretta Lynn has left behind, in Nashville and beyond. We’re discussing how she created her own image in the music industry, and the tension between how she addressed gender and class in her songs and her explicit rejection of the label “feminist.” Then, we’re joined by country artists from Kentucky to talk about how Loretta Lynn influenced their careers.
But first, we’re checking in on the mayoral elections in Mason, Tennessee.
Guests:
- Anita Wadhwani, senior reporter at the Tennessee Lookout
- Jewly Hight, WNXP editorial director
- Amanda Marie Martinez, historian of the country music industry from the 1970s to the 1990s
- Angaleena Presley, country artist from rural Kentucky and a member of the Pistol Annies
- Kelsey Waldon, country singer songwriter from rural Kentucky
Additional reading:
- WNPX: Loretta Lynn, country music icon, has died at 90
- NPR: Personifying a country ideal, Loretta Lynn tackled sexism through a complicated lens
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