The music industry is weathering a heavy loss with news that icon and twangy queen of country Loretta Lynn has passed away at age 90. Her soulful voice, bright smile, and authenticity shaped a generation of country music fans as we belt out lyrics to songs like “You Ain’t Woman Enough” and “Love is the Foundation,” — songs we still know every lyric to today.
Born in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, in 1932, she was one of eight children to a coal miner and his wife, and she had stardom in her veins from the very beginning. In fact, one of Lynn’s most iconic songs is “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” in which she sings about humble beginnings and growing up without a lot of money but surrounded by love.
CNN provided a statement from Lynn’s family, asking for privacy while announcing the loss of their family’s matriarch, heart, and soul. Her passing took place in the comfort of her own home early Tuesday morning.
“Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home in her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills.”
A post was also shared to Lynn’s Instagram account, with an image of her smiling her 10,000-megawatt smile, holding a guitar, looking as happy as ever to be surrounded by music, her life’s great passion. The family is also planning a memorial and a public statement to be shared later; for now, they’re focusing on honoring Lynn’s incredible life and mourning their significant loss.
Lynn was a force in the music industry, empowering women, and selling a true story. Artists draw inspiration from several avenues for their projects, and Lynn’s most personal and powerful were happening in her own life. In a quote to Esquire in 2017, Lynn says that she wasn’t the first woman in country, but she did do something powerful with her platform there:
“I wasn’t the first woman in country music. I was just the first one to stand up there and say what I thought, what life was about. The rest were afraid to.”
Being unafraid was Lynn’s superpower, and she often shared insight into the heartache she’d experienced in her life alongside the joy. She was shaped from the moments of despair as much as she found comfort in moments of happiness; she knew the truth to the idea that you’ve got to take the good with the bad, even if the challenging moments felt unending.
If you listen to her songs, hear words spoken about her, and watch any interview with Lynn, you’ll understand that she was something of a legend before she ever grasped the concept, but those around her always did. She sat with the exact humble nature in her last days as she did her earliest.
In all the ways that she shared her vulnerability with fans worldwide, we mourn her loss as we share gratitude that we were able to be impacted by a woman so small in stature but large in love and life. Rest in peace, Loretta Lynn, an icon and a coal miner’s daughter.
