Loretta Lynn
Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. | Red Robinson Show Theatre
Tickets: $44.50 to $59.50 at ticketmaster.ca
1. She is the queen of country music. Loretta Lynn’s not joking when she sings “If you’re looking at me/You’re looking at country.” The Country Music Hall of Famer has won more awards and honours (including the 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom) and had more top ten hits (16 No. 1 hits out of 70 charted songs), and earned more titles (first woman country singer to pen a No. 1 hit) than just about anyone else in country music. She’s recorded 60 albums and sold 48 million copies worldwide, and has a back catalogue of classics that includes Hello Darlin’, Don’t Come Home A’ Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind) and You Ain’t Woman Enough. Even many non-country music fans know of her thanks to the Oscar-winning 1980 biopic (starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones) based on Lynn’s bestselling 1976 autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter.
2. The Pill. With songs like The Pill, about birth control, Lynn was one of the first, if not the first, woman to write country music with a feminist viewpoint. As a consequence, country music radio often banned her songs,
3. Van Lear Rose. She might appeal mostly to dyed-in-the-wool country buffs, but Van Lear Rose, her 2004 collaboration with the White Stripes’ Jack White, brought Lynn to the attention of a whole new generation of music fans. The record also went on to win two Grammy Awards, including Best Country Album of the Year. Recent tributes to Lynn include an album of covers by artists including Miranda Lambert, the White Stripes and Paramore.
4. Loretta Lynn Day. While still in her teens, Lynn and her husband moved from her home in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky to Washington State — to the logging community of Custer, just over the B.C.-Washington border. As a result, the first record label to sign her — Zero Records — was based right here in Vancouver. Thanks to her local roots, Mayor Gregor Robertson has declared the date of Lynn’s upcoming Coquitlam show Loretta Lynn Day.
5. She’s 81, and still kickin’ it live. Plus, she has several new recorded projects ready for release. And she recently hinted of followup with Jack White to Van Lear Rose.