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Loretta Lynn (born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1935) is an American actress, country music singer-songwriter; she was one of the leading country vocalists and songwriters during the 1960s.
In the '60s and '70s, Lynn achieved over 70 hits as a solo artist and a duet partner.

Her best-selling 1976 autobiography, Coal Miner's Daughter, was made into a hit Academy Award-winning film starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones in 1980. Including solo and duet work, Loretta Lynn has released 16 number one country hits over the course of her career.

Born to Melvin "Ted" Webb (1906–1959) and Clara Marie (Ramey) Webb (1912–1981) and named in honor of Loretta Young,[2] Loretta Webb was the second of eight children; her youngest sister is country singer Crystal Gayle. She is also, on her mother's side, distantly related to country singer Patty Loveless. Lynn grew up in Butcher Holler, a section of Van Lear, a mining community near Paintsville, Johnson County, Kentucky. Her mother, Clara, was of Scots-Irish and Cherokee ancestry. Her father, Ted, was a coal miner, storekeeper, and farmer. She was married to Oliver Vanetta Lynn, commonly known as "Doolittle," "Doo," or "Mooney" (for running moonshine), on January 10, 1948, at 13 years of age. In an effort to break free of the coal mining industry, Lynn moved to the logging community Custer, Washington, with her husband, at the age of 16. The Lynns had four children - Betty Sue, Jack Benny, Cissy, and Ernest Ray - by the time Loretta was 19, and subsequently had twin girls, Peggy and Patsy (named after Patsy Cline).

Lynn always had a passion for music. Before getting married, she regularly sang at churches and in local concerts. After she married, she stopped singing in public, wishing rather to focus on her family life. Instead, she passed her love of music on to her children, often singing to them around the house. When Loretta was 24, Doolittle bought her a guitar as an anniversary present, which she taught herself to play.

Even though they were married for nearly 50 years and had six children together, the Lynns' marriage was reportedly rocky up to Doolittle's death in 1996. In her 2002 autobiography, Still Woman Enough, and in an interview with CBS News the same year, Lynn recounts how her husband cheated on her regularly and once left her while she was giving birth. Lynn and her husband also fought frequently, but, she said, "he never hit me one time that I didn’t hit him back twice."


1960 – 1966: Early country success

Lynn began singing in local clubs and later with a band, The Trailblazers, which included her brother Jay Lee Webb. Lynn appeared in a televised Tacoma, Washington talent contest, hosted by Buck Owens, which was seen by Norm Burley, one of the founders of Zero Records.

Zero Records president Don Grashey arranged a recording session in Hollywood, where four of Lynn's own compositions were recorded: "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl," "Whispering Sea," "Heartache Meet Mister Blues," and "New Rainbow." Her first release featured "Whispering Sea" and "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl." With their initial support, Lynn went on to become one of country music’s greats.

Lynn signed her first contract on February 1, 1960, with Zero Records. She recorded her first release in March of that year, with bandleader Speedy West on steel guitar, Harold Hensely on fiddle, Roy Lanham on guitar, Al Williams on bass, and Muddy Berry on drums. The material was recorded at United-Western Recorders, in Hollywood, CA and engineered by Don Blake and produced by Grashey.

In 1960, under the Zero label,Lynn recorded "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl." The Lynns toured the country 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 minor hit, climbing to #14 on Billboard's C & W Chart, and Lynn began cutting demo records for the Wilburn Brothers' Publishing Company. Through the Wilburns, Lynn was able to secure a contract with Decca Records.

Her relationship with the Wilburn Brothers and her appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, beginning in 1960, helped Lynn become the number one female recording artist in country music. Lynn's contract with the Wilburn Brothers gave them the publishing rights to her material. She was still fighting to regain these rights 30 years after ending her business relationship with them, but was ultimately denied the publishing rights. Lynn stopped writing music in the 1970s because of these contracts.