50 Years Later: Loretta Lynn’s ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ Album
Get ready for the vinyl reissue of Lynn's classic, February 12.
February 9, 2021
CIRCA 1972: Loretta Lynn poses for a portrait wearing a blue denim suit with cows in the background leaning up against a fence in circa 1972. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Loretta Lynn’s 1970 single “Coal Miner’s Daughter” showed a master storyteller at work. Through well-observed and finely detailed verses, Lynn told the story of her hardscrabble Kentucky childhood in a sincere, warmhearted manner that touched all listeners, regardless of their own personal upbringing. Lynn described how her father labored in the Kentucky coal mines, raising “eight kids on a miner’s pay,” while her mother worked tirelessly to keep the family washed and nourished, in all senses of that term. ‘