'Loretta Lynn': A Lot More Than A Coal Miner's Daughter

An American Masters production that does full justice to its subject, Loretta Lynn: Still A Mountain Girl places Lynn in a detailed context that moves beyond the usual coal-miner’s-daughter explanations for her fame and her artistry. It also captures some priceless moments with Lynn, both old and new.

You know the outline of the story: Poor girl from Butcher’s Hollow, Kentucky, rises to fame on the strength of self-written hits that detail her hardscrabble life and her hard-headed determination to hang on — to her marriage and to her career. She becomes a country superstar with “Coal Miner’s Daughter” — the title of a single, an album, an autobiography, and a hit film starring Sissy Spacek. (One of the loveliest moments in Still A Mountain Girl is when Lynn and Spacek, now old friends, sit together and look at Lynn’s scrapbooks chronicling the making of the movie.)

But Mountain Girl, directed by Vikram Jayanti, digs deeper than the hits, placing Lynn in country-music history. When she emerged in the 1960s, the industry had only two big female stars, Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline. While Lynn took wisdom, influence, and (in the case of Cline) underwear from both — yes, a pair of Patsy’s “panties,” loaned to Loretta, remain in the Lynn archives in Nashville — Lynn had to break away from her elders’ vocal style and form her own persona.

Thus the string of hits she composed based on her tumultuous marriage to her husband-manager — variously referred to as “Mooney” or “Doo,” a promiscuous incorrigible without whom “Fist City,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ On Your Mind),” and “Your Squaw Is On the Warpath” would not have been created. But this small list of songs of domestic strife barely scratch the surface of Lynn’s voluminous catalogue of such compositions, and one thing this documentary does is play bits of them, along with commentary by esteemed songwriters such as Willie Nelson and Bill Anderson, to help you appreciate Lynn’s tremendous craftsmanship. (I was glad to hear such lesser-known but excellent songs such as “The Girl That I Am Now” and “Trouble In Paradise.”)

Once a star, Lynn had to negotiate the perilous challenge that faces all artists that rise from humble backgrounds: How do you continue to present yourself as a humble good ol’ gal when you’re a powerful, wealthy woman presiding over the mini-industry of your own career? Yet Lynn has done it, as recent footage demonstrates.

At one point, filming of the documentary in Lynn’s home is halted so that one of her daughters can lead a tour of fans through it. Both Lynn and the fans begin spontaneously singing some of Lynn’s music, and not a few of the tourists begin crying in the presence of Lynn’s still-strong voice and magnanimous presence.

Today, at 83, Lynn remains remarkably vital. She’s just released a strong new album, Full Circle, and it has been revealed that, over the past few years, she’s been recording new and old songs at a tremendous rate, with plans to leave behind the material for scores of albums, even after her death. This film, filled with marvelous archival footage of Lynn’s rise, is part of that living legacy.

American Masters: Loretta Lynn: Still A Mountain Girl airs Friday on PBS. Check your local listings for time.