A genuine Southern girl is coming to Huntsville for her first concert in 2007. Grammy winner and honest-to-goodness American icon, Loretta Lynn fashions her distinctive style—a mature fusion of twang, grit, energy and libido in a concert set for Friday, January 19, 8:00 p.m., at the Von Braun Center Concert Hall. The “Coal Miner’s Daughter” has delighted audiences for over four decades with her personal tale of rags to riches, and tapestry of blue-collar songs that shaped the country music scene of today.

Hazel Green's Shane Adkins, winner of the 2003 International Thumbpicking and 2005 International Fingerstyle championships, will be fronting for Loretta Lynn at the VBC Concert Hall. He is an exceptional picker, singer, songwriter and story teller.

Tickets may be purchased online at www.ticketmaster.com, by phone at 800-277-1700, or in person at the VBC Box Office, and all Ticketmaster locations. Prices are $45.50 and $35.50.

The Loretta Lynn Show is an inspiration for all ages. Durant, Oklahoma 12/11/2006 9:57 PM GMT (TransWorldNews)

     The Choctaw Coliseum and Casino was the site for the Loretta Lynn Concert, held in Durant Oklahoma. The concert, marked the first time back on stage for Mrs. Lynn since she shattered her shoulder earlier this year. Loretta's performance was a joyous combination of heart felt hits and a speacial Q&A session. Loretta Lynn's style makes her audience feel warm and welcome. There is a sense of family among Mrs. Lynn and her band. The "Coal Miners" consist of Bobby Vogal, Bart Hansen, Larry Barnes,Charlie Archer, Eric Kaberle, Craig Morris, Shelton Feazell, Lee Hilliard and Mike Lusk. This has got to be one of the best groups to take the stage in Country Music today. Peggy Lynn gave an amazing performance to open up the show. She was nominated for a CMA, along with her twin sister Patsy. "Coal Miner's Daughter," was the last song of the evening, but the highlight was the Gospel session that Mrs. Lynn performed with her group, "The Coal Miners."

      Loretta's backstage guests included the Tribal Leaders of the Choctaw Nation and actress Ashlyn Dixon, the star of of the Sci Fi Series, "Paranormal." Miss Dixon flew into Oklahoma from LA, so that she could attend the concert with her grandmother. "Loretta Lynn has had a major influence on my life." says Dixon. " She came from country roots, she surrounded herself with family and she never forgeot who she was. She is my role model." 

      The Loretta Lynn Show will have limited tour dates, please visit www.lorettalynn.com for more information. This is a show that you will not want to miss. It is inspirational for the entire family.

The Coal Miner's Daughter, Loretta Lynn, joins music fans at Horseshoe Casino  when she shares her down-home country hits.

Lynn's beginnings in the hills of Butcher Holler, Kentucky, were humble, but her journey from poverty to stardom has landed her a spot as an American icon.

"Coal Miner's Daughter" alone led to a hit single, a best-selling autobiography and an Oscar-winning film.

In 2004, Lynn reached a new audience and a younger generation with "Van Lear Rose." The album featured the guitar playing of Jack White of The White Stripes.

The album was nominated for five Grammy awards and went on to win two trophies for Best Country Album and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.

Lynn has garnered other prestigious awards including Artist of the Decade for the '70s by the Academy of Country Music as well as being the first woman to earn the Country Music Association's highest honor, Entertainer of the Year.

DeBusk Joins Longhorn Rodeo Crew

Kevin DeBusk

Facility Located In Tulsa, Oklahoma

The Longhorn Rodeo family is pleased to announce the addition of a new family member, Kevin DeBusk. DeBusk, a graduate of the University of Tennessee in agriculture, will serve as publicist and Circuit Facility Manager.

“This is a dream come true,” DeBusk said. “When I was growing up I tried to break into the business as a clown but never had much success. Then I was fortunate enough to start covering rodeos, as a journalist and photographer, so it’s only natural for me to want a position like this.” He continued saying prior to ever meeting Bruce Lehrke, President of Longhorn Rodeo, he knew of him and his rodeo through an old friend who competed in cowgirl barrel racing back in the days of the Loretta Lynn Rodeo.

Loretta Lynn honored by Ace Productions

Jim Case, a Portland resident and owner of Ace Productions and AARON Records, presented Loretta Lynn with a plaque, celebrating the 41st anniversary of their tour to Germany and France in 1965, at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, TN on Saturday, May 27.
The inscription read:
Presented to Loretta Lynn to commemorate the 41st anniversary of our tour to Germany and France in June and July 1965 to entertain U.S. Military troops and their families. Loretta Lynn and Jimmy Case & The Cherokees performed 38 shows in 17 days.
The standing ovations you received were a clear indication of a job well done. You had “It” then and you still have “It” now! You are a world treasure. With love and best wishes always, Jimmy Case.
Jim had a very popular country band, Jimmy Case & The Cherokees that toured all over the world. In June of 1965, they were scheduled to tour U. S. Military Bases in Germany and France. Jim wanted another act to go with him, so he chose Loretta Lynn. The song she had in the charts at that time was, “Blue Kentucky Girl.” To this day, every time Loretta sees Jim, she says jokingly, “There he is, Jimmy Case, he liked to have killed me doing 38 shows in 17 days!”
The presentation was a total surprise and Loretta was thrilled! They caught up on old times backstage and had a great visit!
At the same time, Jim officially inducted Loretta into the Southern Legends Hall of Fame. She was presented a framed certificate.

Written by Kristi Harrison
I have a confession. Come close so I can whisper it into your little ear. Ready?

I can’t write when music is playing.

Laugh all you want, but this is an affliction. Especially when trying to write a heartfelt post about my favorite songs of all time. At this very moment Bruce Springsteen’s "Atlantic City" is playing, and all can think about is doing a job for some mobsters in New Jersey. And who "The Chicken Man" may be.   The inspiration for this post was found on my new webcrush - Retrocrush. Titled “The Fifty Greatest Song Parts,” these cool guys had the gall to list their favorite pieces of songs. Narrowing song parts was hard for me, and finding the songs was a freakin’ exercise in futility. Listening to Tenacious D at the moment. Can’t stop laughing. Must keep looking. “Be ye angels? Nay, we are but men… ROCK!”

LORETTA TOPS AT #2 AND #13

2. Loretta Lynn and Jack White – "Portland, Oregon".  “Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz. If that ain’t love, then tell me what is, uh-huh.”   Picturing Loretta Lynn and Jack White making out in a seedy bar gives me chills.  But the song is good.  Dang good.  "Sloe gin fizz works mighty fast when you drink by the pitcher and not by the glass, uh-huh."  My kind of lady.

13. Loretta Lynn – "Fist City". You’ve gotta give props to Loretta. Favorite part? Maybe “Close your face and stay outta my way if ya don’t want to go to fist city.” Or perhaps, “Cause I’ll grab you by the hair a your head and I’ll lift you off a the ground…” Check out Loretta Lynn for more advice on keeping your man and his mistress in line.

By Alison Bonaguro
Special to the Tribune

Three minutes and 52 seconds wasn't long enough.

In 2003, Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" gave country music lovers a glimpse into her hardscrabble, downstate Illinois world. But when you've lived a life of extreme poverty and addiction and suffered the whims of a con man stepfather, one song isn't enough to do it justice. So Gretchen Wilson wrote a book.

 Like `Coal Miner's Daughter'

"This is like `Coal Miner's Daughter,' even a little worse," said Rucker. "It's the kind of life where if it didn't happen, you wouldn't believe it."

The difference here, though, is that "Coal Miner's Daughter" was one of the first country autobiographies to share the struggles of a poverty-stricken family. And Loretta Lynn didn't write it until she'd had about 16 years of stardom under her belt. Lynn was ahead of the trend, so the book became a best seller and the movie a hit.

Now, autobiographies are everywhere, and artists don't write them if they had a childhood full of stability in the suburbs with two parents, a dog, ballet lessons and Sunday mass. The glut of woe-was-me books is wearing on a skeptical reading audience.
Rucker found he respected Wilson because of the way she was so grounded in the roots of the music. The Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn kind of music. "For a lot of artists, country's just their avenue to be pop stars," he said. "But Gretchen is hungry enough to stay grounded in this music. She is the reincarnation of Patsy Cline.

By David Hinckley

Country music probably has no more or fewer internal feuds and rivalries than any other style of music, but it's way ahead of the rest when it comes to everyone gettin' together for a celebration.

Or maybe every one of the dozens of stars who populate this 2-1/2-hour salute - "CMT Giants: Reba McEntire," tonight at 8 - really is her very best friend, as they all tell the camera.

In any case, their get-together creates one first-class night for country music fans.

Not lost amid the music, either, is McEntire's own story. Daughter of a frustrated showbiz mother, she worked hard for years before she scored her first No. 1 hit, "Can't Even Get the Blues," in 1982.

She then slowly used success to seize control of her career in a way that once would have been unthinkable for any artist, especially a woman.

Until the 1960s, you could count the number of major female country stars on the fingers of one hand: Patsy Montana, Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline. The '60s saw the first larger breakthroughs with the likes of Loretta Lynn and Parton, both of whose presence on this show underscores how the Martina McBrides and Trisha Yearwoods of today got here......Edited by webmaster

Sioux Falls Man Collects Loretta Lynn Memorabilia

Jeff Johnson is a director at KSFY TV. But when he's not helping to put newscasts on the air, Jeff's spends time among his impressive collection of Loretta Lynn memorabilia.

Jeff's love for Loretta Lynn dates back to the 1970's. He says, "From then on, I was pretty fascinated with her life story." He started his collection with his dad's Loretta Lynn albums, but how it's grown since then. Jeff says, "She's got about 95 magazine covers, I don't have them all." But he does have three of Loretta's original gowns. Holding up a sequined dress Jeff says, "This is the one she wore on Austin City Limits." There's Loretta Lynn water, coasters and some really rare items. "These are the curtains that were used in her Crisco commercials in the 1970's."

But perhaps what's most impressive is that many of the items are personally signed by Loretta Lynn. That's because every year, Jeff and eight other die-hard fans meet with the singing legend at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. Jeff says, "She invites us into her house and we usually have one day where we get to sit and visit with her and have lunch." In fact it was at Loretta's garage sale that Jeff picked up one of the star's old measuring cups. While it has lots of sentimental value, Jeff's collection of albums have more monetary value. He owns every one Loretta Lynn has ever made. He says, "I'd like to get all sealed albums, but I don't know if that's going to be possible because there's over 100 of them."

For now, Jeff will continue searching for Loretta Lynn treasures, while looking forward to the next time they meet. He says, "She's a legend, there's no doubt."

By: Leslie Rupiper

Music Icon Loretta Lynn dropped by a recent concert of Gospel Group BFA "Brian Free and Assurance." Lynn went with longtime friend and BFA Fan Gloria Land most fans of Loretta Know who Gloria is,Gloira has worked for Lynn over 40 years and they are great friends. Gloria asked Loretta to go with her and Lynn said sure I would love too. the Group heard that Lynn maybe coming and was thrilled to death to see her in the balcony and they just had to meet the music Icon Lynn herself was qouted as saying it's my pleasure meet you all your great I love your music.. Lynn herself has written some of her own gospel music over the years Who says God Is Dead, Ma ma why did God take my Daddy  among others.. Lynn also has a heatland 2 disc gospel cd for sale on her website www.lorettalynn.com
it has over 20 newly records gospel hits. including Message from Jesus that Lynn's son Ernest Ray  Lynn wrote and recorded with Lynn. Ernest Ray has been on every one of Lynns Gospel albums. Hymns 1965, Who Say's God is Dead 1967, God Bless America Again 1972, And her latest Loretta Lynn All Time Gospel Favorites.

ENHAM, Ky. – Have you ever wondered what that old lamp that your grandmother gave you is worth?

Here’s your chance to find out. The Kentucky Coal Museum in Benham will be holding an Antique Appraisal Fair on Saturday, Nov. 18. And during the weekend of Nov. 17-18, the School House Inn in Benham will be offering a special discount for rooms.

Certified appraisers will be available 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to discuss the value of your favorite antique or vintage item. Fees of $5 and less will be charged for the appraisals. The event will also provide information on restoring and preserving photos, paper copies, quilts and quilting techniques, glassware, pottery and more.

Proceeds will be used to match a grant to develop a historic walking tour and brochure for the museum about historic Benham. Admission to the museum is $5 for adults, $4 for senior citizens and $2 for students. The museum is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday from 1-4 p.m.

Donations are now being accepted for a silent action. There will also be an “Ugly Lamp” contest. Vendor space is still available for $25 per booth. (The deadline for booths is Nov. 15.) The Kentucky Coal Museum and the School House Inn are operated by the Kentucky Department of Parks. The museum features displays from the mining industry and coal town life, including an exhibit about Loretta Lynn and a simulated coal mine. Call the museum at 606-848- 1530 for more information.

The School House Inn, across the street from the museum, will offer rooms for $44.95 a night on Nov. 17 and 18, subject to availability. The inn was built as a school in 1926 and still has many features of a school. The inn also has a restaurant. For reservations, call 1-800-231- 0627.

By THOMAS KINTNER, Special to the Courant

Los Angeles Daily News The surest bet in this year's Oscar race also is its biggest surprise. And that itself is something of a surprise. Sissy Spacek, after all, is a five-time Academy Award nominee and even has won the statuette before, for her portrayal of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter.

That was more than 20 years ago. In the decades since, Spacek has been ... well, she has been working, but not in stuff that's made much of a splash. Films like In the Bedroom, a textbook example of a modest, character-based production which, to everyone's astonishment, has captured the imaginations of discerning filmgoers.

It's Spacek's performance that is attracting most of the movie's awards-season accolades. She has dominated the lead actress field so far, winning top honors from the Los Angeles and New York film critics groups, the American Film Institute and the Golden Globe. Her name will surely be on the Oscar nominee list (as it is on the Screen Actors Guild's, see Page 3E) when it's revealed on Feb. 12.

"I'm thrilled to death, couldn't be happier," the petite, red-haired Spacek says in her signature Texas drawl. "Never, ever expected it. It never crossed my mind that something like this could happen for our little film."

I've been immersed lately in the archives of the Johnny Cash Show, the TV variety series Cash did in Nashville during 1969 and 1970. Regardless of anything else anyone says about Johnny Cash, I'll tell you one thing for sure: He delivered some original TV programming with some pretty solid damn music.

The very first Cash show, which aired on ABC on June 7, 1969, was unlike anything network TV had seen.

Two of his musical guests on that show were making their network TV debuts. They were youth culture icons Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. How significant was that for pop culture?

Pretty significant. It was a breakthrough for the bubbling-under rock culture.Subsequent guests during the show's run included Neil Young (making his network TV debut), jazz icon Louis Armstrong, Minnie Pearl, native American singer Buffy St. Marie, Glen Campbell, the Monkees, Merle Haggard, Ray Charles, Roger Miller, Mama Cass Elliot, Roy Orbison, Arlo Guthrie, Kris Kristofferson, Gordon Lightfoot, Charley Pride, Waylon Jennings, Neil Diamond, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, actor-comic Albert Brooks, actor Dennis Hopper, poet Rod McKuen, the Rev. Billy Graham, Judy Collins, Rick Nelson, Buck Owens, Tammy Wynette, Linda Ronstadt, Liza Minnelli, Jose Feliciano and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.the Johnny Cash Show highlights will become available on DVD next year, and they will be a valuable addition to the Johnny Cash canon of work. It's funny, but the longer it's been since Johnny Cash died, the more relevant he becomes to today's pop culture. Some of the Johnny Cash Show highlights will become available on DVD next year, and they will be a valuable addition to the Johnny Cash canon of work. It's funny, but the longer it's been since Johnny Cash died, the more relevant he becomes to today's pop culture.

lydia Lovric, The Province

Published: Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Loretta Lynn may think we've come a long way, baby. But if this legislation passes, it will prove we haven't come far enough.

Contact writer and broadcaster Lydia Lovric through her website: www.lydialovric.com.

A lineup of music superstars taped the CMT Giants: Reba McEntire show before a sold-out audience in concert on Oct. 26 at Los Angeles' Kodak Theater. Artists paying musical tributes included Martina McBride, Kelly Clarkson, LeAnn Rimes, Jennifer Nettles, Wynonna, Faith Hill, Dolly Parton, Trisha Yearwood, Megan Mullally, along with a closing song by Reba. Presenters included Beau Bridges, the Reba show's Melissa Peterman and Christopher Rich, Loretta Lynn, Vince Gill, President George H. W. Bush, Barbara Mandrell, Andie MacDowell, Dakota Fanning, James Denton and Red Steagall. The show will air on CMT on Nov. 18.

by Christopher Berkey

by Pat Goddard

• Country and western legends Loretta Lynn and Randy Travis share the bill Friday night at Mohegan Sun Arena.

If you think about it a certain way — a really obvious way, maybe — all music is very generational. Trying, for example, to get my Sainted Mother to segue from her appreciation of Dinah Washington to really digging “the Deep Purples” is an iffy proposition.

Similarly, fans of the polished, poppy Young Country currently represented on the Billboard charts by such acts as Rascal Flatts and Kenny Chesney might not easily grasp the wonderful possibilities presented Friday at the Mohegan Sun Arena double bill of Randy Travis and Loretta Lynn.

Lynn is a Goddess from the honky-tonk era — renowned for numerous hits like “Don't Come Home a-Drinkin'” and “I Lie,” her duets with Conway Twitty, and her autobiographical “Coal Miner's Daughter” — brought to a new audience through her 2005 twin-Grammy release “Van Lear Rose,” which was produced by none other than White Striper Jack White.

Travis, whose emotive baritone brings to mind a sort of a less-whiskied George Jones, cranked out a billion hits (“On the Other Hand” to “Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart”) with a retro style at the height of an era typified by the smooth sounds of Ronnie Milsap and Kenny Rogers. Of late, he's been doing nice work in a country gospel arena as on CDs like “Worship & Faith” and “Glory Train.”

So maybe it's all cyclical — and maybe this concert represents a terrific opportunity for old and new country music fans to see, and enjoy, a nice slice of history.

Loretta Lynn and Randy Travis, 8 p.m. Friday, Mohegan Sun Arena; $27.50; 886-0070 or www.mohegansun.com. 

Country Icon Loretta Lynn's Grand daughter Tayla Lynn is in the studio recording most recently with producer James House & Brad Vosburg.  Vosburg particularly excited is Loretta Lynn's granddaughter Tayla Lynn. The project is for House's Villa One label, which is being distributed through RCA.

To record Lynn's vocal, Vosburg pointed out one of their favorite signal paths that best captures the magic: An Audio-Technica AT4060 and the API 512c mic pre through the classic Universal Audio 1176.

Tayla grew up in a small town outside of Nashville.  She got plenty of practice singing early in life just chasing her grandmother, Loretta Lynn, around their ranch in Waverly, Tennessee.  She knew right away that all she ever wanted was to follow in her family's footsteps and perform on stage.  Tayla's bigger-than-life personality comes out in full force from the moment she steps into a room.  With a voice full of rich heritage, she always leaves her audience feeling as though they have made a new friend.

True Twosomes

Press Photo Humphrey Co Tn..Loretta & Cissie Lynn Ribbon Cutting of Cissie Lynn's Grand Opening of he Cissie Lynn Store and Music Barn 9-30-06

Country legend Loretta Lynn wowed the sold out crowd at her Ranch in hurricane mills tn on Sat sept.30th Lynn was in rare form she came out singing "your Lookin at country" lookin every bit of the country girl we know Loretta is.  She sang and sang and then Lynn told the crowd she had two friends she wanted everyone to meet. Her special guest were Mart Stuart and the great Connie Smith they were sitting on the front row along with all the other Loretta Fans. Marty and Connie came up and sang a few songs Connie did "once a day" a hit for her and Marty teased her about singing like Loretta around the house Loretta asked the crowed would you like to hear Connie sing like me lol yes they said and Connie did she really sounded like Lynn. then Lynn got up and sang it just like Connie did it was great to all three 'OPRY" members on one stage Marty and Loretta sang "Will You Vist Me On Sunday" a duet that will be on Marty's upcoming album "Compadres" do out in Jan 6-07 Loretta and Conway Twittty recored the song on Nov 9th 1970  for the debut lp in 1971 it sounds like a hit. earlier that day Loretta was at her daughter Cissie Lynn's Grand openign of her new store/music barn called the Cissie Lynn Store and Music Barn located just across the road from the Loretta Lynn Dude Ranch in hwy 13th in Huricane Mills Tn also known as the Loretta Lynn Parkway!!!  Cissie is Known as the Coal Miner's Daughter's Daughter!!

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. - At age 71, Loretta Lynn is still taking chances.

That's good news, given how many older stars have settled in routines where fans can even fill in the punch lines in the jokes from year to year.

Lynn, the country music legend, had more than 70 hits in her heyday, and during her show in the Niagara Fallsview Casino on Friday, she let the audience pick some of the songs.

And unlike many performers, she actually took them up on it.

In the show in the casino's Avalon Ballroom, she heard a fan yell a request for "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man," one of her lesser hits from 1973.

"Do you know this one, Bart," she said to her bandleader. "Step right up, Buddy."

The result was a little ragged - she stopped the band to drop the key - but it was the kind of spontaneity that gives her shows life and can keep fans coming back year after year.

It was a triumphant return for Lynn, who missed shows over the summer when she fell and broke her shoulder. She returned in a big way, wearing a big tangerine-colored coat covered with blue rhinestone decorations, an outfit her fellow performers compared with Porter Wagoner, Nashville's standard for decorative wear.

For most of the show, her voice was as warm and powerful as ever, and toward the end some signs of fatigue merely added character to the show.

It's also remarkable when a 71-year-old can still pull off classics she wrote in the '60s such as "You Ain't Woman Enough (to Take My Man)" and "Fist City." Granted, she seemed almost giddily happy to be back on stage rather than projecting the tinge of anger that came with the originals.

The show as a whole was a revue, with Lynn's top-notch band opening with a couple of songs, her twin daughters offering some more and during the middle of the show her granddaughter singing a pair of songs.

Lynn travels with her men in black, a three-man harmony group that backs her and helps out on a gospel medley and a couple of its own songs as well.

The show had its quirks. Lynn bounced rather abruptly from the gospel medley into the finale, her trademark "Coal Miner's Daughter." There was no encore. In fact, the audience didn't really call for one.

The audience didn't seem to require one, and Lynn didn't seem to feel the need to offer it.

 

Nothing against casino concerts, but most of them tend to promote has-been musicians with the lure of cultural nostalgia and the hope you'll score a lucky pull on the slot machines.

This isn't a bad thing. But, unless you're in Las Vegas, it's not exactly the type of show a rising country singer would want to put on his résumé. Though, Josh Turner, who's playing the Royal River Casino in Flandreau Friday night, says some casino concerts are more enjoyable than the big arena shows.

"I love doing small theaters and casinos. I can relax and I don't have to worry about the dead time," Turner says from a concert stop in Louisville, Ky. "It's not like a festival or fair where they're hollering and yelling and drinking. You're a little more able to tell stories and let it flow."

One story the deep-voiced voice of "Long Black Train" may be sharing with his audience is the back story to his song "Loretta Lynn's Lincoln," one of the more memorable tracks on his latest album "Your Man."

The song tells a story about how a man purchased a Lincoln car that used to belong to Loretta Lynn, and the fortune that comes his way from sharing that information. While it's compelling, it's not exactly true.

"It's fictional. 100 percent," Turner says. "The first time I heard it ... I got a copy of it and started listening to it and thought it was absolutely hilarious. When I heard this I was like, man, this is going to be a fun song to sing."

In some ways, it's fitting that Turner was tabbed as the young gun to record the song. Because, unlike some of his peers, Turner carries a professed appreciation and pride for country music's forefathers and mothers. You can hear it in Turner's rich delivery and phrasing, which slides out like thick syrup slowly oozing out of a glass bottle. Or, you could just do what every radio DJ in the nation has done and compare Turner's voice to the that of Randy Travis.

"There are always these comparisons between our voices or music, or who has the deeper voices," Turner says about himself and Travis.

Now, the comparison is even easier since Turner teamed with Travis to record an episode of CMT's "Cross Country" series.

"It was a dream come true for me. I had grown up in South Carolina dreaming of being able to sing with my heroes and Randy Travis being the main one," Turner says. "It's unbelievable how easy it was to put that show together."

With the obvious influence of gospel in his singing, it's also been easy to describe Turner as a Christian country boy. But don't expect to hear him singing at this weekend's LifeLight Festival.

"Once 'Long Black Train' was a hit, I had to try and kill that stereotype of being a Christian singer, because there were so many people who thought that's what I was," Turner says. "Ever since that little era came and went, it was kind of in my mission to show people I'm a country boy."

      OREM — Country artist Crystal Gayle said the music business used to look after its artists, but now it's strictly business.
      "Things change," she told the Deseret Morning News in a phone interview. "You can have a big hit one year and not have a label the next year. I'm shocked with some of the names that have been dropped."
      With her signature voice and a list of hits as long as her sleek, dark hair, Gayle will entertain at the SCERA on Labor Day.
      The first female country artist to reach platinum status for album sales, Gayle hit the country scene in the mid-1970s with the encouragement of her older sister, country legend Loretta Lynn. Success came early. She signed her first recording contract while still in high school and her debut single, "I've Cried the Blue Right Out of My Eyes," written by her sister, reached the top 25 on national country charts.
      Gayle is 19 years younger than her famous sister, who "was married and out of the house with a couple of kids when I came along," she said. Her challenge was to carve a career outside the shadow of her sister.
      Brenda Gail Webb was the last of eight children. Lynn suggested she change her name to Crystal because Brenda Lee was singing on the same label, which didn't want two "Brendas."
      Gayle grew up in the business when television specials were popular. She appeared on many, which included performing with the Osmonds at the family's studio in Orem in the early 1980s.
      She said she plans to perform a mixture of her old hits and more recent tunes at the SCERA. Several of her top 10 songs include "Wrong Road Again," "Beyond You," "Never Miss a Real Thing," and her first No. 1 hit, "I'll Get Over You."
      Gayle's most successful song, "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue," came from her fourth album, "We Must Believe in Magic." It earned her a Grammy Award. She and songwriter Richard Leigh were honored again more than a decade later when ASCAP recognized the song as one of the top 10 most-performed country songs of the century.
      Gayle performs about 50 concerts a year, down from 100 earlier in her career. "It's in the blood," she said.
      She's scheduled to receive a Hollywood Star next year.
      "With Crystal Gayle you get a beautiful, timeless artist who is truly one of a kind," said Adam Robertson, SCERA president and corporate executive officer, in a press release.

eagan Boggs writes songs about the beauty pageants she won as a child, and the ones she didn't win. The attractive, curly headed singer-songwriter writes about the Southern condition and shares the singularly poignant experiences of growing up poor in a coal-mining town.

Her music is surprisingly powerful and tight; bluegrass- tinged country rock. On Friday, Boggs and her six-piece band play a free concert at the Dogfish Head brewpub in downtown Rehoboth Beach. eagan Boggs writes songs about the beauty pageants she won as a child, and the ones she didn't win. The attractive, curly headed singer-songwriter writes about the Southern condition and shares the singularly poignant experiences of growing up poor in a coal-mining town.

Her music is surprisingly powerful and tight; bluegrass- tinged country rock. On Friday, Boggs and her six-piece band play a free concert at the Dogfish Head brewpub in downtown Rehoboth Beach.

"If you look up the definition of redneck there's a picture of my dad," she said. "Larry the Cable Guy has nothing on my dad. I don't write about that much anymore."

Her soft-spoken voice and slow Southern accent make the story of her life, with an alcoholic father and a mother who did everything to help her, seem like a novel worth reading.

Boggs' ability with words and the caring she puts into sharing her life and music come across.

"Pound is the last town before you hit Kentucky, in Wise County, near Big Stone Gap, in the heart of the coal fields," she said. "It was a nice place to grow up but you can't stay there unless you want to work in a coal mine."

Her mother fought the problems of a dysfunctional family by entertaining her daughter with singing and guitar playing, later she taught her to play.

"She's patient, would sit and listen while I learned," Boggs said. "She put me in beauty pageants with talent contests so I could get in front of an audience. I did win some, but the pageant thing is hard -- what they put you through."

Music was an outlet in a troubled place. Her parents' marriage ended when she was 15, and two years later she headed to Nashville.

We do some classic country, some '80s music, original music. Jason and I do some old Loretta Lynn songs," Boggs said.

"I love bluegrass from the Seldom Scene and we do Julie Miller's 'Out in the Rain.'"

Her new CD "Never Looking Behind" showcases her singing and songwriting ability.

"A lot of it comes from conversations with people; a lot of it comes from true stories although I may not stick with it," she said. '"Wrong Last Name' is a true story, about my great-great-grandmother and what happened to her. She got married real young, had an affair, got pregnant and raised the child as her son with her husband."

The story is tragic, a classic vintage country song.

"It's sort of an Appalachian soap opera, it's sad but stuff like that happens more than anybody knows," Boggs said. "I think a lot of people have stories, I think it's rare for people to have a perfect childhood.

"Music has helped me through a lot of my experiences, made me tougher and more able to cope with the music business."

Boggs may be a modern day Loretta Lynn, with songwriting talent, a sweet nature and likeable presence, combined with a voice that makes you want to listen.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Country music archivists Stephen Shutts and Robert Reynolds (bassist for the Mavericks) curate a traveling Honky Tonk Hall of Fame www.honkytonkhalloffame.com) featuring more than 1,000 items, among them Elvis' Presley's white underwear (circa 1970) and a piece of the wing from the Patsy Cline airplane crash, which have appeared at events such as the Brooks and Dunn Neon Circus and Wild West Show tour. They even bought the Zippin Pippen in Memphis, which is the nation's second oldest wooden roller coaster and was Elvis' favorite amusement park ride.

But while traveling the lost highway, Reynolds and Shutts came across a Holy Grail of American music. Earlier this summer they purchased a notebook consisting of 20 handwritten, unpublished Hank Williams lyrics and song fragments from May 2, 1947 through 1949. Seventeen of them were never recorded.

"Last November an older African-American lady from suburban Nashville contacted me," Shutts said during a recent interview on Music Row. He advertises in Nashville newspapers soliciting memorabilia for the honky tonk hall. "She had insurance documents from Roy Orbison and 'some Hank Williams things.' She had a couple acetates by Hank Williams and the signed Orbison documents. It was a hodgepodge of things from the 1940s and '50s.

"Then I saw this."

Since Stuart sold portions of his collection and donated other pieces to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Honky Tonk Hall of Fame is now one of the largest country music collections outside of the country music hall.

"Marty has always been very nice to us," Shutts said. "He is a great diplomat for country music." Reynolds added, "We're not in literal competition with Marty. We don't find ourselves at the same flea markets."

Reynolds still plays music. He is a member of the Hillbilly All-Stars, which include Chuck Mead of BR-549, country singer Mark Collie and revolving members such as singer Joy Lynn White. Reynolds always keeps one eye on the potential prize.

"I work in a studio on Music Row," he said. "They were cleaning out a building two doors down from our studio. I saw paper trash in the garbage. I was curious. I walked over there and began my own dumpster-diving. My friends probably figured I hit an all-time low. I pulled out contracts and tour receipts from Sure-Fire Management, which was run by the Wilburn Brothers. They handled Loretta Lynn, Slim Whitman and others. I found tour records from Loretta Lynn from 1959-61, gorgeous letterheads right out of the file cabinet. There was a note from Loretta saying that she spent $1.50 at a Madison [Tenn.] fabric shop buying fabric to make a stage dress. That's a key period in Loretta's life. There's personal archaeology on Music Row. I know that it exists."

By MICHAEL GRANBERRY / The Dallas Morning News

Edie Brickell and husband Paul Simon had rarely performed together in public. But there they were Saturday night at Fair Park: the tall, willowy brunette from Oak Cliff and the songwriting legend from New York City, sharing the Music Hall stage.

DARNELL RENEE/Special Contributor

Edie Brickell wowed the crowd at Fair Park Music Hall. She organized the show to help out a childhood friend.

Ms. Brickell talked about freezing her butt off for 16 New York winters and how she so missed the Texas heat.

"Yeah," said Mr. Simon. "It's great – if you're a pizza."

Edie talked about wanting Paul to be nicer when Mom comes up for a visit, to which he replied, "There's only so much Wheel of Fortune a man can watch."

And then they launched into a perfect opener for a truly special evening, the Conway Twitty-Loretta Lynn classic "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly." A wry choice for a couple who share three young children, but what a great one.

"That's the reason I ain't got no hair to comb," sang Mr. Simon.

Humor was good, since the reason for the show could not have been more serious. Ms. Brickell was trying to raise money for childhood friend Robert C. Meadows, 43, a Dallas actor who suffered severe brain injuries last October after being attacked during a robbery in a parking lot near Bachman Lake.

His assailants, who remain at large, left Mr. Meadows unable to walk or communicate and facing more than $1.5 million in medical care and rehabilitation bills.

August 24, 2006

At 71, Loretta Lynn doesn't have to do this anymore.

But five decades into a career most recently highlighted by a collaboration with rocker Jack White, the Kentucky-born star is enjoying near-untouchable status as queen of classic country.

"The people do want to hear me," says Lynn, who notes that she continues to reap benefits from "Van Lear Rose," the award-winning 2004 album with producer White. "I don't wanna stop, because they're what made me what I am. I have to worry about how they feel. Maybe other people don't. But that's the way I am."

Sidelined by a shoulder injury in June, the scrappy singer immortalized in the film "Coal Miner's Daughter" heads to Meadow Brook Music Festival for a makeup performance tonight -- part of a scaled-back touring schedule that puts Lynn on the road between stretches at her popular museum and dude ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.

Lynn chatted with the Free Press from the ranch this week.

On her relationship with Jack White: "We've had quite an album. Everybody in town who's been recording has been wanting me to do a song with them. I did a song with Billy Ray Cyrus. Me and George Jones. I'm gonna go in and do 'Will You Visit Me on Sunday?' with Marty Stuart. I said, 'My goodness, I've got a song with just about everybody in Nashville now.' I never had anybody record with me, because I figured when people buy your album, they wanna hear you on there by now."

White recently "called me and wanted to come down with me that Saturday and eat. He said he wanted me to show his wife how to make fried chicken. When their baby was born (in May), I called him and said, 'How's that baby!' And I haven't been able to get ahold of him since.

"That album we did was about the country-est thing I've done in my life. There was about four or five musicians, and we just went in and did it. The album's done great for me.

"He's a good kid. ... I think maybe I'll work with him again."

On younger fans drawn to her material: "I've never had that much problem with the crowd. ... Really, I don't pay much attention to it now because I always had a great crowd of all ages.

"There are a lot of young kids now who holler, 'Where's Jack?' I tell 'em, 'I don't know. I can't keep up with that feller!' "

On her work ethic: "I came to Nashville in '61, and didn't start to do anything great until '64, '65. Now I've got a museum with everything in it, all the awards, you wouldn't believe it. ... I pretty well stay busy here if not on the road. This time I've taken off with my arm has been good because I needed to rest. Getting that album out, getting all that done, it was rough.

"I'd work 100 days a month if they were there. But I'm trying to put it down to where I'm not working but about eight days a month."

On her motivation to keep going: "The people. You owe it to them. They were there when you needed it -- now it's for them. You have to pick your dates. It's hard. But I love it. This is the one thing I've really loved out of this whole thing -- meeting people. They're all the same. They've all got problems, all got good things going on in their life. I listen, and they tell me what's going on. It's been that way, really, since '61, when I started singing."

On the country music business now compared to yesteryear: "It's hard for me to watch what goes on today, knowing how it started. I think what bothers me mostly is the stuff they get by with. You can hear 'em put a record out, and it's absolutely not what it should be. But it gets played, and as long as they get played it's gonna keep happening. A lot of 'em don't have the songs. When I started, you had to have the song. It didn't matter how good you sang it; it was the song."

Randy Travis wsg Julie Roberts

Loretta Lynn wsg Jill Jack

August 24, 2006 @ 8:00:00 PM

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Seating Charts | Venue Info | In The Area |

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Loretta Lynn wsg Jill Jack will perform at Meadow Brook Music Festival on Thursday, August 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets at $45 pavilion and $20 lawn are on sale now at Palacenet.com, The Palace Box Office and all Ticketmaster locations. Tickets for the originally scheduled June 9th show will be honored for the rescheduled date.

Tickets may also be charged by phone to American Express, Discover, Visa and MasterCard by calling 248/645-6666.

Loretta Lynn has fashioned a body of work as artistically and commercially successful as any female performer. The Coal Miner’s Daughter tag refers to a hit single, an album, a best-selling autobiography, an Oscar winning film, and to Lynn herself. She has journeyed from the poverty of the Kentucky hills to Nashville superstardom to her current status as a true American icon. Her iconic status is further cemented by the accolades received for her latest album, Van Lear Rose, produced by Jack White, which includes two 2004 Grammy Awards for “Best Country Album of the Year” and “Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.”

Her catalogue of achievements includes more than 70 albums, 17 of which went to number one, 55 top 10 singles and 27 number one singles. Lynn is a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Grand Ole Opry member, Kennedy Center Performing Arts honoree and most recently received the 2005 CMT Johnny Cash Visionary Award.

Lynn’s critically-acclaimed release, Van Lear Rose, with its moody arrangements, rocking guitars and intimate songwriting, reminds the world yet again of Lynn’s power as a vocalist and her skill as a songwriter, and can only extend Lynn’s profound influence into a new century and to a new generation of fans.

Loretta Lynn is part of the Belle Tire Concert Series.

Loretta Lynn

Saturday, August 26, 2006
Showtime: 8:00 pm
Tickets: $40.95 and $35.95

Date: September 8 & 9 Time: 8:30pm Where:Avalon Ballroom Prices: Mezzanine Seating & Floor Seating $39.50, $49.50 / Balcony Seating $34.50 BUY TICKETS Loretta Lynn is truly one of Country’s classic singers. During the '60s and '70s, she rule the charts, racking up over 70 hits that helped forge the way for strong, independent women in country music today. Her latest album, Van Lear Rose, is poised now to remind the world yet again of Lynn’s power as a vocalist and her skill as a songwriter. To reserve tickets, simply order online, contact TicketMaster at 1.877.833.3110 or visit any TicketMaster outlet. Tickets may also be purchased by calling or visiting the Avalon Ballroom Box Office - 1.888.836.8118 open 10am-8pm.

 

(August 19, 2006) — As a struggling musician, you take any gig that comes with a paycheck attached to it. And so, Ciara Lynn Gardner found herself performing at a furniture store opening in North Rose, Wayne County.

"I was, like, playing to tables and chairs," she recalled.

Gardner, who goes simply by Ciara Lynn, is not going to sit for that. Just 20 years old, with the chic pop-country look of a Shania Twain and two self-released albums in hand, she's leaving Webster next month and heading for Nashville in a bid for stardom.

She'll even settle for some lesser cosmic-dom.

Lynn knows a few "he-used-to-work-with-Reba" types in Nashville, including Mark Johnson, the bassist in Aaron Tippin's band. He was looking for a young artist from western New York to develop and found Lynn the way it's usually done today: "He googled me," she said.

She's already landed a job on Music Row, as a receptionist for a music-management company. If a young woman going to the big city in search of fame and fortune sounds like a plot to a movie, Lynn feels like she's seen it. "I'm wicked scared," she confessed. "Nashville chews up and spits out a lot of people."

That fear runs in the family. "I'm scared to death," said her mother, Ann Gardner. "She worries me here. Sending anyone on their own, to a different place — I mean, she knows it, she's been there — but it's different. The people are nice, but different. The driving's crazier, and it's very competitive there. But that's where she needs to be."

"It's not like Coal Miner's Daughter, and Loretta Lynn, where you came from the ground up. I wish things still happened like that. ... You need that gimmick. Like Gretchen Wilson and the Redneck Woman thing. And Miranda Lambert, she's got that 'cute blonde, lookin' for love' thing."

Nashville, TN. (Crystal Gayle Official Website/ www.crystalgayle.com) - One of the most difficult challenges that can face an aspiring musician living under the shadow of a famous relative is emerging from that shadow and establishing himself as a star in his own right with his own individual identity – or her identity in the case of CRYSTAL GAYLE.

Born Brenda Gail Webb, the younger sister of country superstar and Country Music Hall of Fame member Loretta Lynn, was confronted with just that when she set out to find her place on the country music scene in the early 1970s. At the suggestion of her sis, she changed her name to Crystal to avoid any confusion with fellow country star Brenda Lee and the name proved to be a perfect fit. She may have been born a 'Coal Miner's Daughter' but she has risen about those humble beginnings to bring her talents around the world as a musical ambassador for country music – and manage to find her own star to shine.

Thanks to the immense success of 'Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,' Crystal Gayle was a bona fide star. The world was now her stage and before long she was bringing her music to enthusiastic crowds throughout America and even as far away as England, Japan, Germany, and Australia. She even made history when she appeared on Bob Hope's ground-breaking 'On the Road to China' television special, the first American network program produced in China.

Her ankle length tresses and designer dresses set her apart from traditional country divas and her crystal clear singing made her one of the premiere voices in all of music. The accolades poured in, from CMA & ACM Female Vocalist of the Year to Grammy Awards to landing her own CBS television special that brought her amazing talent to a national audience. As the 80's opened, Crystal continued her domination of the charts with 11 chart-toppers and 9 top-10 hits through the end of the decade. The 90's saw her expand her musical boundaries with a Grammy nominated tribute album to the late Hoagy Carmichael and the critically acclaimed children's album In My Arms.

Crystal's name and accomplishments have earned her a special place in the hearts of fans around the world and the opportunity to see Crystal Gayle is person is still a 'must have' ticket. This live DVD and CD collection was recorded at the Renaissance Center in Dickson, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, where Crystal and her family call home. It showcases her 30 years of hits and offers a special insider's view of the life and times of one of country music's – and the world's – favorite entertainers.
Crystal Gayle can be resourced at www.crystalgayle.com

By now, almost everyone knows the story of Loretta Lynn. She was the daughter of a coal miner, married at age 14 and had four children before she seriously pursued her musical career, with her supportive husband by her side. And lucky for us, as country music surely wouldn’t have been the same with her influence.

It was during the early 60’s that Lynn began to sing locally in the Tacoma, Washington area. It was during one of those performances that she was spotted by Norm Burley, who was so impressed that he founded Zero Records just to record her. With a recording of “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl” under her belt, she and her husband hit the road on a path to Nashville, stopping at every country radio station along the way to promote her record. By the time they reached Nashville, the song had a modest following and she found a job cutting demo records.

Her early influences were Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline and from them, Loretta Lynn fashioned her own distinctive style. Her twangy, earthy country renditions of lyrics that struck the hearts of ordinary women solidified her place in country music history. She recorded more than 52 Top Ten hits, with more than 16 of those songs going to the top of the chart. In 1980, her life became the basis for a hit movie starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones and the name Loretta Lynn became a household one.

Although the country music scene has changed immensely in her absence, it’s hard to imagine today’s female artists being able to record their songs without Loretta Lynn’s pioneering efforts. Join this living legend for a truly spectacular evening at Wild Adventures on Saturday, June 11th, starting at 7 pm. The show is free with admission, so bring your lawn chairs. Covered reserved seating is also available at an additional charge to park admission.

Reserved Seats on Sale June 14th and are $20 and $15 each. You can purchase park admission and reserve seats on line or by phone at (229) 219-7080, option 2.

Stars in her eyes

MUCH to my chagrin, I have never fossicked around in Jancee Dunn's bathroom cabinet, or even had a rummage in the kitchen cupboards of her Brooklyn home. Such is the life of the roving reporter that I get to meet Dunn at Newark Liberty airport, just minutes after my arrival in the United States.

 So, why did I want to root around in Dunn's drawers, so to speak? Well, when she was interviewing celebrities, this was one of her tried and tested techniques. For example, she's used Madonna's loo and "inventoried" her bathroom shelves in Los Angeles - Fracas perfume, Crème de La Mer face lotion, water with a geranium scent by Tree of Life and The Hypochondriac's Handbook, since you ask. She's made peanut butter fudge with singer Loretta Lynn in the kitchen of her Tennessee ranch - "I wanted to stay the weekend," says Dunn. "You could ask her anything and she would answer."

She's even examined the contents of Dolly Parton's kitchen cabinet in Nashville, which included "a bomb shelter's worth of tinned Spam, cans of corned beef hash, loaves upon loaves of delightfully spongy white bread, and a giant brick of Velveeta [cheese]".

In the fridge there was a bag of bacon grease. "I have to have bacon grease in all of my houses," quoth the divine Dolly, who dispatched Dunn back home to New York with some of her home-grown tomatoes and a huge chunk of Velveeta. Dunn ate the tomatoes but preserved the bright-orange cheese in her freezer for posterity, "just in case".

The actors weren't the only stars who turned out Thursday for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival's opening of "The Honky Tonk Angels."

Creator Ted Swindley -- who also created the hit musical "Always ... Patsy Cline" -- was there, too, and thrilled to experience the tribute to country music along with the audience.

"I go to openings (of his shows) off and on, but I love this theater. I hope y'all know in Montgomery how well-respected this theater is in the landscape of American theater," he said before the show.

"The Honky Tonk Angels," with Sue Ellen, Angela and Darlene, tells the story of these three very different women who meet on their way to Nashville, Tenn. Dreaming of becoming country-music stars, the women form a trio. And they come alive through the music of such country legends as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.

The characters are based on real people, everyday folks Swindley saw driving back and forth from Nashville's Ryman Auditorium each evening while working a few years back on a production of "Always."

"Every day, I would see these people get off the bus with their guitar cases," just following their dreams of becoming country music singers, he said. There was a woman with four little ones in tow, a bombshell dressed to the nines and lots and lots of young women who hoped to follow in Loretta Lynn's footsteps.

Blending these images with such hits as "Harper Valley PTA," "9 to 5," "Stand By Your Man" and other tunes, his "Honky Tonk Angels" came to life.

"It's very dear to me," he said. "This show has a very big heart."

Big hair and cowboy boots, too.

And to make the opening even more fun, ASF had a Honky Tonk Angel costume contest. Paula Hicks of Millbrook, dressed in what she called "the ultimate in tacky" country garb, arrived early with her daughter, Brandy Hicks of Prattville, who was celebrating a birthday.

"It's a lot of fun," said Paula Hicks, adjusting the ruffles on the frilly skirt she wore with cowboy boots, hat and belt buckle. "I just love country music, Patsy Cline and all that."

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Sissy Spacek Coalminer'S Daughter, 1980

Arguably the ultimate method actress, Texas-born Sissy Spacek moved to New York in the 1960s, where she hung out with Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan. She was introduced to the Actors Studio by her cousin, Rip Torn, who also trained in the method technique (he starred with Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider (1969)and appeared with Paul Newman in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962). The morning of her audition for Stephen King's Carrie (1976), Sissy didn't wash, put Vaseline on her hair and turned up in her mothballed high- school prom dress. Looking suitably unattrative, she walked away with the role. For Coalminer's Daughter (1980), which documented the life of country singer Loretta Lynn, Spacek toured with the singer for weeks. Lynn's legions of fans were so impressed with Spacek's portrayal they encouraged her to release an album. She did - after winning an Oscar for her performance.

 

VAN LEAR, Kentucky-The map says Butcher Hollow but the sign, painted on a big granite rock at a Y-junction, reads Butcher Holler.

"Folks around here always say 'holler'," explains Herman Webb. "There used to be real signs with the 'proper' spelling down the road, but tourists kept stealing 'em for souvenirs. They can't steal our rock."

Webb is the brother of country superstar Loretta Lynn and her lyrics were singing in my head as we drove up the gravel road in the Appalachian foothills in eastern Kentucky: "Well I was born a coal miner's daughter/In a cabin on a hill in Butcher Holler..."

Loretta was born in 1935. Herman, two years younger, is a retired factory worker and sometime bandsman ("I played 'most every instrument you can think of") he now spends a lot of his time in that "cabin on a hill" that his big sister made famous in the song and in the 1980 movie Coal Miner's Daughter (for which Sissy Spacek picked up an Oscar).

Webb has restored the cabin to what it looked like in the 1930s and '40s, when Melvin and Clara Webb were bringing up their four boys and four girls. It was a musical family. Some found local fame singing the music they grew up with, while two of the girls-Loretta and the "baby," little Gail Webb, who became Crystal Gayle-became international stars.

Every year some 20,000 country music "pilgrims" trek up the gravel road, past Mine No. 5 (now closed) where daddy Melvin "shovelled coal to make a poor man's dollar," as the song says, and past the one-room school which Loretta attended until she was 13, when she married Oliver ("Mooney") Lynn. At the end of the road they pay their five bucks to look through the wood cabin, built on stilts on the side of the "holler" (valley).

Webb has a steady line of patter as he shows them around. He tells how Clara papered the walls with newspapers to keep out the cold. "There was no indoor plumbing," he says. "The well is still out front. We bathed in a tin bath. Mom and Daddy slept downstairs; all eight of us slept upstairs, in two rooms." There's part of a moonshine still in the kitchen, but Webb insists: "Daddy didn't make the 'white lightning,' but his brother did."

All over the six-room cabin are mementoes of the woman Webb calls "Loretty": a sequin-studded frock, one of her first dresses as a star, guitars, pictures, life-sized cut-outs, album sleeves... One wall is covered in signatures of fans from all over the world.

Loretta Lynn, now in her 70s, is just one of a number of country music artists who have found their inspiration from their early lives in eastern Kentucky: people like Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs, Dwight Yoakam, the Judds, Rosemary Clooney...

Highway 23 wends through the area and to pay tribute to its famous singers-and, of course, to bring in the tourists-the state in 2002 declared a five-county section of the road "Country Music Highway" and designated it a scenic byway.

ACCESS

For more information on Loretta Lynn's family home and other sites along Highway 23 associated with country music, visit www.countrymusichighway.comwebsite at www.kytourism.com.

 RESCHEDULED: LORETTA LYNN, 8 p.m. Aug. 24 (from June 9), Meadow Brook Music Festival, Oakland University, Rochester Hills. $20 lawn, $45 pavilion (tickets for original date will be honored). (248) 377-0100, www.palacenet.com.

 

Bias against Bluegrass overcome

Performer came to respect, enjoy religious themes

By Rich Copley

HERALD-LEADER CULTURE WRITER

WILMORE - David Crowder's new album isn't a product of a longstanding love of Bluegrass music.

"Initially, I was one of these guys that would want to avoid banjo at all costs," Crowder said before his June 15 set at the Ichthus Festival. "It's a very strange, alien type of instrument. It's a bizarre combination of influences.

Other things opened up Crowder and his band to bluegrass, like watching the RFD satellite TV network, where they could watch shows on buggy (as in horse and buggy) maintenance and The Wilburn Brothers Show, a variety program.

"Loretta Lynn happens to be on this one show, and she just rips into this one song, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, and we're like, 'Oh my ... she just can sing,' and you feel it, she means it. Her execution of that lyric was fantastic. I knew the moment we heard it that was going to open the record, that statement, just such a true expression of our mortal state."

 

Grad student helps put Hurricane Mills on historic register

Loretta Lynn home attracts nearly 500,000 visitors a year

by Mike Reed

Amongst the rolling hills and dales of Humphreys County lies Hurricane Mills, home of country music legend Loretta Lynn, and a community that hasn't changed much since the 1800s. The post office, general store, church, and Masonic Lodge, all stand much as they did when the community rose around the iron furnace in the late 19th century.

Robbie Jones, an MTSU graduate student in the Historic Preservation program, visited Hurricane Mills with a buddy a few summers back. He knew then that the place needed to be on the National Historic Registry and set out to put it there.

"I met with Sissy and Betty Sue Lynn, who are Loretta's daughters, and they liked the idea," says Jones. "They were also interested in the history of Hurricane Mills. Loretta purchased it in 1966, and her daughters grew up there."

The Hurricane Mills Rural Historic District, as it is now known, held a great deal of fascination for Jones, who said it easily met the criteria for registry status.

"The area was significant because of agriculture, architecture, industry, commerce, and engineering," he says. "That's mainly because it was founded in the 1810s as a furnace. It was used as an iron furnace on the Western Highland Rim. There are many places on the rim where iron was important and this is one of them."

In the 1850s, the iron ran out and Hurricane Mills switched to agriculture.

"After the iron ran out, a flour mill was built," explains Jones. "There was also a blacksmith business. Today there is no physical evidence of the original furnace."

Getting the Hurricane Mills Rural Historic District on the National Registry of Historic Places took nearly a year.

"You have to fill out a nomination form," says Jones. "Then you must research the property, document its history, and determine why it qualifies and under what criterion."

The documentation goes to the Tennessee State Historic Preservation Office where a board meets three times a year to review petitions. The board then passes the nomination to Washington, D.C., and the office of the National Keeper of the List.

"That's at the National Parks Service," says Jones. "They're in charge of administering the National Registry. Once they approve it, it's formally listed."

Visitors to the Hurricane Mills Historic District today will find many attractions, Jones says.

"The original house is there," says Jones. "It was built in 1876. Loretta bought it because of the columns that are there. Although it resembles a plantation, it never was. The columns were added in the '30s and are made of metal. They were shipped there by railroad. After they got to Waverly, they were sent by boat to the house.

"Loretta lived in the house from 1966 to 1984. After that, it became a museum to the public. The flour mill was built in the 1890s as a replacement mill.

"There is an iron truss bridge that was built in 1910. It was part of the original state highway. The store from the 1920s is there. It was a commercial store and post office. The post office still operates out of it. The store has been renovated into a tourist shop. They turned the flour mill into a shop and a museum. The Church of Christ meeting house with a Masonic Lodge in the second story is still there. It

was built in 1871. There is the Hurricane Mills School. It was built in 1955 to replace the original school that burned."

In addition to the historic aspects of the district, Jones says Hurricane Mills is a huge tourist attraction for Tennessee. Department of Tourism figures show that it is the 12th most visited tourist attraction in Tennessee ranking above Ruby Falls, Rock City, The General Jackson Showboat, Mud Island, the Jack Daniels Distillery, and Sun Studio.

"They have almost 500,000 people visit per year," he says. "The part that's historic is the Hurricane Mills village and the ranch which is actually two to three thousand acres. The rest of the ranch that isn't historic is very popular. This is where they have horseback riding, canoeing, ATV rides, and concerts. They have campgrounds, an RV Park, and motorcycle races. They have something going on all the time during the tourist season, which is spring to fall."

Loretta Lynn made some additions to the farm after buying it, including building a replica of her childhood home in Kentucky and the coal mine where her father worked.

"There is also a dam there that was built in the 1910s powered by the creek that powered the flour mill. The flour mill is no longer active but it is still a farm. It was one of the leading peanut farms in the region. Mooney, her husband, who died in '96, continued it as a farm and ranch mostly to have cows and horses. They lease parts of it to other farmers who grow corn and things like that."

Jones' project is part of a relatively new concept called "heritage tourism." He refers to Hurricane Mills as a "rural historic district" because up until very recently, preservationists concentrated on urban areas.

Dr. Andrew Gulliford, professor of History and director of the Public History and Historic Preservation Program, says this all springs from the Interstate Highway Act.

"In 1956 Congress gave us the Interstate Highway Act and America changes forever," he says. "In '66, they realize that certain things are being destroyed because of the Highway Act and we get the National Historic Preservation Act. The NHPA was to locate and preserve documented historic houses of great white men. After changes in the way we think about American history, we started to be interested in social history from the bottom to the top. [Hurricane Mills] is a rural historic district, and for years the emphasis was always on urban areas.

"Tourism is a major industry in this country. Heritage tourism is about driving on scenic roads and visiting places and areas that you'd otherwise pass on the interstate. It is very successful. It's about that insider knowledge that locals would have about where to go, where to eat, where to stay. By doing this, Loretta and her family are trying to pay much more attention to historical things such as landscape and buildings. I hope this becomes a trend with the country music people in the area. This could show what the roots of country music have to do with an understanding of place.

"MTSU has one of the nation's oldest and largest historic preservation programs," says Gulliford. "This is really about authenticity. To go to a historic place with comfort and ease is important."

Jones says that the Hurricane Mills project is complete.

"The next step is to get plaques to put on a couple of the buildings to show the public that they're listed," he says. "After that, they will apply to the state to get a historical marker to put in front of the house."

The community of Hurricane Mills still thrives in Humphreys County. The post office still serves the 250 residents, and Loretta still has a private residence on the farm. Jones hopes to write a book about Tennessee's country music heritage and the places associated with the pioneers of country music.

OLD IRONSIDES: This iron truss bridge, located at the Hurricane Mills Rural Historic District, was constructed in 1910 as part of the original state highway. When the highway was moved, Loretta Lynn bought the bridge and converted it into a pedestrian walkway.

---

 Most famous citizen: Proud to be a coal miner's daughter, country music great Loretta Lynn was born in Butcher Hollow and attended the one-room Miller's Creek School in nearby Van Lear. Famous in her own right as a country singer, Lynn's younger sister, Crystal Gayle, was also born in Johnson County in Paintsville.

 
TN (Webster & Associates) - In 2007, the long-haired princess of Nashville, CRYSTAL GAYLE will receive the highest honor Hollywood has to offer – a STAR on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!!!

'I have known about the Hollywood Walk Of Fame every since I was little and the first time I went to Hollywood early in my recording years I immediately went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and walked and seen all the different great American Entertainers,' says Crystal Gayle. 'It is a great honor to be selected to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with all the great stars that I grew up admiring.'

Strange to think of anyone as young and vibrant as the artist in question as a 'timeless classic' herself-but that indeed describes the course Crystal Gayle's career has taken. Before country was 'cool,' Crystal was 'class'...

In the mid '70's, Crystal was the focal point of her own one hour prime time special on CBS television-a special that earned the glowing praise of viewers and critics alike. Chic, hip, and cool with a romantic mane of hair that swept around her ankles, in one evening of television Crystal Gayle moved country music to the highest platform it had yet reached in the eyes of the viewing and listening nation.

The blue eyed beauty from the Appalachian coal mining town of Paintsville, Kentucky would never again linger in the shadow of being Loretta Lynn's baby sister. Drop dead beautiful and dressed in designer threads, Crystal took country music to town on her arm in the '70's and introduced it to mainstream audiences.

Country, folk, pop, rock 'n roll, Broadway show tunes, gospel...all found equal place in her heart, growing up as the youngest of eight children. Like sister Loretta, Crystal too was a 'coal miners daughter' before she was platinum selling singer and a world class entertainer.

What next emerged was uniquely Crystal. Her hit list of platinum and gold record sales was to be matched only by her awards and accolades. CMA 'Female Vocalist Of The Year,' for two consecutive years, she became a Grammy Award Winner for 'Best Female Vocal Performance,' thanks to her beloved 'Brown Eyes' - a song that she today admits she has never grown tired of singing. Crystal swept the Academy of Country Music Awards for three of their 'Top Female Vocalist' statuettes. As her music and her career path widened to mainstream audiences-so did her accolades. She is the recipient of three 'American Music Awards' -voted by the nation as America's 'Favorite Female Artist.'

Success swept around her as gracefully as her trademarked long hair. Always gracious and generous with her time and talents, Crystal has been awarded the coveted 'Celebration of Light Award' in recognition of her myriad humanitarian efforts-among them the Make-A-Wish Foundation (for whom she has recorded the official theme song) and the Arthritis Foundation, for whom she has served as telethon co-host for several years. Fittingly, the 'Celebration of Light Award' was a presentation in Waterford Crystal.

One of the most fitting honors in her career came in 1999 when 'Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue' was recognized by ASCAP as one being one of the ten most performed songs of the 20th century.
Like fine wine... time has been nothing but kind to Crystal Gayle.

 Billy Ray Cyrus is doing quite a juggling act of late. The country star-cum-actor is busy with the hit TV series that stars his 13-year-old daughter, Miley — "Hannah Montana," which vaulted to No. 1 status among Disney Channel shows after its premiere in March.

He's also currently gearing up to go on tour in support of his first non-gospel album in five years, titled "Wanna Be Your Joe." "I'm doing a video for "Wanna Be Your Joe,' then we do three weeks in a row of "Hannah Montana.' That'll give us 26 episodes. I finish on a Friday night, catch a red-eye to Florida, get on my bus and start touring the next day. I'm going to tour through July, August and the first week of September, then we go back to filming because they've picked up a second season of the show." Cyrus says there's a special dedication on the new CD to his father, Ronald Ray Cyrus, who died of cancer in the spring. "When I flew home to see my dad in February, the cancer had really taken over, and we knew we were losing him fast. He said it was really important this album come out, because he wanted people to hear my recording of "Country Music Has the Blues' with George Jones and Loretta Lynn. The song was written as a tribute to the people who, I believe, define country music. Then, he asked me if I'd written anything new. I played this song for him that I wrote for my 6-year-old daughter, Noah, called "Hey Daddy.' He took the earphones off and said "Son, promise me that somebody else will hear that song besides me' and I said "Dad, I promise you.' The next week, he passed away."

Cyrus firmly believes: "My dad is my guardian angel. Oddly enough, when I came back from his funeral, I found that Universal Records wanted to take an appointment with me, and the very following week this record deal happened."

 

  

"I feel like I'm going through all the same things that 22-year-old girls everywhere go through," Lambert said. "And even though I'm an artist, I'm still just a country girl from Lindale, Texas. I just feel like I can do it kind of like Loretta (Lynn) did it. She just sang about her life experiences, and women all over the place could relate to it."

July 14th date in lancaster pa..  new date SEPT..10TH 3:00PM

 

Press Release

Source: Universal Music Enterprises

Billy Ray Cyrus Rocks Country Again With 'WANNA BE YOUR JOE'
Friday June 9, 8:03 am ET

New Album Features George Jones, Loretta Lynn and Tributes to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Dale EarnhardtPlus: Billy Ray Cyrus Announces US Tour Dates

LOS ANGELES, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Billy Ray Cyrus took the music world by storm with his rockin' country. Now, on his newest album, he returns to those Southern rock roots. "WANNA BE YOUR JOE" (New Door/UMe), released July 18, 2006, celebrates the joys, heroes and music of a generation that brought together rock and country.From "Country Music Has The Blues" featuring greats George Jones and Loretta Lynn, "The Freebird Fell" penned with Lynyrd Skynyrd's Artemis Pyle and Ed King, and "The Man," a tribute to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, to the tongue-in-cheek "I Want My Mullet Back," "WANNA BE YOUR JOE" is about the life and loves of the average Joe. In fact, one love affair's life cycle is heard in a string of song titles: "Wanna Be Your Joe," "I Wouldn't Be Me," "What About Us," "Lonely Wins," "I Wonder," "How've You Been" and "Ole What's Her Name." "Hey Daddy," a poignant and personal song about being a father, finishes out the CD.

The album, for which he wrote or co-wrote all 12 tracks, is the first non-gospel outing for Cyrus in four years. During that time, the music star became a television star -- first with four seasons of "Doc," the #1-rated series on PAX, and now with the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana." Premiering this spring, "Hannah Montana," which also stars his daughter Miley, scored the highest ratings of any show to debut on that network. Miley also contributes both lead and harmony vocals to Cyrus' song "Stand," marking the first time father and daughter have recorded together.

Cyrus has come a long way from the days when he'd commute from his Kentucky home to Nashville in search of a record deal. His rags-to-riches story of persistence won America's heart. So too did his music.

In 1992, "SOME GAVE ALL" broke the record for weeks at #1 pop by a debut artist (17). Sparked by "Achy Breaky Heart" -- #1 country for five weeks, Top 5 pop, platinum, and the Country Music Association's Single of the Year, the seven and a half times platinum disc was the fourth biggest-selling album of the '90s. Its "Could've Been Me" hit #2 country, "She's Not Cryin' Anymore" #6, "Wher'm I Gonna Live" #23 and the title track became an anthem for military veterans.

1993's "IT WON'T BE THE LAST" entered the pop chart at #3, country chart at #1 and reached platinum thanks to "In The Heart Of A Woman" (#3), "Somebody New" (#9) and "Words By Heart" (#12). The next year's "STORM IN THE HEARTLAND", with its Top 40 country title track, earned gold. 1996's Trail Of Tears prompted some of the best critical notices of his career as the Cyrus-penned title song depicted the plight of the Native American. Other hits followed: "It's All The Same To Me" (1997's "THE BEST OF BILLY RAY CYRUS: COVER TO COVER"), "Busy Man" (1998's "SHOT FULL OF LOVE") and "You Won't Be Lonely Now" (2000's "SOUTHERN RAIN"). After 2002's Time Flies, the gospel album "THE OTHER SIDE" appeared in 2003 and went Top 20 country.TRACKLISTING
Wanna Be Your Joe (Written by BRC)
I Want My Mullet Back (BRC)
The Man (Tribute To Dale Earnhardt) (BRC)
I Wouldn't Be Me (BRC, Jeff Tweel)
What About Us (BRC, Mark Collie)
Country Music Has The Blues (w/ George Jones, Loretta Lynn) (BRC)
The Freebird Fell (BRC, Ed King, Artemis Pyle)
I Wonder (BRC)
Lonely Wins (BRC)
How've Ya Been (BRC)
Ole What's Her Name (BRC)
Hey Daddy (BRC)

 

NEW YORK (Billboard) - "Achy Breaky Heart" singer Billy Ray Cyrus will release his first country album in four years on July 18, "Wanna Be Your Joe."

Among the tracks set for inclusion on the Universal Music set are "Country Music Has the Blues" featuring Loretta Lynn and George Jones, "I Want My Mullet Back," the Dale Earnhardt tribute "The Man" and "The Freebird Fell," co-written by ex-Lynyrd Skynyrd drummer Artimus Pyle.

"Wanna Be Your Joe" is Cyrus' first country album since 2002's "Time Flies." The following year, he released the gospel-oriented "The Other Side."

 

Lynn was injured at her home, which is 60 miles (97 km) from Nashville

American country music legend Loretta Lynn has had a successful operation on her shoulder after injuring it in a fall at her home in Tennessee.

The 71-year-old slipped as she tried to sit in a chair, forcing her to cancel nine concerts which were due to take place in June and July.

Lynn's agent said that the surgery had gone "very well".

The singer, who has won three Grammy awards, is expected to be able to leave hospital next week.

She is best known for her autobiographical song Coal Miner's Daughter.

Her latest album, Van Lear Rose, was produced by Jack White of the White Stripes.

It is not the first time that an injury has interrupted one of her tours.

In February 2005, Lynn was forced to cancel two shows in Oklahoma and Texas because of back pain.

 

Loretta Lynn HAHN-KHAYAT: Knight Ridder Tribune

June 9, 2006, 10:21AM
Lynn recovering from shoulder joint-replacement surgery

Associated Press

 

Enews	June 07, 2006
	Loretta Lynn Concert Tour Sidelined by Broken Shoulder Nashville, TN – While at her Hurricane Mills, TN home last Sunday, music icon Loretta Lynn accidentally fell resulting in a broken left shoulder. Lynn will undergo shoulder joint replacement surgery at a Nashville area hospital tomorrow before returning back home to recuperate. Due to her injury, nine tour dates in June and July are being cancelled. Plans to reschedule cancelled concerts are underway with new dates to be announced soon. Cancelled tour dates include: Thursday, June 9 in Rochester Hills, MI Friday, June 10 in Cuyahoga Falls, OH Friday, June 23 in Branson, MO Saturday, June 24 in Branson, MO Saturday, July 1 in Hurricane Mills, TN Thursday, July 13 in St. Clairsville, OH Friday, July 14 in Lancaster, PA Friday, July 28 in Durant, OK Saturday, July 29 in Ft. Worth, TX For updated tour date information,  or to post a get well wish for Loretta go to www.LorettaLynn.com .

 

Marketing ideas you never considered

It has been reported that Americans are subjected to more than 3,000 advertising pitches or messages per day. When we consider classic advertising, we usually think of conventional media in the form of print ads, direct mail pieces, billboards (and other outdoor media options), radio and TV spots, and Web advertising. Innovative advertisers have come up with numerous other ways to make an impression and, like it or not, some of these more unconventional options are influencing your buying habits as much as conventional advertising.

WORD-OF-MOUTH ADVERTISING

Some marketing firms offer word-of-mouth advertising exclusively, but their methodology isn't ideal for every product or service. It's labor intensive and expensive. Remember the book and movie "Coal Miner's Daughter?" In her early career as a singer/songwriter, Loretta Lynn and her husband, Doolittle, hit the road to pitch her records to disc jockeys, one-by-one. When the buzz began, things began to happen quickly, and soon the country singer's name was a household word. Word-of-mouth advertising is especially effective in selling products such as video games and self-published books where user loyalty runs high.

By JON NIELSEN / The Dallas Morning News

L.D. "Jerry" Garrett captured the essence of hospitality: Serve good food and make people feel at home.

For 26 years, Mr. Garrett and his wife, Donna, perfected the art with old-fashioned Southern cooking and toe-tapping country tunes at the Steak Pit restaurant and bar.

The barbecue ribs, baked beans and chicken-fried steak attracted the patrons. What kept them coming back was Mr. Garrett's generosity, his family said. He gave free food to those who couldn't afford to pay. For the customers who had too much to drink, he'd drive them home.

Mr. Garrett died April 27 of complications from heart surgery. He was 80. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery.

Urban cowboys, construction workers and churchgoers gathered for meals at the restaurant, operated near Love Field from 1969 to 1995. The diverse crowd was "Texas tacky," according to some restaurant critics. During the restaurant's heyday, in the mid-1980s, Loretta Lynn and members of the rock group Van Halen came through the doors, Mrs. Keating said.

His wife said: "It was a neat place to come to because we had such great people coming in there."

by Scott Stem
You can experience the world of Country Music, including artists from around the world, during CMA Music Festival Week in June in Downtown Nashville.

CMA's commitment to Country Music on an international scale continues in 2006, with the return for a third year of the CMA Global Artists Party. Featuring the best in Country Music entertainment from around the world, the event, which serves as the unofficial kick off to CMA Music Festival, will be held at The Stage on Broadway, Monday, June 5. In each of the event's first two years, the club has been packed with fans, with a line extending a city block outside the door waiting to enter.

"The Country Music Association is not only committed to spreading Country Music around the globe, but also encouraging the development of Country Music artists from other nations," said CMA COO Tammy Genovese.

Aileen Flanagan (Ireland) - Aileen Flanagan is the 2006 winner of the "Search for a New Country Star" competition in Ireland. Her winning performance was a rendition of the Loretta Lynn classic, "Coalminer's Daughter." As part of her prize package, Flanagan will also perform at CMA Music Festival on the Greased Lightning® Daytime Stages at Riverfront Park.

Lights ... country music ... stage ... pure entertainment!

The Temple Theatre in Sanford will present Ted Swinley's Honky Tonk Angels. This musical will be featured from June 8-25. ...The director is Valerie Gardner Rives. She has been working in theatre for 20 years and has been stage manager for more than 35 shows. "The musical will be a lot of fun and is respite from the news of the world today," Rives said.

The plot entails three women from different walks of life who meet on a bus to Nashville and have the same dream of becoming female country music singers. "Their voices sound terrific together," Rives said. She hopes that people will come to see the show and feel good about hearing the songs.

The cast includes Shannon Dalton, Anne-Caitlin Donohue and Allison Lowery.

Dalton graduated from UNC Wilmington and has been an actor and singer since she was a little girl. She is a full-time employee of the Temple Theatre. Her character, Angela, is a mother of six children and is the queen of her double-wide trailer. She is the fun-loving character of the musical.

"It is a fun musical about the biggest female country artists," Dalton said. "Hopefully we can get some of them to come and see it."

Donohue graduated from Meredith College. She plays Darlene, a sweet country girl from the Mississippi Delta who resembles Loretta Lynn. She is naïve and a coal miner's daughter. Lowery graduated from Lees McRae College. She has been acting and singing since 10th grade. Her character, Sue Ellen, resembles Dolly Parton. Sue Ellen is a snobby city girl from L.A. with big hair and loves plastic surgery. "I am enjoying the other two girls," Lowery said. We have a lot of fun. I hope the audience enjoys the play and will sing along with us."

The play features the music of Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Pam Tillis and more. There will also be bluegrass musicians performing.

"We have upped the production and the shows look like Broadway shows," David Matthews, artistic director of the Temple Theatre, said.

Future plans for the theatre include an educational department that will offer theatre classes for beginning, intermediate and advanced acting along with public speaking. Temple is currently working with another organization to form a community outreach program for young people about how to carry themselves in public and public speaking.

The theatre has a new look. It has been painted royal blue, hardwood floors have been put down and the administrative offices have been remodeled.

"Come and see what we have done," Matthews said. "We want to take the Temple Theatre to the next level and broaden our market."

"We hope that people will leave with a great big smile," Rives added about Honky Tonk Angels. "It is a great show to close out the Temple Theatre's season."

Show times for the first week of the musical are Thursday at 1:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Show times for the second and third week of the musical are Thursday at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

For more information about the Temple Theatre visit www.templeshows.com.

Mother's things evoke memories,
leave a message
of love and hope

Dolly Withrow

Three plastic containers sat in a corner of our garage for more than two and a half years following my mother's death. I had been emotionally unable to open them sooner. They held the last of her earthly possessions, except for a few belongings I had already brought into the house.

One day in late spring, I opened the first container and discovered a photograph of the astronaut Jon McBride. It was autographed and inscribed "To Esther." Then, there was an 8-by-10 framed picture of Loretta Lynn, whom I had interviewed on a college stage years earlier. My mother sat with a friend in the audience that evening.

Another container held my mom's winter gloves, knit caps, sweaters and gowns. One jacket was in the box, and each pocket was packed with crumpled facial tissues. This was true of all her clothing that had pockets, for she had a love affair with tissues. Her shoes were in the container as well, and I could see in the soles the imprints of her feet -- imprints formed when she walked upon this earth.

The third container held skeins of embroidery thread in red, blue, green, and purple. Embroidery hoops contained one incomplete project. My mother had stuck her needle through the cloth, which was pulled taut by the hoops. Purple thread ran through the eye of the needle. Abandoned in mid-instant, as if she knew she would return shortly to complete her needlework, the unfinished embroidery evoked her image as nothing else had. Through the eye of the needle Mom's thread dipped and swirled into the purple blossom of a single iris. I knew in that moment her work in progress would remain with me until one day when I, too, would leave forever an unfinished task. Two other sewing projects were in the container. I put them back, somehow wishing I had the talent to finish them for her.

The word "closure" has been bandied about a great deal lately. When a murdered loved one's body is found, the family is supposed to experience closure. When the murderer is brought to justice, survivors are said to have closure at last. We can close dresser drawers and doors. Those are acts of real closure, but we cannot experience closure after the loss of a mother with whom we have shared our triumphs and defeats, our joys and sorrows, our lives, our love.

When death takes a parent, regardless of the closeness or lack thereof, each offspring is permanently altered. As long as our mothers live, they stand between us and death. When they are gone, we become more aware of our own state of mortality.

Since opening that last container almost a year ago, I have since learned that the lowly iris was growing on earth during Biblical times and that it symbolizes love, hope, and faith. Some would say that my finding the half-embroidered purple iris with the thread running through the eye of the needle was simply coincidence. Although I have experienced no closure, the half-completed iris has presented me with a fitting legacy, one of love and hope.

T he most anticipated rock release this week is "Broken Boy Soldiers" by The Raconteurs. The band features both Jack White and Jack Lawrence, and the jury is still out an whether this is an one-off project or an actual band. Either way, it's a well written and rockin' debut. However, I'm personally hoping that White will get back into the studio with Loretta Lynn soon. Other hipster-friendly releases are "Powder Burns" by Twilight Singers, "Houdini Live 2005" by The Melvins and "Enemies Like This" by Radio 4.

 

"Well, you know, there's such politically correct music out there from Nashville right now," he said with a chuckle. "It's like Barney's on country radio: 'I love you, you love me, we all love each other.'

"What happened to the days of Conway Twitty singing about how 'you've never been this far before,' or Loretta Lynn with 'The Pill,' about birth control?"

With "Pickin' Wildflowers," Anderson brought a little of that sort of frankness back to country radio -- and got a Top 10 record to boot. The success of the song justified Arista's faith in him, as well as his acumen in picking the label -- one of seven, he said, that made him offers.

"I'll tell you," he said. "To go from not being able to catch a break to having everyone wanting you -- it's a great feeling."

  May 14. 2006 6:59AM

A Woman for her Times

Loretta Lynn projected strength, then and now

Loretta Lynn, left, accepts the award for best country album for "Van Lear Rose" from Jack White, of the band White Stripes, at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 13, 2005, in Los Angeles. White produced the album.

ANDREW S. HUGHES
Tribune Staff Writer

Refer to Loretta Lynn as a legend if you want. She earned the title more than a generation ago, but the 72-year-old singer who arrives at the Morris Performing Arts Center later today remains a vibrant, contemporary artist who scored a hit with and won two Grammy Awards for the album "Van Lear Rose" in 2004.

With most musicians, such late-in-life success would be considered a surprise, but Lynn has made a life and a career out of bucking expectations.

Born April 14, 1934, in Butcher Hollow, Ky., Lynn married Oliver "Doo" Lynn at the age of 13 and had had the first four of her six children by the age of 18. At 25, she recorded her first album and released her first single, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl," which peaked at No. 14 on Billboard's country charts.With such songs as "The Shoe Goes on the Other Foot Tonight," "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "You Just Stepped In (From Stepping Out on Me)," Lynn's narrators set their wayward men straight. On the flip side of the equation, in such songs as "Fist City," "You Ain't Woman Enough" and "Woman of the World (Leave My World Alone), her narrators fought off any and all challengers.

Lynn, however, didn't espouse the Ms. magazine brand of women's liberation; instead, she sang about the day-to-day struggles of a housewife in Topeka, Kan., in "One's on the Way." Radio stations in the Bible Belt refused to play Lynn's "The Pill," which she wrote and recorded in 1972.

Lynn even took on Friedrich Nietzsche in "Who Says God Is Dead!"

"It was completely radical," Kellirae Boann of local country band Everyday People says. "Look at her contemporaries: (Tammy Wynette's) 'Stand By Your Man'? ... She had the courage to be vocal. I think whatever's being sung about in country music is about what's happening in real lives. She just happened to talk about some of the things that people weren't saying in polite company."

When New Carlisle resident Jackie Cauffman was growing up, "country music was all we were allowed to listen to" on weekends, she says. "If there was a new record by Loretta or Conway Twitty, my dad was a truck driver, and he would say, 'I want you to listen to it.' "

Like her parents, Cauffman became a fan, and Lynn's music and groundbreaking perspective continue to impress her.

"She brought women's rights to attention with the birth control pill, her husband cheating on her," Cauffman says. "She always had a story to tell, and it wasn't vulgar, a life story, and I wondered if it wasn't sometimes her story."

Often, it was. "Coal Miner's Daughter," of course, is Lynn's most famous autobiographical song, her story of growing up poor but loved. She picks up the story again on "Van Lear Rose" on several songs, including the title track, which is about her mother and father's courtship; "Miss Being Mrs.," a lament on widowhood in the wake of Doo's death in 1996; and the ebullient "Story of My Life," which immediately follows "Miss Being Mrs."

"Van Lear Rose" won the Grammy Award for country album of the year and a Grammy for "Portland Oregon," a vocal duet with Jack White, the album's producer and the frontman for the retro-blues band The White Stripes.

Several songs from "Van Lear Rose" remain active on the play list at Goshen College's radio station, WGCS-FM (91.1), "The Globe," general manager Jason Samuel says.

"You think of that last album she did, it was so brilliant to bring Jack White in on it," he says. "As great as she was or is, she was able to be humble enough to take a totally different approach and listen to someone half her age and (with) a different style and have the confidence to go through with the process. These are my own impressions, but it's obvious she had to grow, too, even at her age to accomplish that."

  May 16. 2006 6:59AM

Lynn daring, still country at Morris

REVIEW

ANDREW S. HUGHES
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND -- Something special and unexpected happened during Loretta Lynn's concert Sunday night at the Morris Performing Arts Center: The audience surprised and challenged Lynn by making requests for several songs from Lynn's 2004 album, "Van Lear Rose."

With the exception of "Family Tree," it was clear Lynn hadn't planned to play any songs from the album. In fact, she said several times that her band, The Coal Miners, didn't know the title song or "Woman's Prison."

Despite that, Lynn tried both of them."I've never done that with these guys," she said of "Woman's Prison." "I don't know what key it's in." She then sang the first line. "They might as well learn it today."

Lynn, however, forgot many of the words to the song and ended it quickly, the attempt devolving into humor for her, the band and the audience. Later, she brought her daughter Patsy onstage to help her sing "Van Lear Rose" and give "Woman's Prison" another try, this time with the help of the lyrics printed in a CD booklet passed to them from the audience.

Both songs were ragged, disjointed and pure in the attempt. It was refreshing and inspiring to see such looseness and daring from an artist who could easily have sidestepped those requests and stuck to a set list. Lynn, however, has always been a bold musician, seemingly unafraid of a challenge, as she proved again on Sunday.

As for "Family Tree," Lynn sounded confident and at ease with the song, a tale about confronting her husband's lover: "I wouldn't dirty my hands on trash like you."

The rest of Lynn's set consisted of classics from her career, drawn mostly from the '60s and '70s, and Lynn imbued these songs with life and personality as she sang them.

On songs such as "I Wanna Be Free," the sad "Here I Am Again" and "Your Squaw Is on the Warpath," her voice was steady when she held notes, showing that it's still an instrument with fine tone and control to it.

On songs such as her rousing rendition of "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)," "You Ain't Woman Enough" and a lively "Fist City," Lynn showed how much fun she was having, her voice loose and playful when she sang.

Lynn performed the thematically linked "One's on the Way" and "The Pill" as a medley, the former with a wry delivery, the latter with a boisterous delivery.

Several gospel songs, including "Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven" and "Who Says God Is Dead!" done as a medley and "Where No One Stands Alone," Lynn and her trio of male backing singers hit their peak in singing together, even going a capella on the last of these songs.

The local country band Everyday People opened the concert. Highlights of their set included the singing of Kellirae Boann, particularly her use of melisma and the swagger she put into her voice on "I Feel Lucky," and the guitar playing of Mike Davis, particularly the vintage tone he got out of his amplifier.

Lynn's twin daughters, Patsy and Peggy, sang three songs before Lynn came on, the best of which was the weeper "Sarah."

The night, however, belonged to Lynn, who proved during her hour onstage that when you're looking at her, you're looking at country, and hearing it, too.

 ON FRIDAY MAY 12TH PATSY LYNN will be on WSM  to talk about Loretta for there mother's day special  be sure to tune  in at 8:20am or 8:40 am  or 9:20 9:40 am est online at www.wsmonline.com

The Van Lear, Kentucky Historical Society, Inc. would like to invite everyone to the
21st Annual Van Lear Town Celebration. The celebration will be held on August 4th
& 5th, 2006.

The celebration features FREE live music shows, a car/truck/motorcycle show,
1950's costume contest, do the twist contest, cake walks, horseshoe tournament,
parade, official ceremonies, kiddie games, country cooked meals, 1950's Snack
Shop, FREE tours of the Coal Miners' Museum, prize drawings, tours of Loretta
Lynn's childhood home and much, much more!

This year's Grand Marshall will be Loretta's sister, singer / songwriter, Peggy
Sue Wright. Peggy is best remembered for her Top 10 single, "Dynamite."
"Dynamite" was a Loretta Lynn composition. Peggy and Loretta co-wrote some
of Loretta's biggest hits,"Love Whatcha Got at Home" and "Don't Come Home
a Drinkin'...with Lovin on Your Mind." Peggy will be signing autographs at the
Coal Miners' Museum and selling recordings and other items. Our parade will
be held on Saturday, August 5th at 2:30pm.

Also, along with Peggy will be her husband, Sonny Wright. Sonny is a former
Mercury recording artist. Sonny is a fantastic country performer! We hope that
he will also grace our stage along with Peggy and our own Van Lear talent.

For additional information email: admin@vanlear.org or visit our website at
www.vanlear.org

Thank you,

Danny K. Blevins
President
Van Lear Historical Society, Inc.
78 Millers' Creek Rd.
P.O. Box 336
Van Lear, KY 41265

Note: The Van Lear Historical Society, Inc. is a 501©(3) non-profit organization.

It Takes Two: Great Duets From Stage and Screen More cabaret tastiness from Quality Hill Playhouse's J. Kent Barnhart, who, in addition to being an ace arranger and accompanist, is a disarmingly dry MC, a total charmer even when he's haranguing a crowd for not having bought tickets for next season. As for the show, the title says it all — expect Gershwin, Annie Get Your Gun, Showboat and — ah, hell — a little Lloyd Webber. (Why, oh why, didn't Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty ever get their genius duet "You're the Reason Our Kids Are Ugly" into a Broadway show?) Through May 21 at Quality Hill Playhouse, 303 W. 10th St., 816-421-1700.

Call for Max or Sam, then see how many pets come runnin'

Some people spend weeks trying to figure out what to name their pets.

They name them after their color -- Brownie, Blackie, Coco; after their appearance -- Foxy, Bear, Tiny. Some people try to name them after a strong or famous person -- Tipper, Brad Pitt, Loretta Lynn -- or they get a name because of their personality, such as Prissy, Sassy, Princess.

Despite senator’s efforts, juvenile marriage ban advances

O’Connor says history full of successful women who married as teens

By Scott Rothschild (Contact)

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Topeka — Citing Loretta Lynn and the Virgin Mary as successful women who married young, Sen. Kay O’Connor voted against a bill that would prohibit 14-year-olds from marrying.

But the Senate didn’t go along with O’Connor on Wednesday, approving the measure 36-4. The House is expected to take up the bill today, and if it approves, the proposal will be sent to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has called for restrictions on underage marriages

 

Powered by necessity

Homemade electric chair jolts student's film


JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO
Tribune Staff Writer

When Katie Madonna Lee set out to make a short film about prison, there was one key prop she couldn't get her hands on.

"I needed an electric chair," the 24-year-old Indiana University South Bend student says. "I was hoping that some branch of government in Indiana would be willing to part with theirs, but that wasn't the case."

So Lee and a fellow student, Matt Shuff, built their own.

Bernadette Bauer is strapped to the electric chair in a scene from Katie Madonna Lee's short film "Woman's Prison," which will be shown at the Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks.I went to Home Depot," Lee says, "and then we did some crazy carpentry."

The electric chair is the centerpiece of "Woman's Prison," one of six short films by Lee to be screened Saturday at the Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks.

Set to Loretta Lynn's song of the same title, "Woman's Prison" follows a female death-row inmate tormented by guilt who finds peace after she's put to death.

"When she's executed, she goes through a moment of grace," Lee says, "emerging as the young girl she was when she entered prison."

Lee, who will attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City this fall, became interested in the subject of women in prison after a photography project with female inmates at the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center. Then, she heard the Lynn song.

"It really clicked," Lee says. "It's about women being in a social prison not just a physical one. It's something I saw in these girls in the JJC. This is what the character in the film goes through. She was in a prison long before she got there."

And as for that elusive electric chair?

After being denied by various prisons, Lee drafted the measurements to construct her own device from a 1920s photograph.

Staff at the Home Depot, she says, helped correct her original drafts and cut out the wood. Lee then gathered metal pieces from a junk yard and belts from Goodwill. Six hours and $38 later, she had her electric chair.

"I felt like one of those kids who builds a bomb from instructions found on the Internet," she says. "I felt so evil building this thing. It's such a horrible way to die."

That didn't stop her, however, from strapping her mother to it.

Bernadette Bauer, who plays the lead in the five-minute film, was up to the challenge.

"I wasn't nervous," Bauer says. "She's the director, and she knows what she wants. She always seems to get the right people to do the right things."

Even if the right thing to do is constructing a lethal weapon.

"The scary thing is, it can actually work," Lee says. "We have a transformer and all you have to do is hook it up to a car battery."

Luckily for Bauer, it didn't come to that.

Staff writer Jeremy D. Bonfiglio:

 Sissy Spacek , in a denim skirt and blue sweater, singing backup vocals at the Birchmere on Monday night. The actress, who won an Oscar portraying Loretta Lynn in "Coal Miner's Daughter," sang harmony with her actress-singer daughter, Schuyler Fisk, who just signed a deal with Universal Records. A ripple went through the audience when the crowd recognized the 56-year-old Spacek. "That's my mom," said Fisk, 23. When audience members playfully asked her name, Spacek answered, "Mom." Finally, Fisk admitted it was "Sissy or something."

 Book festival hits town on Saturday By Dave Lavender joint undertaking by half a dozen local libraries in all three states, the festival is a smorgasbord for the book lover with everything from book signings and workshops, to author readings and signings to a book fair with great deals from many of the region's presses and book stores including Words 'n' Stuff, from Loretta Lynn's hometown of Van Lear, Ky., as well as Borders Books, Music and Cafe at the Huntington Mall -- the festival's prime vendor and sponsor.

 

    NASHVILLE, Tenn., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, May 1, 2006 at
RCA Studio B on Music Row, Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell will officially
issue a proclamation honoring the late Roy Orbison, one of Music City's
most influential writers and singers. The tribute, to be presented at 12:30pm
a campaign is well
underway to earn Roy Orbison a much-deserved U.S. postage stamp. A petition
in favor of the stamp has more than 15,000 names including Bono, Olivia
Harrison, Gregg Allman, Pete Fountain, George Clinton, Dwight Yoakam,
George Jones and Loretta Lynn.

 

 

Ralph McLean

30 April 2006

THERE are some places you think you'll never be in life.

Sitting in the passenger seat beside Hollywood hard man Tommy Lee Jones as he drives you around Texas is certainly one of them.

But that's exactly where I found myself the other day, shooting the breeze with one of the biggest movie stars in the world.

I'd flown out to America to make some documentaries for Radio 2 on Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn.

Tommy Lee, having starred in The Coal Miner's Daughter, an Oscar-winning biopic of the latter, had agreed to an interview. Ralph's Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn documentaries run on BBC Radio 2 from May 16th.

  No-nonsense country queen delivers

Loretta Lynn exudes charm in her first concert of the year

By WAYNE BLEDSOE, bledsoe@knews.com
April 22, 2006

These days, country music concerts are all about fireworks and explosions, singers swinging over the crowd and blinding light displays.

Thank goodness for Loretta Lynn, who has changed little since she was a queen in one of country music's golden ages. Watching Lynn on Friday night at the Tennessee Theatre was like stepping back in time 30 years

Lynn, who turned 71 last week, treated the audience like old friends - even though many in the crowd were too young to have ever heard a Lynn hit when it was new. The show was the first of the year for the country legend (one band member said that the audience had paid to see a rehearsal). However, Lynn's charm smoothed over any rough spots. In fact, having a few rough spots gave the show a nice sense of spontaneity. The Loretta Lynn show is as much a revue as a concert. After an excellent five-song opening set by Jennifer Hanson, Lynn's daughter Patsy took the stage to hawk signed CD boxed sets, Lynn-written cookbooks and the singer's comeback CD "Van Lear Rose." The no-nonsense sales pitch was actually refreshingly nostalgic.

After two songs by Loretta's band, Patsy and her twin sister Peggy sang three numbers. Their mother followed, arriving onstage to a vocal fanfare of "Coal Miner's Daughter" by three male backup singers.

Loretta opened with "You're Looking at Country," and there was no doubt that the audience was. Taking off the jacket of her pantsuit, Lynn told the crowd: "You thought we came to sing. We came to strip!" She complained that she and her daughters "forgot to pack our gowns and this is hot!"

Lynn sat for most of the show, complaining that her back, which was broken and operated on in 2005, still hurt. She amiably took requests from the rowdy crowd, saying, "What do you want to hear? This is your show." She then proceeded to deliver her signature songs "Fist City," "Don't Come Home A'Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)," "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man," and a medley of "One's On the Way" and "The Pill."

The numbers are cantankerous classics that sound as fresh now as they did in the 1960s and '70s. The singer's combination of take-no-guff attitude and honest vulnerability remain assets to be cherished.

Lynn professed to need help to remember the title cut from "Van Lear Rose," and insisted that daughter Patsy return to help her sing it. Patsy, who had already changed from her stage clothes, reluctantly complied, but her mother really needed little help.

Although the concert was a little short, it was solid entertainment by one of country's last great legends.

Loretta Lynn remains one of a kind.

Spacek's daughter plays Birchmere Schuyler Fisk, 'Coal Miner's Daughter's' Daughter, to play show at Birchmere Monday night

Date published: 4/21/2006

Schuyler Fisk, the daughter of actress Sissy Spacek, is pursuing a career in music and acting.

By MICHAEL ZITZ

As a little girl, Schuyler Fisk first decided she wanted to be an archaeologist when she grew up.

Then she changed her mind and wanted to be a hairdresser and makeup artist.

Later she decided she wanted to be an actress and a singer-songwriter, in no particular order.

Maybe that inspiration came because her mother is Sissy Spacek, who played country music legend Loretta Lynn in the film "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Maybe that makes her the Coal Miner's Daughter's Daughter and a music and acting career was therefore preordained.

Or maybe it was simply because Spacek, who gave guitar lessons to earn extra money in high school in Texas, taught daughter Schuyler to play at age 15, and sings with her both at home and onstage at some shows. Perhaps Mom will join her onstage when she opens for Colin Hay Monday night at the Birchmere.

But rest assured that Fisk's decision to go into both acting and singing had nothing to do with Hollywood influences.

Her family moved from Los Angeles to Charlottesville when she was very young.

"Man, I love Charlottesville so much," the 23-year-old Fisk said this week in an interview with The Free Lance-Star. "It's the best place in the world to grow up--just being away from that whole Hollywood thing.

"I didn't understand when I was younger. But I realize now what they were trying to do, sheltering me from it," she said. "I don't think raising kids in L.A. is impossible, you just make it a lot harder for yourself. People grow up a lot faster out there and it's just a different thing."

Growing up in Charlottesville, she was able to realize for herself that her passion was in the arts, "being able to create, write music, and play music, play in front of people, because I really love it," and not feeling any pressure one way or another, she said.

"Acting is definitely a different way of expressing myself," Fisk said. "It's not as personal as music for me. But it's such a great escape. You can be this other person for little while and it's kind of freeing."

Her movie credits include "The Locrian Mode" (2005), "American Gun" (2005), "Orange County" (2002), "Skeletons in the Closet" (2001), "Snow Day" (2000), "My Friend Joe" (1996) and "The Baby-Sitters Club" (1995).

Her latest film, the small-budget, artsy "I'm Reed Fish," opens at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York April 29.

"I played a musician and got to write two songs and play them in the film, which was great," Fisk said.

She also wrote songs for "American Gun," "Skeletons in the Closet" and "Snow Day."

"It's kind of fun to kind of be able to switch it up [between] acting and music," she said.

This week Fisk, who says she's "obsessed" with the ABC series "Lost," went online to iTunes to download some episodes of that program. She realized a January episode of NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," on which she guest-starred, was there.

After starting out as a nerve-racking experience, "Law & Order" was "really fun," she said.

Fisk said she was initially worried because the cast has been together so long. " I thought, 'Gosh, what if I'm not good enough?'"

She also made a guest appearance on The WB Network's "One Tree Hill" that originally aired in May 2005.

Her musical influences include Bonnie Raitt and Billie Holiday.

"I grew up listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young--all those cool harmonies," she said. "And Patsy Cline and all those people."

She wrote her first song, "There Was a Little Girl Named Schuyler," when she was 4 years old and playing the ukulele. Her mother has it on video.

When she was 8, she made her first "music video" to Madonna's "Like a Prayer," and that, too, has been saved for posterity.

Fisk always loved to sing and did a lot of musical theater in high school.

"We always had guitars around the house and my mom used to play," she recalled. "One day she picked up the guitar and taught me a few chords. I didn't know how to play anyone else's songs, so I started writing my own."

People would catch a song here or there and tell her, "You gotta play that for my friend."

She started playing open mike nights and did a high school talent show.

At 16, she was introduced to Virginia musician-producer John Jennings, who works with Mary Chapin Carpenter. He produced a nine-song demo of Fisk's original music.

Her first real concert appearance was opening for Dan Fogelberg at Wolf Trap in Vienna two years ago before a crowd of 8,000.

"It's indescribable--a rush, a great feeling," she said, and she has some nervousness, but her butterflies always go away within seconds of starting to play.

She started touring on her own in January.

Fisk describes her material as "very acoustic, very singer-songwriter, I write everything. It's hard to describe, I have so many influences, but it's kind of folk meets alternative in the vein of Sheryl Crow."

Even if she becomes a big film or television star, singing and writing songs is something she's unlikely to ever give up.

"The whole songwriting thing has become so important to me, I wouldn't trade that for anything," Fisk said. "I've always written on my own and always will, but I've also done a lot of co-writing and it's been a real learning experience for me. It's wonderful because it takes you out of your safety net."

 
COUNTRY
Making tracks to collaborations

By Alison Bonaguro
Special to the Tribune
Posted April 16 2006
Whatever you do, don't call them duets. That word conjures up images of old-school country artists, in ruffled dresses and bolo ties, singing into a single mic at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry.

No, what today's country artists do is collaborate. Which could mean sweating out every last vocal side by side in the studio. Or that, through the miracle of recording technology, they don't ever even hook up. "Some artists who are collaborating never actually meet," said Phyllis Stark, Billboard's Nashville Bureau Chief. Regardless of how they're created, the kinds of pairings have also changed. Couples such as Tammy Wynette and George Jones sang together because they were married. Loretta Lynn sang with Conway Twitty because they were pals. So why did Nashville go from those friendly get-togethers to Tim McGraw and Nelly?
McGraw a wanted man

"Over & Over," rapper Nelly's 2004 hit with McGraw, came about because Nelly set his sights on McGraw. According to MTV.com, Nelly wanted McGraw because, as he reportedly told his manager, not only can the crooner sing, but "He's got game . . . and he's got a fine [woman]."

But Mike Peterson, program director at Chicago's country radio station US99 (WUSN-FM 99.5), said listeners weren't so sure about the single. "People called in to say it was interesting but it wasn't what they wanted to hear on our station." Some purists, and fans of other genres, don't necessarily like the country influence these singles are taking on. Longtime Bon Jovi fan Anne Bassett, of Chicago, isn't so sure about the rock band's work with Jennifer Nettles of country's hot-right-now group Sugarland. The song "Who Says You Can't Go Home," which pairs the coiffed rocker with the country crooner, was an instant hit. But, Bassett says, "Why can't anybody sing alone anymore? When I want Jon Bon, I just want Jon Bon. But I guess if she's good enough for Bon Jovi, she's good enough for me."

All Jon Bon Jovi was trying to do, according to CMT, "was "try to find the right voice to complement mine." The single now sits at No. 3 on Billboard's country charts, and No. 10 on its adult top 40 charts.

At least Bon Jovi and Nettles are contemporaries. But now, anything goes in these new collaborations, regardless of genre or generation. Jack White, garage-rock hero and lead singer for the White Stripes, produced Loretta Lynn's latest album "Van Lear Rose." And on it, the ultimate odd couple sing together on "Portland, Oregon." Yes, that Loretta Lynn. And yes, that Jack White.

 DAVE TRIPPIN': Hollywood has come to Tri-State for filming of variety of movies

By Dave Lavender
The Herald-Dispatch

While "We Are" experiencing a little appetizer of the tourism and excitement that comes with a major motion picture coming to town, the Dave Trippin' crew (which likes to drop in and check out cool places where flicks have been filmed) has compiled a few of our favorite such places.

Since 1986, Loretta Lynn’s brother Herman Webb has kept their famous family home in Butcher Hollow in Van Lear, Ky., open for visitors who want to tour the place where Loretta and her famous sister Crystal Gayle were born.

isit 'Coal Miner's Daughter,' or at least her brother

One of my favorite movie spots anywhere is Butcher Hollow in Van Lear, Ky.

Located about 60 miles from Huntington (south on U.S. 23), turn off The Country Music Highway and take those curvy-as-a-copperhead roads back to Van Lear, Ky., home to beautiful Butcher Hollow, where country music star Loretta Lynn was born.

The subject of the 1980 biopic "Coal Miner's Daughter," Lynn, who moved away from this homeplace at age 13, was done up in style by Sissy Spacek, who won an Oscar for her troubles.

Make sure you stop by Webb's General Store (it's on the way and has awesome bologna sandwiches). The store is owned by Loretta's brother Herman, who can give you an unforgettable personal tour of the home place and give you some behind-the-scenes dish about his sis and about one of the greatest rags-to-riches stories in music.

Case's bleak country a study in contrasts

By DAVE TIANEN

Posted: March 31, 2006

Neko Case would rather not be called alt-country. She says she prefers country noir.

 As she demonstrated before a sold-out crowd at the Pabst Theater on Thursday night, that is a better term. There's a thread of bleak storytelling in Case's writing that comes out of the oldest country and folk traditions, but it's married to a conscious artiness that doesn't come light years near Butcher Holler. Ask those critics who insist on comparing her to Loretta Lynn this: Would Loretta have ever named an album "Fox Confessor Brings the Flood"?

 

Coal Miner's Daughter   (United States, 1980) With Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helm. Directed by Michael Apted (Enigma). Category : Drama. Length : 2:05. Classification : General

 
Rating of our members : (1 member)

Sissy Spacek Is Loretta Lynn !!!     Few films have captured reality more exacting than "Coal Miner's Daughter". Set in the commonwealth of Kentucky (my home state, by the way !!!), the biography of counry singing sensation Loretta Lynn (Sissy Spacek) tells it like it is, as does Lynn with her music. Born in the hill country, where life's career choices are 'coalmine, moonshine or down-the-line', Loretta adds song writing to the mix, but not right away. Married at 14 to 'Doolittle' Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones), mother of four at 18; Doolittle finally breaks down and goes to buy Loretta an enagement ring, but there a sale at this pawn shop on musical insturments and he walks out with a guitar instead. The rest is history !!! At first, Loretta sings at some 'honky-tonks', then writes and records her first song, which her husband literally sells door-to-door and eventually leads to the Grand Old Opry in Nashville. Eventally, she begins to enjoy her chunk of fame, along the way striking up a friendship with country legend Patsy Klien (Beverly D'Angelo, in an incredible performance). Patsy's death doesn't go down well with Loretta, and she would spend more and more time on the road untill she nearly collapses under the strain; which is in a way a benefit, giving her material for writing some of her hit songs. A refreshing aspect of this movie is that all the music you hear is sung by the stars themselves; no lip-syncing or voiceovers (Jessica Lange of "Sweet Dreams" should take note). In fact, Sissy Spacek IS Loretta Lynn, and therefore deserving of her Oscar for Best Actress. All in all, a great talent tells the story of a great talent, and is worth your time. By the way, Levon Helm plays Loretta's coal miner father; a great atlent himself. This is a keeper !!!!!
James Brooks