Loretta Lynn’s music is intimate and revealing in a way that few of her female classic country contemporaries can claim, and it is most readily apparent in the songs she penned herself. Her enduring career is due in no small part to her easily relatable lyrics, particularly when it comes to themes that impact women. The fact that she drew heavily from many of her own classics for Friday night’s show at the 9:30 Club made for a memorable evening.
The night started with a few songs from her son Ernest Ray as backed by Loretta’s band The Coalminers. It was a solid way to get the crowd going a bit, and while I have heard his performances can be hit or miss he, was in good form for the covers he sang. Up next were a few sang by Patsy and Peggy Lynn, Loretta’s twin daughters, who did a great job of working the stage end-to-end, whose songs were a bit more in the realm of contemporary pop country. I liked their stage presence, and the crowd loved it.
Loretta came out in a floor-length sequined gown and started things off with “They Don’t Make Them Like My Daddy.” It immediately struck me just how top-shelf her voice still is. After 50 years in the music business, you don’t really expect her voice to be quite so potent, and yet here she is all these years later, not only keeping up with, but surpassing, the vocals of so many other female singers. The quality, combined with her unique vocal delivery, creates a compelling sound that really doesn’t disappoint.
Lynn played most of the classic hits you would want to hear, including “Your Squaw is on the Warpath,” “One’s on the Way,” and “You’re Looking at Country.” When she played “Fist City,” she talked about how it was written about her husband Doo, and that she wished he could see the way the woman he was running around with back then, who also inspired the song, looked today. She said, “She’s only got one tooth, and it looks like this,” as she stuck her index finger aimed crookedly out of the corner of her mouth. The evening was filled with fun stories, and if I had one complaint about the show, it was that they didn’t quite have her mic loud enough in the mix, so it made it a little hard to hear her when she was speaking. If there’s ever a performer you want to hear the in-between song stories from, it would have to be Loretta Lynn.
Also worth noting is just how tight her backing band The Coalminers were. There didn’t seem to be a missed or off note from them throughout the entire show. The leader of the band, Bart Hansen, also came forward and filled in for the late Conway Twitty on “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man,” which he handled admirably.
After a short gospel interlude, she closed the 75-minute set with “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” If you’re a fan of traditional country music, I would say it really is worth seeing Loretta Lynn perform if she comes to the area again. Even if my own personal favorites appeared earlier in the set, it gave me a little chill to hear such a legend perform arguably her biggest song,
