Visiting Loretta Lynn's Butcher Holler home origins

Jenn: 00:00:00

So this is like Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn.

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This is where you're getting this real authentic country

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bluegrass roots of country music.

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And I didn't even know this existed like this.

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It was Loretta Lynn that pulled us to this area.

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But once you get there, there's a lot of country music, like legacy.

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in the area.

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Welcome to Talk With History.

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I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

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On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,

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YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

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with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

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Today, we're diving into the heart of country music.

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Taking a journey to the rolling hills of Kentucky, where the

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captivating story of a coal miner's daughter unfolds, we're heading.

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To Butcher Holler, the humble beginnings of the one and only Loretta Lynn.

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A name synonymous with raw talent, authenticity, and a voice

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that echoes through the ages.

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IN this episode, we'll walk the hallowed halls of her childhood home,

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exploring the very roots that nurtured the seeds of her incredible career.

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From the struggles of growing up in the heart of Appalachia, to her meteoric

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rise in the world of country music, Loretta's journey is as And inspiring as

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the melodies she so beautifully crafted.

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Join us as we unravel the pages of history and trace the footsteps

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of a woman who not only conquered the charts but also broke through

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barriers in a genre dominated by men.

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So grab your cowboy boots, dust off that old vinyl, and get ready

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for a toe tapping, heartwarming journey through the life and times

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of the First Lady of Country Music.

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Now Jen...

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It's pretty obvious who we're talking about today.

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And this was someone that I wasn't familiar with, but when you and I kind of

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went out to Western Virginia and parts of Kentucky, this was like a must do for you.

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this is Bucket List for me.

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I love country music.

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I grew up.

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in Wyoming.

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And so a lot of country music was part of my childhood.

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And even though Loretta Lynn is not my era, she inspired

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a lot of people of my era.

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And so if you were always going to go back and be like, who was

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the influence of Martina McBride?

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Who was the influence of Patti Lovelace?

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It's it's all goes back to Loretta Lynn.

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And so for me, this was a bucket list place to go.

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Yeah.

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Now, as I remember from making the video, and again, for, for

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those listening, we actually went and visited her home in Kentucky,

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So her birthplace

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Holler, Holler, and she kind of, obviously she grew up there and then

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got her start eventually in the fifties, but let's start with visiting her home.

Jenn: 00:03:21

Sure.

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So we're in eastern Kentucky.

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So this is kind of where Kentucky kind of jets off to a little point

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area where it's kind of cutting West Virginia and Western Virginia.

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And these are like the country road mountains of Appalachia.

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is no cell phone signal in those hollers that we were at.

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Yeah.

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So be prepared.

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If you're going to go download your maps before you get there, download your GPS.

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Cause if you get lost, you can't, it's hard to figure out where you're at.

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And so a holler, so we get a lot of these questions, hollow,

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holler, what's the difference?

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You say both on the

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And because it is both.

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And these are these little notches in these mountains, and they call

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them hollows because they're little hollows between the mountains.

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Now, holler is the slang.

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And so it is both.

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You'll see butcher hollow is the official name of the of the road

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or the area where she was from, but Holler is what people will call it.

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And a lot of people, right, if I think if they're a Loretta Lynn

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fan or if they've ever looked this up on YouTube or anything, like they'll

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see the very famous rock, right?

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The rock kind of leading up to, to where her childhood home was

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and it says on it, butcher holler.

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And so the Butchers were a family, a last name.

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And most hollers or hollows are named for something that identifies that area.

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So it could be a family from there, it could be like a river

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that's close by a tree, a landmark.

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So that's how people kind of got their geographic area or knew their area.

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Living in these back roads of the mountains of Appalachia.

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and I think even in what we'll talk a little bit more about this

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later, but her cousin who was the tour guide at the house, he mentioned the

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storehouse and he's Oh yeah, that became became known as storehouse hauler.

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So like you said, it's, it's either a river or a landmark or a family name.

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And I, that one just amused me because I was like, well, you

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know, might as well keep it simple, you know, storehouse hauler.

Jenn: 00:05:25

It does keep it simple because you have to think back then people,

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reading and writing wasn't really a norm.

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And so you had to really identify these places so people could find them this way,

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you know, based by looking and walking.

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So it's a one road.

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entry.

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It's a one car entry.

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So be careful because it's hard to turn around.

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If another car is coming the opposite direction, you really,

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it's difficult for both of you to be on the road at the same time.

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These are very skinny roads.

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They're paved now.

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I imagine they were not paved in Loretta Lynn's time.

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And so people mostly walked them

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Yeah, or had a

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or had a horse.

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And so Again, you're in these little rural back road areas of the mountains.

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So when we got up there, it's, it's still basically hard to even drive.

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You have to park kind of at the bottom and then walk up.

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There's a couple spots up there, but our tour guide, who's her cousin

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He warned us, don't park up there because people will park behind you.

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And then it becomes difficult to, to get out.

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And so it's better.

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There's like a more of a bigger parking area down at the bottom,

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park down there and then walk up.

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And, and her, her birthplace home is Butcher Holler

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is actually pretty easy to find.

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It's on Google Maps.

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You can find it quite easily.

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It's not difficult to get to.

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You just kind of have to be slightly prepared.

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Yes.

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And just be aware that, you know, you're going to be driving up there.

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You won't have a cell phone signal, most likely.

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At least we didn't.

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And as you're driving up there, kind of, You don't, you don't have

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to drive all the way up to the top.

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You can.

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It's a little bit of a hill, but it's, I mean, it's pretty short.

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But yeah, it's, it's definitely off in the, in the back, in

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the backwoods of Kentucky.

Jenn: 00:07:08

So you, you get your ticket at Web Grocery we didn't.

Jenn: 00:07:11

We paid cash at the door, but just be prepared that it, it, it is

Jenn: 00:07:15

privately owned and operated by her cousin and it, so it's kind of like

Jenn: 00:07:20

makeshift hours, what works for him.

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And he says two times a day, usually like noon and three, but what works for him.

Jenn: 00:07:27

because he's doing it on his own and I think his son works at the grocery.

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So that kind of makes it so if you buy the ticket at the grocery, of course,

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his son would know that he's going to be up at the house or things like that.

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But even he said they kind of closed from November to April

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because of the snow and the cold.

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So butcher holler, is awesome.

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And we sat on the front porch and we walked in.

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It really does.

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take you right back.

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It looks like it did when Loretta Lynn grew up there.

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Now she's born in April of 1932.

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And so this, they, and she lives there until she's 15.

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So this is how it looked from like the thirties to the fifties.

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There's no inside bathroom.

Jenn: 00:08:15

That doesn't look like there's inside water.

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They have a well outside.

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They have an outhouse outside.

Jenn: 00:08:19

It's basically four.

Jenn: 00:08:21

rooms on the bottom floor.

Jenn: 00:08:23

And there's a loft where the boys slept.

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So when you think they had I think it was eight kids,.

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So the girls slept downstairs in the second bedroom and the boys were

Jenn: 00:08:35

all upstairs in the loft and the parents were in the other bedroom.

Jenn: 00:08:38

And then there's a dining room and a kitchen and that's it.

Jenn: 00:08:41

So you bathe the outside.

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They have kind of a little bathtub.

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You can see like they probably Boiled the water.

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You bathed outside.

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You went to the bathroom outside.

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So, and there was a fireplace kind of between the two bedrooms

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of the girls and the parents.

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In reality, it's a nice little plot of land, right?

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So that the house, if you haven't seen the video yet, again,

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we'll link it in the show notes.

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But the house is sitting a little bit up on the hill and then down below where

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the ground's a little flatter, a little wider, they kind of have a pasture, right?

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For a horse.

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I think there was a mule out there as well.

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So there was a, you know, decent, a little bit of land right there.

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And I think Mack had mentioned that she was actually.

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Born a little bit further up.

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There was another holler.

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I

Jenn: 00:09:27

No, no, she's born in Butcher Holler, but not in that house.

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It was it was up a little

Jenn: 00:09:32

Up a little further but still in the same holler.

Jenn: 00:09:35

And yes, so her family were very, what they call substance farmers.

Jenn: 00:09:39

So they, they live off their own land and their gardens were a

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little bit above the house on more

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got more Sun

Jenn: 00:09:45

they got more sun.

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And so they.

Jenn: 00:09:47

a lot of corn, right?

Jenn: 00:09:49

And so, so basically corn farmer substance just to live off of not really

Jenn: 00:09:54

to sell and then coal miner at night.

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And we will stop at the coal mine and we'll talk more about that

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because this is basically her song

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that

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Oscar winner song.

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But her parents, Clara Marie and Melvin Theodore they will move

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into that house when she's Before they have their third child.

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So when they have eight, the first,

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the oldest or

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the oldest girl.

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So they have a boy and a girl the boy is Melvin and then she's the next one born.

Jenn: 00:10:23

And so they move in there and then they'll have the other, other six.

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And Crystal Gale is her sister.

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And I think Crystal Gale is almost 10 years, almost 20 years younger than her.

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So she's born in 1932.

Jenn: 00:10:35

Crystal Gale was born in 1951.

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that.

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So she was born in 1932, Crystal Gale was born in 1951.

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She's pretty

Jenn: 00:10:47

She's pretty big.

Jenn: 00:10:48

She's not as big, but she's pretty big.

Jenn: 00:10:51

And yeah.

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So to, to one family to produce two songbirds is pretty remarkable, but

Jenn: 00:10:58

it was just amazing to be in that, to me, I felt just amazing to be in that

Scott: 00:11:05

And, and there was people from kind of all walks of life

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there when we got there, right?

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So, so the people, we weren't the only ones to show up.

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A lot of times we get to these places a little more off the beaten

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path and sometimes we're the only ones, maybe another couple or,

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or someone, someone like that.

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But there was families, you know, from all over the place, not just

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from the Kentucky area, you know, and then we had, there was, there was

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some, there was an Amish family there.

Jenn: 00:11:28

an Amish family and they were pretty talkative and interested

Jenn: 00:11:33

and wanted to talk more history.

Jenn: 00:11:35

And they're much more relatable because the the patriarch

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of that family had 12 kids.

Jenn: 00:11:41

And so he, I think he very much related to that country living,

Jenn: 00:11:45

but there were old and young, there were young children there.

Jenn: 00:11:50

Be prepared.

Jenn: 00:11:51

There is steps to get up to the porch.

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it is not as like this again, privately owned.

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So this is not like a handicap friendly

Jenn: 00:12:00

not handicapped.

Jenn: 00:12:00

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:12:00

So be prepared for the steps.

Jenn: 00:12:02

But once you're in, it's all one level.

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You're not allowed to touch anything in the house.

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And you're not allowed to.

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video, anything.

Jenn: 00:12:13

So if you watch our video, we do the outside and we take photographs inside,

Jenn: 00:12:19

but we've put the photographs in the video to almost look like they, they flow.

Jenn: 00:12:24

So you can kind of see the, the, how the bottom looks.

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And I give a little bit of the history to, I kind of

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make it almost a timeline as we're walking through the house.

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I talk, I put out a couple call outs about how coal production and coal

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mining had become much more popular right in the forties, you know, in the,

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in the thirties and forties in that era.

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And it kind of peaked, you know, within the next couple.

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So it made sense that in that area, you know, coal mining and coal production

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was actually a big industry out

Jenn: 00:12:53

Oh yeah.

Jenn: 00:12:53

Cole was king.

Jenn: 00:12:54

And.

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I want to emphasize too, if you visit, there's a lot of people whose

Jenn: 00:13:00

signatures are all over the downstairs.

Jenn: 00:13:03

Mac said he doesn't allow people to do that.

Jenn: 00:13:07

It's kind of a holdover from the past when people would visit.

Jenn: 00:13:11

He says, but he can't monitor everything.

Jenn: 00:13:13

And sometimes people still do it, but their signatures all over the walls.

Jenn: 00:13:17

And, you know, we of course are here to, we don't want to mess anything up, but

Jenn: 00:13:22

the, if you notice in our videos, you're probably like, what is all of that?

Jenn: 00:13:25

That's those people signing and they leave like their date and stuff.

Jenn: 00:13:29

But some of the things that I really emphasize, you want

Jenn: 00:13:31

to see the guitar inside.

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That's the first guitar

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her, that's her

Jenn: 00:13:35

that's her guitar.

Jenn: 00:13:36

That's the guitar that do bought Loretta for her birthday for 17

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after she had already had four kids.

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He wanted to encourage her to sing.

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And she taught herself how to play and she wrote her own songs.

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And well, I'll talk about that more because she's the first female artist

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to write a song in country music and have a number one hit that she wrote.

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And so the guitar is in there and then the rocking chair is in

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There's a neat story behind that rocking chair that

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we talk about in the video.

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What was the story behind that rocking

Jenn: 00:14:11

that her father.

Jenn: 00:14:13

dollars and 0.

Jenn: 00:14:14

50 for it and then walked six miles there and six miles back to get it

Jenn: 00:14:19

for his wife to rock the babies.

Scott: 00:14:22

and we, we kind of call it out.

Scott: 00:14:24

You mentioned a couple of times in the video that coal miners, then

Scott: 00:14:27

it's, you know, specifically her father was only making 25 cents a ton.

Jenn: 00:14:33

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:14:33

And we don't really say a ton is 2000 pounds.

Jenn: 00:14:37

Now I have had some people say I can I, you know, growing up

Jenn: 00:14:41

on a farm, I could shovel a ton of corn in about 20, 30 minutes.

Jenn: 00:14:46

And I, yeah, corn is pretty light, right?

Jenn: 00:14:49

But shoveling a ton of coal would probably take you about an hour.

Jenn: 00:14:53

And so if you're doing eight hour days, 25 cents, you're making two bucks a day.

Jenn: 00:14:59

And so if he's getting that rocking chair, that is like a day of work a little

Jenn: 00:15:04

bit more and then to walk to get it.

Scott: 00:15:07

it.

Scott: 00:15:07

And so,

Jenn: 00:15:08

So she sings about this in her songs that, you know, they

Jenn: 00:15:11

don't have shoes and that's a norm.

Jenn: 00:15:13

So I have people ask me about that.

Jenn: 00:15:15

They only got shoes in the winter and people were very barefooted.

Jenn: 00:15:19

You really only had one or two pairs of clothes growing up.

Jenn: 00:15:22

And even then they were hand me downs.

Jenn: 00:15:24

It was a, it was a hard life.

Jenn: 00:15:26

It was a rural

Scott: 00:15:27

It, it was a, it was a hard life, but if you think about it, it

Scott: 00:15:30

really wasn't that out of the norm.

Scott: 00:15:33

historically.

Scott: 00:15:34

Now, it was, I'd say it was a little bit behind the times, you know, compared

Scott: 00:15:38

to maybe the larger metropolitan areas across the country, across

Scott: 00:15:42

the United States at that time.

Scott: 00:15:44

But people had been living like that for hundreds, if

Scott: 00:15:47

not thousands of years, right?

Scott: 00:15:49

You know, living a substance life kind of substance farming, like you said.

Scott: 00:15:52

So it wasn't out of the norm.

Scott: 00:15:54

It just was a little bit behind the times of that era.

Scott: 00:15:58

I mean, think about it.

Scott: 00:15:58

Thirties and forties, like she's only got shoes in the winter time.

Scott: 00:16:01

There's plenty of other places, you know, in large cities where

Scott: 00:16:04

that is absolutely not the norm.

Jenn: 00:16:06

Sure.

Jenn: 00:16:07

And, but she emphasizes, and it really, when you think about it, this is a lot

Jenn: 00:16:10

like Dolly Parton's upbringing as well.

Jenn: 00:16:12

Dolly Parton's more in East part of Tennessee, but they're very

Jenn: 00:16:15

rurally the same and they are very close knit family connections.

Jenn: 00:16:23

And so the love and the, the support is strong.

Jenn: 00:16:29

And I think that family connection.

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So that's what we saw a lot of.

Jenn: 00:16:34

Mac is a cousin and still very much emphasize her life and protects the story.

Jenn: 00:16:40

Web Grocery is owned by the family now.

Jenn: 00:16:43

It's very much like this real sense of loyalty and love that

Jenn: 00:16:48

you get from, from this basic.

Jenn: 00:16:51

Authentic rural

Scott: 00:16:52

and, and that's really what worked its way into her music.

Scott: 00:16:56

Yes.

Jenn: 00:16:56

And so when we talk about her music, you have to think, what do you do in your

Jenn: 00:17:03

spare time in a rural area like this?

Jenn: 00:17:06

You have to create your own entertainment.

Jenn: 00:17:09

Really, radios are around, but not as common.

Jenn: 00:17:13

And so you learn to play the spoons, you learn to play the harmonica, you

Jenn: 00:17:18

learn to play the banjo, you learn to play the guitar, and then you off.

Jenn: 00:17:23

sing,

Jenn: 00:17:23

and your family sings and you sing your gospel songs or you sing your bluegrass.

Jenn: 00:17:28

And this is where this all kind of comes from.

Jenn: 00:17:31

And even this area of Kentucky is a Paintsville Prestonburg Pikeville.

Jenn: 00:17:37

They call it the country music highway because a lot of famous

Jenn: 00:17:42

country music artists are from here.

Jenn: 00:17:44

And we didn't even know this.

Jenn: 00:17:45

We stumbled upon, uh, Chris Stapleton's hometown.

Jenn: 00:17:50

And we were in the visitor center of Chris Stapleton's hometown.

Jenn: 00:17:53

I think we were in Pikeville.

Jenn: 00:17:55

And the visitor center guide was like, Oh, Chris comes in here all the time.

Jenn: 00:18:00

And Chris does this.

Jenn: 00:18:01

And I'm like, Chris who?

Jenn: 00:18:02

He's Chris Stapleton.

Jenn: 00:18:03

I'm like, he's from here.

Jenn: 00:18:04

He's this is his hometown.

Scott: 00:18:06

And again, to kind of expand the awareness of that part of the

Scott: 00:18:09

country, it's Hatfield McCoy country.

Scott: 00:18:12

And we have a future episode coming about that.

Scott: 00:18:14

That was fascinating.

Jenn: 00:18:15

So this is like Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn.

Jenn: 00:18:21

This is where you're getting this real authentic country

Jenn: 00:18:25

bluegrass roots of country music.

Jenn: 00:18:28

And I didn't even know this existed like this.

Jenn: 00:18:32

It was Loretta Lynn that pulled us to this area.

Jenn: 00:18:35

But once you get there, there's a lot of country music, like legacy.

Jenn: 00:18:40

in the area.

Jenn: 00:18:48

. Scott: Now she got married pretty young, moved away.

Jenn: 00:18:51

And then, and then, like you said, had a couple of kids and got

Jenn: 00:18:55

started singing in the fifties and really broke out in the sixties.

Jenn: 00:18:58

So she marries at 15 years old in 1948.

Jenn: 00:19:01

So she'll basically leave that cabin and move to a place by Web Grocery.

Jenn: 00:19:06

Now Web Grocery is eventually owned by her brother.

Jenn: 00:19:08

So it becomes Web Grocery.

Jenn: 00:19:09

Loretta Lynn's maiden name is Web, but at the time it wasn't owned by her family.

Jenn: 00:19:15

So they moved by that store.

Jenn: 00:19:18

So when you visit that store, know that that's when you've seen Coal Miner's

Jenn: 00:19:22

Daughter, where is Sissy Spacek living with Tommy Lee Jones, who's playing do.

Jenn: 00:19:26

It's that area.

Jenn: 00:19:27

And so she's at 15 years old.

Jenn: 00:19:29

She marries him and he's, he's 19.

Jenn: 00:19:31

So that's not crazy

Scott: 00:19:33

Again, of the era.

Jenn: 00:19:35

of the era.

Jenn: 00:19:35

And they only knew each other for a month, but they hit it off.

Jenn: 00:19:38

And so again, he encourages her, he buys her the guitar.

Jenn: 00:19:44

And so it's in the 1950s.

Jenn: 00:19:45

19.

Jenn: 00:19:47

Late 1950s, early 1960s, she starts playing clubs.

Jenn: 00:19:50

She starts doing, they start You'll see this in Coal Miner's daughter.

Jenn: 00:19:53

They start making a circuit.

Scott: 00:19:56

the movie, I mean, her husband, even though he's not, doesn't treat

Scott: 00:20:01

her the absolute best, he is the, like her, Most, and kind of diehard

Scott: 00:20:06

advocate and champion, he really does push her to, to get out there and do

Jenn: 00:20:12

Yeah, and Loretta Lynn will and this is another I mean, I think

Jenn: 00:20:16

Alcoholism is prominent at the time for men in general But she always said

Jenn: 00:20:21

the deuce alcoholism is what causes the biggest problem in their marriage

Jenn: 00:20:25

and this is what causes a lot of that turmoil and that Volatile relationship,

Jenn: 00:20:30

but she claims and I stayed in in the video for every hit he gave me I hit him

Jenn: 00:20:35

twice So Loretta Lynn stands It's her ground, but he is her biggest supporter.

Jenn: 00:20:40

He really believes in her.

Jenn: 00:20:41

He's the one who will get in the car with the kids, take her records from

Jenn: 00:20:47

radio station to radio station, get her on the air and pump her music.

Jenn: 00:20:52

And even while she's touring, when she gets more famous, she'll have two.

Jenn: 00:20:56

She'll have four kids before she becomes famous, and then she has

Jenn: 00:20:59

twins girls after she becomes famous.

Jenn: 00:21:01

Dew holds the fort at home.

Jenn: 00:21:04

She eventually will get a big ranch in Tennessee, and they, that's their home

Jenn: 00:21:09

ranch, and they always invite fans, and people will see the Hurricane Hills

Jenn: 00:21:14

Ranch on TV and that's another place where she was very welcoming to people.

Scott: 00:21:25

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:26

You know, it was an interesting thing.

Scott: 00:21:27

I show a couple clips from the movie you know, the coal miner's daughter in it.

Scott: 00:21:31

And I was trying to look up, there's a scene where she just kind of

Scott: 00:21:35

yell on it at some of her kids.

Scott: 00:21:36

She said, now you guys, you know, you guys be quiet and listen to me sing.

Scott: 00:21:39

And she starts singing a song while I was looking up lyrics to that song.

Scott: 00:21:43

That's actually not actually her song.

Scott: 00:21:44

It's an Elvis Presley song.

Jenn: 00:21:46

She was a big fan of Elvis, of course, to the south.

Scott: 00:21:49

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:49

And that's, and that's how you learn.

Scott: 00:21:50

You, you learn by singing other people's songs, you kind of practicing there

Scott: 00:21:54

and then she starts writing her own.

Jenn: 00:21:55

And Patsy Cline was a very close friend and mentor to her.

Jenn: 00:21:59

And then when Patsy dies, it really impacts her.

Jenn: 00:22:02

I mean, I will say catapults Loretta because Patsy with Loretta was

Jenn: 00:22:07

writing the coattails of Patsy.

Jenn: 00:22:09

And then when Patsy dies, Loretta gets pushed to the top.

Jenn: 00:22:12

In 1966, her hit, you ain't woman enough to take my man made her the first country.

Jenn: 00:22:18

music, female recording artist to write a number one hit.

Jenn: 00:22:22

So

Scott: 00:22:22

Dolly Parton's

Jenn: 00:22:23

if you think about that song, you ain't woman enough to take my man.

Jenn: 00:22:26

What is that about?

Jenn: 00:22:28

It's about cheating.

Jenn: 00:22:29

It's about, you know, volatile relationships, which if you read

Jenn: 00:22:33

Dolly Parton's story, very much a pulled over from her parents as well.

Jenn: 00:22:39

So I, I'm not saying again, this is country or anything, but it's

Jenn: 00:22:45

something that Loretta Lynn is talking about real life and putting

Jenn: 00:22:49

it out there for the public.

Jenn: 00:22:51

And how do women deal with real life situations?

Jenn: 00:22:55

And that song, I mean, and she wrote it and it becomes a number one hit

Scott: 00:23:00

Yeah, it was, I didn't realize how pivotal she was in country music

Scott: 00:23:08

really until I started making this video.

Scott: 00:23:10

And even honestly, I started doing some quick research, before the podcast

Scott: 00:23:13

today, and I think you said she was, I mean, she was one of the first female

Scott: 00:23:17

country music artists, I think, to have a gold album or something like that.

Scott: 00:23:20

And so she really kind of broke through into what was a male

Scott: 00:23:24

dominated genre for quite some time.

Scott: 00:23:27

And then it was, you know, like you said, Patsy Cline and then Patsy Cline her out

Scott: 00:23:32

there and Loretta Lynn just ran with it.

Jenn: 00:23:34

with it.

Jenn: 00:23:34

So, 1966 you, you ain't woman enough to take my man 1967 is when she becomes

Jenn: 00:23:39

the first woman in country music with a gold album for don't come home a

Jenn: 00:23:43

drinking with loving on your mind.

Jenn: 00:23:45

Another song about her real life situation that she's giving women

Jenn: 00:23:50

some agency to talk about, which again, Patsy, Patsy Loretta Lynn.

Jenn: 00:23:56

Never considered herself a feminist and she really didn't like that term

Jenn: 00:24:00

about herself Because she she was much more on a conservative side of a

Jenn: 00:24:06

woman's role But she really did give women agency to talk about things that

Jenn: 00:24:11

women were experiencing at home And these songs that became so popular,

Jenn: 00:24:16

is really

Jenn: 00:24:17

again, Gold album, first one is really about a woman having to deal

Jenn: 00:24:21

with a drunk husband who wants to come home and be amorous when she's

Jenn: 00:24:25

having to deal with everything else.

Jenn: 00:24:26

So I give her a lot of credit for that.

Jenn: 00:24:29

In 1972, she's named the first woman entertainer of the year

Jenn: 00:24:34

for country music the CMAs.

Jenn: 00:24:36

And that's a big, that's their big award.

Jenn: 00:24:38

So Entertainer of the Year is the big one.

Jenn: 00:24:40

Every time when you watch the CMAs, you're waiting at the end,

Jenn: 00:24:43

who's Entertainer of the Year?

Jenn: 00:24:45

And she's the first woman who gets it and she gets it in 1972.

Jenn: 00:24:49

And what I find remarkable about that is in 1980, she's the only woman

Jenn: 00:24:54

to be named Artist of the Decade.

Jenn: 00:24:57

So Loretta Lynn has 10 number one albums.

Jenn: 00:25:02

16 number one hits.

Jenn: 00:25:04

She wrote more than 160 songs, and she has put out 60 albums.

Jenn: 00:25:11

She has three Grammys, seven American Music Awards, 13 Academy of Country

Jenn: 00:25:16

Music Awards, and eight CMAs.

Jenn: 00:25:18

And then the movie about her life, Coal Miner's Daughter, won the Oscar

Jenn: 00:25:24

for Best Actress for Sissy Spacek.

Scott: 00:25:27

That's, it really was incredible and it's, this was one of those

Scott: 00:25:31

pleasant surprises for me, right?

Scott: 00:25:33

Cause we were in the area.

Scott: 00:25:33

So I knew some of the stuff he wanted to do when we, when we kind of found

Scott: 00:25:36

out it was Hatfield McCoy country.

Scott: 00:25:38

I was like, okay, yeah, that's what we're doing.

Scott: 00:25:40

And then we got out to Loretta Lynn.

Scott: 00:25:41

I was like, eh, okay.

Scott: 00:25:42

You know, we're out there.

Scott: 00:25:43

I like, I'll just enjoy it because I like getting off to

Scott: 00:25:45

these off the beaten path places.

Scott: 00:25:47

And for me, it was just neat driving out there in that part of

Scott: 00:25:52

Kentucky, because you really do feel like you're driving into that era

Scott: 00:25:56

and you really get a feel for it.

Scott: 00:25:58

It was just a, it's a gorgeous part of the country as well.

Scott: 00:26:02

It's absolutely beautiful.

Jenn: 00:26:03

was, it felt like we were driving into history.

Jenn: 00:26:06

So once you hit Web Grocery, and you should stop there to get your ticket, and

Jenn: 00:26:10

also they have some memorabilia inside.

Jenn: 00:26:12

Between Web Grocery and the Butcher Hollow cabin is the coal mine.

Jenn: 00:26:19

So if you want to stop, the coal mine is on the right.

Jenn: 00:26:21

You'll see it off to the right, but you really have to go up the hill, which

Jenn: 00:26:24

you went to, to get to the opening.

Scott: 00:26:27

Yeah, they have bars

Jenn: 00:26:28

They have bars

Scott: 00:26:29

openings now.

Scott: 00:26:30

And they do actually a good job of showing kind of what it would

Scott: 00:26:34

have looked like back then in

Jenn: 00:26:35

coal mine was built out.

Jenn: 00:26:38

So they, you got the coal mine, and then they're building logistics, like buildings

Jenn: 00:26:42

out to load it into railroad cars.

Scott: 00:26:46

it from the actual

Jenn: 00:26:47

Yes, because they, you know, you have to get the coal onto rail

Jenn: 00:26:49

cards to get it out of the area.

Jenn: 00:26:51

But these are these are the actually openings to the mines.

Jenn: 00:26:53

So you can stand there.

Jenn: 00:26:54

And so you get a relative idea of how her father walked to work.

Jenn: 00:27:01

And if they walked to the grocery, don't think that they drove to the

Jenn: 00:27:05

grocery, like they walked to the grocery

Scott: 00:27:07

Yeah, I think it was about a mile from Butcher Hollow to the coal

Scott: 00:27:10

mine, maybe a mile and a half, and maybe another two miles, maybe ish from,

Scott: 00:27:15

from the, from the coal mine to Web

Jenn: 00:27:16

Yeah, I think it's two miles to Webb grocery from the cabin and

Jenn: 00:27:19

about halfway point is the coal mine.

Scott: 00:27:21

Yeah, so it's all relatively close, but there's lots of homes still out there.

Scott: 00:27:25

There's hollows that you can go off on into.

Scott: 00:27:28

It was, it was just.

Scott: 00:27:30

So neat and was really fun to learn more about someone who's so pivotal

Scott: 00:27:34

in country music like Loretta Lynn.

Scott: 00:27:43

And there you have it folks, the incredible journey through the life

Scott: 00:27:48

and times of Loretta Lynn straight from the heart of Butcher Holler.

Scott: 00:27:52

Loretta's music wasn't just about lyrics and chords, it was a reflection of real

Scott: 00:27:56

life, a testament to the struggles, triumphs, and everything from a simple

Scott: 00:28:02

butcher holler home to the bright lights and fame of a Nashville stage.

Scott: 00:28:07

Even today, when we remember Loretta Lynn, we can't help but carry

Scott: 00:28:10

with us the echoes of her timeless melodies, each note resonating

Scott: 00:28:14

with the stories of a bygone era.

Scott: 00:28:18

As we wrap up this episode, take a moment to savor the essence of her

Scott: 00:28:21

music, the twang of the guitars, and the soul stirring lyrics that have

Scott: 00:28:25

become the soundtrack of so many lives.

Scott: 00:28:29

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe.

Scott: 00:28:30

Please be sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review.

Scott: 00:28:33

And remember, the past may be behind us, but the stories we uncover continue to

Scott: 00:28:38

shape the present and inspire the future.

Scott: 00:28:40

Your supportive talk with history keeps the show growing because we

Scott: 00:28:43

rely on you, our community, to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.

Scott: 00:28:48

We'll talk to you next time.

Jenn: 00:28:49

Thank you.