The Coal Miner’s Daughter directed by Michael Apted (1980)
I’m not a huge fan of traditional Nashville Country but listening to the fine Celilo Falls album by Rachel Harrington, drew me to one of that singer’s main inspirations.
I didn’t see this movie when it came out and didn’t really know a lot about Loretta Lynn’s life.
It gives a highly entertaining, if somewhat rose-tinted, summary of Loretta’s rise from humble beginnings to her iconic status as “the first lady of country music”.
Hollywood’s account is not intended as social realism so the poverty of her upbringing in the Kentucky coal mining community is very romanticised and there’s quite a heavy gloss too on her husband, Doolittle ‘Doo’ Lynn (b.1926).
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