Audio clip
Loretta Lynn
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LORETTA LYNN
When you hear Merle Haggard or Johnny Cash sing of life in prison or Frank Sinatra croon about love lost, you can hear the truth in their voices.
When Loretta Lynn sings about whooping a rival after her man, there can be little doubt that she could, or would, back up her words. Last week in a telephone interview, the 74-year-old country music legend confirmed that the subject of her 1968 hit “Fist City” got the whipping she deserved.
“Yes, she did,” Lynn said. “I’d like to get one more crack at her, too.”
She explained that her husband, Oliver “Doolittle,” or “Doo,” Lynn, didn’t like to travel on tour with her. He did, however, like to drink and hang around in bars where the women would flirt with him, Lynn said.
“So, every now and then you have to knock one off.”
Lynn will be performing tonight at the Tivoli Theatre. Performing with her will be her daughters Patsy and Peggy (The Lynns), son Ernie and granddaughter Tayla.
“It’s special to have my family with me,” Lynn said. “I have to whip them in line every now and then.”
Lynn is enjoying herself these days, touring and writing and recording with artists such as Jack White, Elvis Costello and Todd Snider.
“I enjoy working,” she said. “I’m lucky, I guess, that I get to still be doing this.”
Her more than 40-year career was re-energized in 2004 when the then 28-year-old White, known for such songs as “Icky Thump” with his band The White Stripes, produced her “Van Lear Rose.” Lynn called working with White an easy recording session.
“He just let me sing,” she said. “He said he wanted to cut a country record, and I think it was the countriest record I ever had.”
She said fans who come to the show Saturday will hear “whatever comes to mind and whatever people holler out. That’s what happens. We just let it happen.”
If You Go
What: Loretta Lynn in Concert
When: 7:30 Sunday
Where: Tivoli Theatre, 709 Broad St.
Admission: $25-$49.50
Phone: 642-TIXS
song Excerpt
“A you’ve been makin’ your brags around town
That you’ve been a lovin’ my man
But the man I love, when he picks up trash
He puts it in a garbage can
And that’s what a you look like to me
And what I see’s a pity
Close your face and stay outta my way
If ya don’t wanna go to fist city
If ya don’t wanna go to fist city”
— From “Fist City”
by Loretta Lynn
Barry Courter is associate features editor, entertainment editor and books editor for the Times Free Press. He started his journalism career at the Chattanooga News-Free Press in 1987. He covers primarily entertainment and events for fyiWeekend and edits the Sunday books page. Born in Lafayette, Ind., Barry has lived in Chattanooga since 1968. He graduated from Notre Dame High School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in broadcast journalism. He previously ...
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