Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [100]
The boys all crowd into the bus at 5 P.M. It’s the middle of the rush hour and we just squeeze our way across town. People line up on the sidewalks, waiting for city buses, and point their fingers at us. My boys wave back at the pretty girls.
“Now, boys, behave yourselves. You got two shows tonight,” I tell ’em.
“Ain’t no harm in looking, Mom,” says Don Ballinger in the little-boy voice he uses on stage when I scold him.
We get lost for a minute, as all eight musicians give Jim different directions to the Taft Auditorium. But Jim finds the place finally despite their help, and he maneuvers the bus halfway up on the curb, right next to the stage door. The boys start loading all their instruments and sound equipment onto the stage. Then they run a test, to make sure everything sounds right. Then they get into their stage uniforms. Tonight they’re wearing their brown suits that I designed for ’em. They’ve got an hour before the show to sell albums and pictures in the lobby.
The boys share some of the profits from selling the souvenirs. Ken Riley, the tall drummer who used to be a tap dancer, is in charge of dividing the money. They call him “Bread Man” on account of money being called “bread” in my boys’ language. I feel real comfortable seeing my boys working around the bus. Those boys are just like a family to me. I remember one time, when I was having all those death threats, my dentist came to visit me at the bus. I looked out the window and saw my boys had him backed up against a wall. I said, “Boys, what in the world are you doing? That’s my dentist.” But they didn’t know. They were just a little jumpy.
Most people say, “The band would kill for Loretta,” and I guess that’s true. When I see ’em get an award, like Music City News voting ’em the top band last year, I’m as happy as they are.
I’ve had my band since I started breaking up with the Wilburns. Before that, I’d have to play with the house band wherever I went. If the band was good, I’d sound fine. But if it was bad, I’d get real nervous and couldn’t sing at all. One night the house band took off in one key and I took off in another. They were just a sorry little country band—steel guitar, bass, and fiddle. I told Doolittle, “Either I’m getting a band or I’m quitting.” So he got me a band.
I never told this story before, but I almost got an all-girl band. You don’t see too many women in country music. Sure, there’re the big stars, but all the bands and studio musicians are men, just about. And you know there’re women around that can play just as good as men. I used to have Leona Williams playing bass in my band and singing harmony. She’s one of the best musicians in Nashville, and now she’s out trying to make it on her own. I bet she does, too.
I was going to hold tryouts for women and call ’em “The Lynnettes.” But people started saying you can’t have a traveling girl band—if you had one incident, people would start gossiping about it. It was that old double standard again. If a man goes out on a date, people smile and say, “Well, that’s how men are.” But if some woman goes out on a date, people say, “She’s a loose woman.” And it wouldn’t be good for business if that kind of stuff got started. So we hired an all-man band, and I ain’t been sorry to this date because I love my boys. But an all-girl band would have been fantastic.
Right away, my band made my act better. I always knew what music they were playing, and if I started to get sick, they could keep the show going.
It’s not hard to find great musicians in Nashville. It’s the truth, the streets are packed with ’em. But I’ve got a certain kind of boy I like to hire—somebody who’s worked in the factories up North. They can appreciate being in my band a little more after working the shifts in the factories.
You take a boy like my lead guitar, Dave Thornhill. His daddy was a real coal miner in Kentucky,