Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [48]
He played it and liked it. We told him we were distributing it ourselves to every disc jockey on our way to Nashville to get on the Grand Ole Opry. He couldn’t believe it when I said Doo was waiting in the car. He said, “But honey, don’t you know it takes three or four years to get on the Opry?” I told him, “Maybe so, but I can’t wait that long.”
Well, we got to the Opry that same year, the year we started singing. And in that same year, I was listed right behind Jan Howard, Margie Bowes, and Connie Hall as “Most Promising Girl Singer.” The next time I saw Hugh Cherry he said, “Well, you made it—lots sooner than I expected!”
14
Fans
I listen to you singing to me on the radio;
I hear you every Saturday on the Grand Ole Opry show;
They put your records on the jukebox at the Truck Stop Inn,
And I spend a dollar on you every night, Loretta Lynn.…
—“I Love You, Loretta Lynn,” by Johnny Durham
The disc jockeys were important to my career, but there’s one bunch of people that was even more important—my fans. They’ve heard me say this a million times, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t have nothing if it wasn’t for my fans.
They started noticing me when I made my first record, “Honky Tonk Girl,” and then they started pestering the stores and the radio stations to get more of my records. Only there wasn’t more at the time. Even before I got established in Nashville, I had loyal fans like the three Johnson sisters from Wild Horse, Colorado. If I hadn’t met these three girls, there’s no telling what would have happened—or maybe I mean what wouldn’t have happened.
You can’t believe how loyal country fans are. They’re just not like any other music fans. Country fans like a singer on personality and on voice and not because of a short-lived fad. They’ll buy anything you put out as long as you give them good quality. They’re fans for life. My manager, David Skepner, used to work for some of the pop and rock musicians for the Music Corporation of America, and he really knows the record business. He says that rock fans may buy a million copies of an album by some rock group. But if they think a rock group puts out a bad album, the fans will forget ’em forever. Well, that’s not the way it is in country music. Once they like you, it’s for life.
A good country musician can figure on selling three albums a year at 300,000 sales per album—and doing it for fifteen or twenty years. There’s dozens of country musicians who’ve done that, with some luck and some talent. But the secret is getting loyal fans; they’ll write letters and send out fan-club bulletins just pestering each other to buy your albums. I know it sounds strange for a lot of hardworking folks to be out bugging each other to “help Loretta out,” but that’s how loyal they are.
I’ve got so many fans that I recognize all around the country. If I go to the West Coast, there’re the same faces from last year. If I’m up North somewhere, there’re my same fans. I’d list all of ’em, but I know I can’t. Most of my fan club is women, which is how I want it. The men have enough things going for ’em in this life. We women have got to stick together. My shows are really geared to women fans, if you think about it—to the hardworking housewife who’s afraid some girl down at the factory is going to steal her husband, or wishing she could bust out of her shell a little bit. Those are things most women feel, and that’s who I’m thinking about and singing to during my shows. And the girls know it.
A lot of people believe that fan clubs are a bunch of hussies who go around sleeping with the male performers or making spectacles of themselves. Well, there’s a few like that in country music, I guess, but most of my fans are real