Loretta Lynn_ Coal Miner's Daughter - Loretta Lynn [66]
There are a few strange people that spoil it for everybody. Some fans try to grab my clothes for souvenirs, or snip off one of my curls, even my eyelashes—can you believe that? I’ve also had some real bad death threats, which I’ll get into later. Anyway, I’ve got my bus driver, Jim Webb, who’s around six-foot-four, to walk me from the bus to the stage and back again. I’m not trying to hide from my fans, just from that one nut in every crowd. I’d advise anybody with weird ideas to be careful. We country people can be as mean as we are nice.
I was learning from all my experiences, and I found myself getting booked all over the country. After a while, I’d get out on stage and start enjoying it, just smile and feel that people loved me. I can’t explain what it is. I was always so shy, still am, really, but I found it easier to be natural on the stage.
Doolittle said he used to stand in the back of the theater and listen to people’s comments. They said they didn’t quite know how to take me, that I was half like a sister and half like a woman of the world. One man wrote he didn’t know if he should pat me on the head or hug me.
I tried aiming my show more at the women, even though some of ’em got the wrong idea. One time I was playing this club in Baltimore and this old tank comes up to me and says, “So you’re the woman that’s in my husband’s life. That’s all I hear, before I go to bed, when I wake up in the morning, is Loretta Lynn. And I’m gonna break your neck.”
I said, “Woman, I don’t even know your husband. But if you touch me, I’m gonna kick the tar out of you.” Before I got the chance, a bouncer threw her out of the club.
Most of the women liked me, though. They could see I was Loretta Lynn, a mother and a wife and a daughter, who had feelings just like other women. Sure, I wanted men to like me, but the women were something special. They’d come around the bus after the show and they’d ask to talk to me. They felt I had the answers to their problems because my life was just like theirs.
Of course, it was impossible to find time to talk to each one or to answer every letter that came along. I ain’t Dear Abby with nine secretaries answering the mail. Besides, I had a few problems maybe they could have solved for me. Sometimes I think some people were disappointed when they met me and found out I wasn’t any smarter or happier than they were. I’m proud and I’ve got my own ideas, but I ain’t no better than nobody else. I’ve often wondered why I became so popular, and maybe that’s the reason. I think I reach people because I’m with ’em, not apart from ’em. It’s not the fancy clothes I wear, or the way I fix my hair, and it sure ain’t my looks because I don’t think I’m anything special. It’s the way I talk to people. You can tell when you meet somebody—in their eyes, or the way they stand—if they think they’re above you or below you.
After I was performing for a while, I got to like being with a crowd. I loved to get right down with ’em, with a long cord on my microphone, if I could. And if I was at a state fair or something, where they put you too far from the audience, I’d say, “This ain’t the way I like it.”
And if they couldn’t hear me, if they was really from the country, they’d holler back, “We can’t hear you.” See, they knew I cared about ’em. I knew they saved their money for weeks to see my show. I’ve always had a feeling for people who didn’t have anything. When I’m singing to them, I feel like I’m right at home.
Anyhow, I was getting more popular all the time. I went from being fourth on the “Most Promising” list in 1960 to “Top Female Vocalist” for 1964 in Billboard magazine. My first album, “Loretta Lynn Sings,” got to be Number One in 1963. And I got invited back to the Grand Ole Opry for seventeen straight shows, which was a record