‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ album celebrates 50 years

Johnson County native Loretta Lynn will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of her album “Coal Miner’s Daughter” with a reissue of the classic on black vinyl on Feb. 12.

By TONY FYFFE

BSN Editor

PAINTSVILLE – The number 50 has special significance this year for Johnson County native Loretta Lynn.

The Queen of Country Music will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of her album “Coal Miner’s Daughter” with a reissue of the classic on black vinyl on Feb. 12.

Released on Jan. 16, 1971, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” was Lynn’s 16th solo album and contains 11 tracks, including three written or co-written by the singer. The LP’s most famous track, the title song, was released as a single in October 1970, prior to the album’s debut. It reached No. 1 on Billboard magazine’s Hot Country Singles chart for one week and was the only song on the album released as a single.

Another song, “Another Man Loved Me Last Night,” was co-written by Lynn’s sister, Peggy Sue Wells.

The album went to No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Country LPs chart and No. 81 on the magazine’s Top LPs chart.

“Coal Miner’s Daughter” was also the title of her first autobiography, published in 1976, and the film version of the book, which was released in 1980 and won actress Sissy Spacek an Academy Award. The film was also nominated for an Oscar for best picture.

Spacek, who sang her own songs, released her version of the title song as a single in April 1980, and it reached No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. Spacek was also nominated for a Grammy Award for her vocals.

The film’s soundtrack also won Album of the Year honors from the Country Music Association in 1980.

The “Coal Miner’s Daughter” vinyl reissue is available for pre-order on numerous music sites.

The album’s 50th anniversary is also the subject of a PBS documentary, “Loretta Lynn: My Story in My Words,” which will air on Kentucky Educational Television (KET) on Sunday, Feb. 28, at 8 p.m.

“Taking viewers back to the time when she hit the airwaves, follow Lynn's rise to a record-breaking artist, topping the charts with her feisty female anthems, including ‘You Ain’t Woman Enough,’ ‘Don't Come Home a Drinkin’,’ and ‘You’re Looking at Country,’” according to a PBS release.

In March, Lynn will release her 50th studio album, “Still Woman Enough,” which features collaborations with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood, Tanya Tucker and Margo Price.

“Still Woman Enough” celebrates women in country music, according to Lynn’s website.

“From her homage to the originators, Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter Family (via her cover of ‘Keep On The Sunny Side’) through a new interpretation of her very first single, ‘I'm A Honky Tonk Girl,’ Loretta Lynn acknowledges her role in the continuum of American country music while her duets with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood (‘Still Woman Enough’), Margo Price (‘One's On The Way’) and Tanya Tucker (‘You Ain't Woman Enough’) find her sharing the musical torch with some of the brightest lights and biggest stars in contemporary pop-country,” the website says.

The album also includes a “deeply emotional” recitation of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the website says.

The 13-track “Still Woman Enough” will be released March 16 on vinyl and CD and is available for pre-order on the singer’s website, lorettalynn.com. A signed and numbered lithograph available exclusively on the site has since sold out.