Loretta Lynn’s Family Tree Is Full of Musicians
Born and raised in Kentucky as the daughter of coal miner Ted Webb, Loretta Lynn taught herself how to play guitar as a teenager. She knew enough to begin carving out her identity as a singer, later giving way to the establishment of a powerful legacy. But taking a look at Loretta’s sprawling family tree, it seems as though her musical calling was inevitable — and it has spanned generations since.
Loretta was the second oldest of eight children. While neither of their parents pursued musicianship as careers, the Webb siblings had a knack for melody. One of Loretta’s earliest musical endeavors included performances alongside her brother, Jay Lee Webb, as Loretta and the Trailblazers. Jay Lee was similarly self-taught, having picked up their father’s guitar after leaving school at 15.
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Before their sister, Peggy Sue Webb, was a leading performer in her own right, she would sometimes write music with Loretta. Peggy Sue is credited as a songwriter on “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” which went on to become Loretta’s first Number One country hit in the late Sixties. Their collaboration led directly to an early success for Jay Lee, whose response song “I Come Home A-Drinkin’ (To a Worn Out Wife Like You)” worked its way onto the country charts.
Between 1969 and 1981, Peggy Sue released five studio albums and nearly two dozen singles of her own. And in the years that followed, although she largely stepped away from the spotlight, she would often perform as a background singer for Crystal Gayle, the youngest of the Webb siblings. Crystal Gayle’s debut single “I’ve Cried (The Blue Right Out of My Eyes)” arrived in 1970, when she was being managed at Decca Records by Loretta’s husband Oliver Lynn. Loretta had penned the song that landed her baby sister in the top 40 of the country music charts.
Loretta juggled her success as a performer and songwriter with motherhood as well. Herself and Oliver were the parents to six children. She passed her musical prowess onto them, too. Her oldest daughter, Betty Sue, explored songwriting, having written Loretta’s 1964 single “Wine, Women and Song” and her 1965 single “The Home You’re Tearin’ Down.”
Loretta’s youngest children, twin daughters Peggy Jean and Patsy Eileen, formed the country duo the Lynns in 1997. They released one album together, The Lynns, which featured the charting singles “Nights Like These” and “Woman to Woman.”
Clara Marie Lynn, Loretta’s second oldest daughter, didn’t experience much success on the country charts, but found an audience on the road. Throughout her career, the performer known as Cissie joined the likes of George Jones, Mel McDaniel, and Conway Twitty on tour. When she was recording, it was for moving tributes like 2011’s The Daughter of the Coal Miner’s Daughter, which featured covers of Loretta’s hit singles and saw her mother step into the role of a producer.
Coincidentally, Twitty was a long-time singing partner of Loretta’s with a similarly musical family lineage. His grandson Michael “Tre” Twitty now performs alongside Loretta’s granddaughter Tayla Lynn — daughter of Ernest Lynn — as Twitty & Lynn. The touring act doesn’t aim to impersonate their grandparents, but to honor them and their music.
“Fans have told Tayla and me that when they see us onstage singing, talking, and just looking at each other, they think, ‘Wow, there must be something genetic in those two families,’” Twitty says in a statement on their official website. “It validates the experience of the concert for them. We’re telling our grandparents’ story through our story.”
Another of Loretta’s granddaughters, Pasty Eileen’s daughter Emmy Russell, has now embraced her family legacy, too. The 24-year-old recently auditioned for American Idol, performing an original ballad titled “Skinny.”
“I don’t really sing out as much anymore, but growing up, I sang on the road with — my grandma’s a country singer, so I grew up singing,” Russell told the judges panel, adding: “She’s one of the biggest country music singers of all time, but to me she’s just my grandma, and growing up on the bus and all that was very normal to me.”
A country icon, Loretta left her mark on generations of musicians both in and out of her family tree. Throughout her career, the singer was cited as an inspiration by fellow country artists like Dolly Parton and Margo Price, but also by genre-spanning performers including Jack White and Elvis Costello.
“We’ve been like sisters all the years we’ve been in Nashville,” Parton shared in a statement when Loretta died at the age of 90 in October 2022. “She was a wonderful human being, wonderful talent, had millions of fans and I’m one of them.”
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