On April 7th, Grand Central Publishing will release Me & Patsy: Kickin’ Up Dust, co-authored by Lynn with her daughter Patsy. In August 1964, Lynn gave birth to twin daughters, naming one Peggy, after her sister, and the other Patsy, after the late singer.įor several years after her friend’s death, Lynn couldn’t bring herself to perform songs that had been popularized by Cline, but in April 1977 she finally released I Remember Patsy, an entire album devoted to the singer’s best-known hits, including “She’s Got You,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Leavin’ on Your Mind,” and “Faded Love.” In the televised appearance above, recorded around the time of the LP’s release, Lynn pays homage to Cline not by trying to imitate her, but by putting her unmistakable honky-tonk stamp on four of Cline’s biggest hits: “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “Sweet Dreams,” “Back in Baby’s Arms,” and “Crazy.” I thought this was the end for me, too,” Lynn said in her 1976 autobiography, Coal Miner’s Daughter, which was made into a hit film three years later starring Sissy Spacek in the Oscar-winning lead role.

Also killed in the crash were Opry stars Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas, along with pilot Ramsey “Randy” Hughes, who was Cline’s manager and Copas’ son-in-law. Fifty-seven years ago today, on the night of March 5th, 1963, the singer perished in a plane crash in Camden, Tennessee, west of Nashville. She may have landed in Music City a naïve Kentucky coal miner’s daughter, but she ended the decade as the reigning queen of country music.Ĭline, however, would not live long enough to share in her friend’s greatest success. Like Cline, Lynn was signed to Decca Records, produced by Owen Bradley, and a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry. As a young, aspiring “girl singer” arriving in Nashville in the early Sixties, Loretta Lynn found a mentor in established artist Patsy Cline.

Loretta lynn and patsy cline