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(Legacy Recordings)An album of flinty classics and sparky duets, full of resolve – the extraordinary country singer shows no sign of slowing
In 2018, Loretta Lynn gave every impression of having quietly retired. Who could blame her? She was 86 years old and had recently suffered from a stroke and a broken hip, caused by a fall at home. Besides, she had presided over one of country music’s most extraordinary careers: since 1960, she has cut an authentically groundbreaking figure, such a trailblazer for women in country that one writer suggested most modern female country artists could be called Lynettes. Her brand of “advocacy for ordinary women” – she is “not a big fan” of the term “feminist”, considering it to be insufficiently concerned with working-class women – bordered on the confrontational, at least by the conservative standards of Nashville. Continue reading...