Real Country Music Jukebox

HAPPY 88TH BIRTHDAY LORETTA LYNN

On April 14, 1932, country music icon Loretta Lynn was born in Butcher Holler, Kentucky. You can celebrate the occasion by ordering a copy of the great lady’s new book — Me & Patsy Kickin’ Up Dust (Grand Central Publishing), a celebration of her friendship with the late, great Patsy Cline — and listening to Lynn’s new recording of a Cline classic, “I Fall to Pieces.” And then you can top off the day by streaming the 1980 biographical film Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Although she knew Cline for just two years before the legendary performer’s tragic death in 1963, Lynn continues to gratefully acknowledge her as equal parts influential mentor, surrogate older sibling, and soul-mate confidant. “I met her, and it was just like she was my sister,” Lynn told the New York Post earlier this month.  “It was like we’d been together forever.”