Loretta Lynn, a coal miner's daughter who became a queen of country music, is a Musicheads Essential Artist.

Loretta Webb was born in 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, the second of eight siblings. At age 15, she married Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn, after knowing him for only one month. In 1953, Doolittle bought Loretta her first guitar, which she taught herself how to play before starting her own band, Loretta and the Trailblazers. She cut her first record, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl," in 1960.

A gifted songwriter and magnetic performer, Loretta Lynn emerged in the '60s as one of the defining voices of her generation — the bearer of a torch passed on by her mentor and close friend Patsy Cline. Her hits include 'Don't Come Home A-Drinkin'," "You Ain't Women Enough," "Fist City," and of course "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Loretta Lynn helped country music evolve, with a classic sound and a fresh perspective. In her music, Lynn spotlighted women's issues; ranging from cheating and drinking husbands to more taboo subjects like birth control, childbirth, double standards between men and women, and the effects of the Vietnam War.

Lynn has sold more than 45 million albums worldwide and topped the country charts dozens of times. The Oscar-winning biopic Coal Miner's Daughter helped spread her remarkable story, and she became an active music icon: a familiar face at the Grand Ole Opry and a collaborator with younger artists like Jack White and Margo Price.

After building her music career over the span of six decades, Lynn has accomplished a multitude of achievements, including being named CMT Artist of a Lifetime, receiving a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Her musical talent, hard work ethic, and honest voice have made Loretta Lynn a legend in her own time.