美国国家公共电台 NPR--Loretta Lynn, country music icon, has died at 90

Loretta Lynn, country music icon¹, has died at 90

Transcript²

Loretta Lynn, the country music icon who brought unparalleled candor³ about the domestic realities of working-class women to country songwriting — and taught those who came after her to speak their minds, too – died today at her home in Tennessee. She was 90 years old.

"Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, in her sleep at home at her beloved ranch⁵ in Hurricane Mills," her family said in a statement.

"The story of Loretta Lynn's life is unlike any other, yet she drew from that story a body of work that resonates with people who might never fully⁴ understand her bleak⁶ and remote childhood, her hardscrabble early days, or her adventures as a famous and beloved celebrity," Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement. "In a music business that is often concerned with aspiration⁷ and fantasy, Loretta insisted on sharing her own brash and brave truth."

Born Loretta Webb, the singer was raised in a remote coal mining community in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. One of the biggest songs of her career, "Coal Miner's Daughter," proudly recounted her background.

Lynn was barely a teenager when she started a family of her own with a 21-year-old former soldier, Oliver Lynn, better known as "Mooney" or "Doolittle." They wasted no time having the first four of their six children, and migrated to Washington state. It was there that her husband heard her bedtime lullabies and pushed her to start performing publicly. In a 2010 interview with Fresh Air, she insisted she wouldn't have done it otherwise: "I wouldn't get out in front of people. I was really bashful and I would have never sang in front of anybody."

Once her husband started scrounging up paying gigs for her, Lynn taught herself to write songs, says country music historian and journalist Robert Oermann.

"She got a copy of Country Song Roundup," Oermann says – a magazine that printed country lyrics⁸ and stories about the musicians. "She would read the country lyrics in the magazine, and she'd go, 'Well that's nothing. I can do that.' And she could, and had been."

Lynn and her husband drove around to radio stations, where she would introduce herself to the DJs and try to charm them into spinning her record. These efforts had begun to get Lynn noticed when the couple landed in Nashville in 1960. Artists like Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline — who became Lynn's mentor⁹ — were having a lot of success with a lush, pop-sweetened production style known as the Nashville Sound. Lynn worked with Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, but hung onto her unsoftened twang.

Country songs had often portrayed¹⁰ hardship from male perspectives, but Lynn wasn't afraid to spell out the indignities¹¹ endured in her marriage, or the double standards she saw other women facing when it came to divorce, pregnancy¹² and birth control. She found that Nashville wasn't accustomed to that kind of frankness.

Fellow eastern Kentucky songwriter Angaleena Presley was raised on her mother's Loretta Lynn records, and recognizes what they must have meant to women of earlier generations.

"I'm positive that there probably were many, many women in that time, especially in the country," she says, "who thought, 'I'm not really allowed to say anything if my husband wants to drink. He works all day. He deserves to drink at night and come home and do what he wants. And I'll clean the house and raise the kids.' And [Lynn] said, 'Nope. It's not OK, and it's OK for you to say it's not OK.' "

Presley says Lynn's perspective "contributed a lot to the feminist¹³ movement," especially in rural parts of the country. "I feel like she was the voice," Presley says, "even if she never spoke¹⁴ out actively¹⁵ as a feminist, her songs certainly did."

No less than 51 of those songs became top 10 country hits on the Billboard¹⁶ charts. In 1972, Lynn was the first woman named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. She would later be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in 1988, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2008. She was also recognized with Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.

Though their relationship was complicated, Lynn and Doolittle remained married up until his death in 1996. (Lynn also made sure fans knew that her long-lasting musical partnership¹⁷ with Conway Twitty was all business.) Lynn continued performing and recording¹⁸ into the new millennium¹⁹, attracting younger audiences through her collaboration²⁰ with Jack²¹ White.

But it was essential to Lynn's enduring appeal that she never lost touch with her identity as a simultaneously²² modern and down-to-earth country woman who could communicate that to crowds throughout her career.

"This idea that I might be up here on stage singing this song, but I'm not better than you. I am you," journalist Oermann says. "That's kind of the message. That kind of humility²³ is a really powerful and good thing."

That approach always informed her songwriting; Lynn's gutsiness comes through just as clearly today in the music she left behind.

"I like real life, because that's what we're doing today," Lynn told All Things Considered in 2004. "And I think that's why people bought my records, because they're living in this world. And so am I. So I see what's going on, and I grab it."

1 icon   

n.偶像，崇拜的对象，画像

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• Click on this icon to align or justify text.点击这个图标使文本排齐。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 candor   

n.坦白，率真

参考例句：

• He covered a wide range of topics with unusual candor.他极其坦率地谈了许多问题。
• He and his wife had avoided candor,and they had drained their marriage.他们夫妻间不坦率，已使婚姻奄奄一息。

4 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

5 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

6 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

7 aspiration   

n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出

参考例句：

• Man's aspiration should be as lofty as the stars.人的志气应当象天上的星星那么高。
• Young Addison had a strong aspiration to be an inventor.年幼的爱迪生渴望成为一名发明家。

8 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

9 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

10 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 indignities   

n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The soldiers who were captured suffered many indignities at the hands of the enemy. 被俘的士兵在敌人手中受尽侮辱。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• What sort of indignities would he be forced to endure? 他会被迫忍受什么样的侮辱呢？ 来自辞典例句

12 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

13 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

15 actively   

adv.积极地，勤奋地

参考例句：

• During this period all the students were actively participating.在这节课中所有的学生都积极参加。
• We are actively intervening to settle a quarrel.我们正在积极调解争执。

16 billboard   

n.布告板，揭示栏，广告牌

参考例句：

• He ploughed his energies into his father's billboard business.他把精力投入到父亲的广告牌业务中。
• Billboard spreads will be simpler and more eye-catching.广告牌广告会比较简单且更引人注目。

17 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

18 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

19 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

20 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

21 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

22 simultaneously   

adv.同时发生地，同时进行地

参考例句：

• The radar beam can track a number of targets almost simultaneously.雷达波几乎可以同时追着多个目标。
• The Windows allow a computer user to execute multiple programs simultaneously.Windows允许计算机用户同时运行多个程序。

23 humility   

n.谦逊，谦恭

参考例句：

• Humility often gains more than pride.谦逊往往比骄傲收益更多。
• His voice was still soft and filled with specious humility.他的声音还是那么温和，甚至有点谦卑。