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PAGING Betsy Babb Kennedy: We are SO there. You must come up here for this - Kate

Country music icon Loretta Lynn comes to the Tennessee Theatre

Who: Loretta Lynn with special guest Jennifer Hanson
When: Friday, April 21, 8 p.m.
Where: The Historic Tennessee Theatre
How: Tickets go on sale Friday, March 10, 10 a.m at the Tennessee Theatre box office, all Tickets Unlimited outlets, online at www.tennesseetheatre.com or charge by phone at 865-656-4444. Tickets are $49.50 and $39.50, plus applicable service charges

KNOXVILLE For more than four decades, Loretta Lynn has fashioned a body of work as artistically and commercially successful—and as culturally significant—as any female performer out there. Her music has confronted many of the major social issues of her time, and her life story is a rags-to-riches tale familiar to pop, rock and country fans alike. The Coal Miner’s Daughter—the tag refers to a hit single, an album, a best-selling autobiography, an Oscar-winning film, and to Lynn herself—has journeyed from the poverty of the Kentucky hills to Nashville superstardom to her current status as an honest-to-goodness American icon.

Her Grammy award-winning album, the Jack White-produced Van Lear Rose, has reminded the world of Lynn’s power as a vocalist and her skill as a songwriter. As she puts it on “The Story of My Life,” the album’s closing track: “Not half bad for this ol’ KY girl, I guess...Here’s the story of my life. Listen close, I’ll tell it twice.”

After dominating country radio from the ‘50s to the ‘80s, Loretta Lynn spent the '90s largely away from the spotlight, caring for her ailing husband Oliver “Doo” Lynn and, after he died in 1996, grieving his loss. The music scene has changed considerably in her absence, but it’s also a scene she helped create. Indeed, it would be all but impossible to imagine the likes of Shania Twain’s “Any Man of Mine” and Deana Carter’s “Did I Shave My Legs for This?” or any number of Dixie Chicks hits, without her. Van Lear Rose, with its moody, propulsive arrangements, loud and rocking guitars and intimate songwriting, can only extend Lynn’s profound influence into a new century—and to a new generation of fans.