LORETTA LYNN TO BE INDUCTED INTO TO THE SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME

– Desmond Child, Albert Hammond, Loretta Lynn, Alan Menken and John Sebastian will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this year, Chairman/CEO Hal David announced today. The organization, which is dedicated to recognizing the work and lives of those composers and lyricists who create popular music around the world, returns for its highly anticipated 39th annual induction and awards dinner, scheduled for Thursday, June 19 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Special award honorees will be announced at a later date.

“From seminal rock to cross-over country, from pop anthems to Oscar-winning musicals, this year’s inductees truly have contributed to the soundtrack of our lives,” commented Hall of Fame Chairman and songwriter extraordinaire, Hal David. “We are immensely gratified with the growing impact of our event, which is now one of the industry’s high points of the year, and we are looking forward to another memorable evening where we honor the accomplishments of our 2008 inductees.”

Loretta Lynn:

Although country music icon Loretta Lynn came out of a coal mining community in Kentucky, she wrote songs that everyone could relate to (including The White Stripes’ Jack White, who produced her acclaimed 2004 comeback album Van Lear Rose). Foremost among them, of course, was the autobiographical “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” a No. 1 country hit in 1970 that became the title of her 1978 autobiography and was later made into an Oscar-winning biopic. The song is also in the Grammy Hall of Fame, along with other hits like “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man)” and “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” all of which paved the way for her induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The immense popularity of these songs, as well as other straight-shooting hits like “Your Squaw Is on the Warpath,” “Women of the World (Leave My World Alone),” and “You’re Looking at Country,” culminated in 1972 when Lynn won the second of her Best Female Vocalist awards from the Country Music Association, and when she became the first woman to win the CMA’s most prestigious award, Entertainer of the Year.

Collaborations include her dear friend, Conway Twitty (“After the Fire Is Gone,” “Lead Me On,” “As Soon As I Hang up the Phone,” and “Feelin’s”), and Loretta won her first “Vocal Duo of the Year” award in 1972 with Conway, a title the team held through 1976. By the time her hit “I Lie” topped the charts in 1982, Lynn could count fifty-two Top 10 hits and sixteen #1’s.

Full biographies and a complete list of inductees are available at the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s Virtual Museum at songhall.org.

 

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