Michigan’s Jack White Had a Dear Friendship With Loretta Lynn
Country Singer Loretta Lynn has passed away but several years ago she developed a dear friendship with Michigan's very own Jack White.
Loretta Lynn Dies at 90
Legendary country singer Loretta Lynn who was also known as the "coal miner's daughter" died October 4, 2022, at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, at the age of 90.
During Lynn's final years she suffered from a variety of health issues from a stroke in 2017 to a broken hip in 2018. No matter what ailed her, she kept on making records and performing when she could up into her late 80s.
Lynn was born in Butcher Hollow also known as Butcher Holler, Kentucky, not very far from where my dad grew up in Pikeville. I have driven by where Lynn grew up several times with my dad visiting family. She was not only a legend in Kentucky but all over the United States and around the world. Lynn will be missed but her music and story will live on.
Loretta Lynn Had a Dear Friendship with Michigan's Jack White
Loretta Lynn and Jack White first met when they were both doing shows in New York back in the early 2000s. Jack was still with the White Stripes at the time but he actually approached her backstage and the two had a conversation that led to him following Lynn home to Tennessee and making an album with her.
White encouraged Lynn to write all the songs on the album and he would produce the record. Lynn wound up writing or co-writing every song on the album that wound up being titled "Van Lear Rose" which came out in 2004.
White did play guitar and do background vocals on the album that wound up winning a Grammy Award for Best Country Album of the Year.
During the making of Van Lear Rose, Loretta Lynn and Jack White became very dear friends. White was 29 at the time and Lynn was 70 during an MTV event the two were very close, held hands, and even kissed at one point and then the romance rumors started flying.
Lynn once referred to White as a young boy with an old mind and he seems to be older in his ways and actions. When asked by interviewer Dan Rather if there was something romantic going on she replied no, I'd tell you if there was.
Both Lynn and White have only had great things to say about one another. White once said, "Sometimes I think maybe she doesn't even know how brilliant she is." Lynn once said about White, "Nashville needed Jack White." That is some very high praise from the Queen of Country.
May the coal miner's daughter rest in peace.
