So this is like Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn.

This is where you're getting this real authentic country

bluegrass roots of country music.

And I didn't even know this existed like this.

It was Loretta Lynn that pulled us to this area.

But once you get there, there's a lot of country music, like legacy.

in the area.

Welcome to Talk With History.

I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,

YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

Today, we're diving into the heart of country music.

Taking a journey to the rolling hills of Kentucky, where the

captivating story of a coal miner's daughter unfolds, we're heading.

To Butcher Holler, the humble beginnings of the one and only Loretta Lynn.

A name synonymous with raw talent, authenticity, and a voice

that echoes through the ages.

IN this episode, we'll walk the hallowed halls of her childhood home,

exploring the very roots that nurtured the seeds of her incredible career.

From the struggles of growing up in the heart of Appalachia, to her meteoric

rise in the world of country music, Loretta's journey is as And inspiring as

the melodies she so beautifully crafted.

Join us as we unravel the pages of history and trace the footsteps

of a woman who not only conquered the charts but also broke through

barriers in a genre dominated by men.

So grab your cowboy boots, dust off that old vinyl, and get ready

for a toe tapping, heartwarming journey through the life and times

of the First Lady of Country Music.

Now Jen...

It's pretty obvious who we're talking about today.

And this was someone that I wasn't familiar with, but when you and I kind of

went out to Western Virginia and parts of Kentucky, this was like a must do for you.

this is Bucket List for me.

I love country music.

I grew up.

in Wyoming.

And so a lot of country music was part of my childhood.

And even though Loretta Lynn is not my era, she inspired

a lot of people of my era.

And so if you were always going to go back and be like, who was

the influence of Martina McBride?

Who was the influence of Patti Lovelace?

It's it's all goes back to Loretta Lynn.

And so for me, this was a bucket list place to go.

Yeah.

Now, as I remember from making the video, and again, for, for

those listening, we actually went and visited her home in Kentucky,

So her birthplace

Holler, Holler, and she kind of, obviously she grew up there and then

got her start eventually in the fifties, but let's start with visiting her home.

Sure.

So we're in eastern Kentucky.

So this is kind of where Kentucky kind of jets off to a little point

area where it's kind of cutting West Virginia and Western Virginia.

And these are like the country road mountains of Appalachia.

is no cell phone signal in those hollers that we were at.

Yeah.

So be prepared.

If you're going to go download your maps before you get there, download your GPS.

Cause if you get lost, you can't, it's hard to figure out where you're at.

And so a holler, so we get a lot of these questions, hollow,

holler, what's the difference?

You say both on the

And because it is both.

And these are these little notches in these mountains, and they call

them hollows because they're little hollows between the mountains.

Now, holler is the slang.

And so it is both.

You'll see butcher hollow is the official name of the of the road

or the area where she was from, but Holler is what people will call it.

And a lot of people, right, if I think if they're a Loretta Lynn

fan or if they've ever looked this up on YouTube or anything, like they'll

see the very famous rock, right?

The rock kind of leading up to, to where her childhood home was

and it says on it, butcher holler.

And so the Butchers were a family, a last name.

And most hollers or hollows are named for something that identifies that area.

So it could be a family from there, it could be like a river

that's close by a tree, a landmark.

So that's how people kind of got their geographic area or knew their area.

Living in these back roads of the mountains of Appalachia.

and I think even in what we'll talk a little bit more about this

later, but her cousin who was the tour guide at the house, he mentioned the

storehouse and he's Oh yeah, that became became known as storehouse hauler.

So like you said, it's, it's either a river or a landmark or a family name.

And I, that one just amused me because I was like, well, you

know, might as well keep it simple, you know, storehouse hauler.

It does keep it simple because you have to think back then people,

reading and writing wasn't really a norm.

And so you had to really identify these places so people could find them this way,

you know, based by looking and walking.

So it's a one road.

entry.

It's a one car entry.

So be careful because it's hard to turn around.

If another car is coming the opposite direction, you really,

it's difficult for both of you to be on the road at the same time.

These are very skinny roads.

They're paved now.

I imagine they were not paved in Loretta Lynn's time.

And so people mostly walked them

Yeah, or had a

or had a horse.

And so Again, you're in these little rural back road areas of the mountains.

So when we got up there, it's, it's still basically hard to even drive.

You have to park kind of at the bottom and then walk up.

There's a couple spots up there, but our tour guide, who's her cousin

He warned us, don't park up there because people will park behind you.

And then it becomes difficult to, to get out.

And so it's better.

There's like a more of a bigger parking area down at the bottom,

park down there and then walk up.

And, and her, her birthplace home is Butcher Holler

is actually pretty easy to find.

It's on Google Maps.

You can find it quite easily.

It's not difficult to get to.

You just kind of have to be slightly prepared.

Yes.

And just be aware that, you know, you're going to be driving up there.

You won't have a cell phone signal, most likely.

At least we didn't.

And as you're driving up there, kind of, You don't, you don't have

to drive all the way up to the top.

You can.

It's a little bit of a hill, but it's, I mean, it's pretty short.

But yeah, it's, it's definitely off in the, in the back, in

the backwoods of Kentucky.

So you, you get your ticket at Web Grocery we didn't.

We paid cash at the door, but just be prepared that it, it, it is

privately owned and operated by her cousin and it, so it's kind of like

makeshift hours, what works for him.

And he says two times a day, usually like noon and three, but what works for him.

because he's doing it on his own and I think his son works at the grocery.

So that kind of makes it so if you buy the ticket at the grocery, of course,

his son would know that he's going to be up at the house or things like that.

But even he said they kind of closed from November to April

because of the snow and the cold.

So butcher holler, is awesome.

And we sat on the front porch and we walked in.

It really does.

take you right back.

It looks like it did when Loretta Lynn grew up there.

Now she's born in April of 1932.

And so this, they, and she lives there until she's 15.

So this is how it looked from like the thirties to the fifties.

There's no inside bathroom.

That doesn't look like there's inside water.

They have a well outside.

They have an outhouse outside.

It's basically four.

rooms on the bottom floor.

And there's a loft where the boys slept.

So when you think they had I think it was eight kids,.

So the girls slept downstairs in the second bedroom and the boys were

all upstairs in the loft and the parents were in the other bedroom.

And then there's a dining room and a kitchen and that's it.

So you bathe the outside.

They have kind of a little bathtub.

You can see like they probably Boiled the water.

You bathed outside.

You went to the bathroom outside.

So, and there was a fireplace kind of between the two bedrooms

of the girls and the parents.

In reality, it's a nice little plot of land, right?

So that the house, if you haven't seen the video yet, again,

we'll link it in the show notes.

But the house is sitting a little bit up on the hill and then down below where

the ground's a little flatter, a little wider, they kind of have a pasture, right?

For a horse.

I think there was a mule out there as well.

So there was a, you know, decent, a little bit of land right there.

And I think Mack had mentioned that she was actually.

Born a little bit further up.

There was another holler.

I

No, no, she's born in Butcher Holler, but not in that house.

It was it was up a little

Up a little further but still in the same holler.

And yes, so her family were very, what they call substance farmers.

So they, they live off their own land and their gardens were a

little bit above the house on more

got more Sun

they got more sun.

And so they.

a lot of corn, right?

And so, so basically corn farmer substance just to live off of not really

to sell and then coal miner at night.

And we will stop at the coal mine and we'll talk more about that

because this is basically her song

that

Oscar winner song.

But her parents, Clara Marie and Melvin Theodore they will move

into that house when she's Before they have their third child.

So when they have eight, the first,

the oldest or

the oldest girl.

So they have a boy and a girl the boy is Melvin and then she's the next one born.

And so they move in there and then they'll have the other, other six.

And Crystal Gale is her sister.

And I think Crystal Gale is almost 10 years, almost 20 years younger than her.

So she's born in 1932.

Crystal Gale was born in 1951.

that.

So she was born in 1932, Crystal Gale was born in 1951.

She's pretty

She's pretty big.

She's not as big, but she's pretty big.

And yeah.

So to, to one family to produce two songbirds is pretty remarkable, but

it was just amazing to be in that, to me, I felt just amazing to be in that

And, and there was people from kind of all walks of life

there when we got there, right?

So, so the people, we weren't the only ones to show up.

A lot of times we get to these places a little more off the beaten

path and sometimes we're the only ones, maybe another couple or,

or someone, someone like that.

But there was families, you know, from all over the place, not just

from the Kentucky area, you know, and then we had, there was, there was

some, there was an Amish family there.

an Amish family and they were pretty talkative and interested

and wanted to talk more history.

And they're much more relatable because the the patriarch

of that family had 12 kids.

And so he, I think he very much related to that country living,

but there were old and young, there were young children there.

Be prepared.

There is steps to get up to the porch.

it is not as like this again, privately owned.

So this is not like a handicap friendly

not handicapped.

Yeah.

So be prepared for the steps.

But once you're in, it's all one level.

You're not allowed to touch anything in the house.

And you're not allowed to.

video, anything.

So if you watch our video, we do the outside and we take photographs inside,

but we've put the photographs in the video to almost look like they, they flow.

So you can kind of see the, the, how the bottom looks.

And I give a little bit of the history to, I kind of

make it almost a timeline as we're walking through the house.

I talk, I put out a couple call outs about how coal production and coal

mining had become much more popular right in the forties, you know, in the,

in the thirties and forties in that era.

And it kind of peaked, you know, within the next couple.

So it made sense that in that area, you know, coal mining and coal production

was actually a big industry out

Oh yeah.

Cole was king.

And.

I want to emphasize too, if you visit, there's a lot of people whose

signatures are all over the downstairs.

Mac said he doesn't allow people to do that.

It's kind of a holdover from the past when people would visit.

He says, but he can't monitor everything.

And sometimes people still do it, but their signatures all over the walls.

And, you know, we of course are here to, we don't want to mess anything up, but

the, if you notice in our videos, you're probably like, what is all of that?

That's those people signing and they leave like their date and stuff.

But some of the things that I really emphasize, you want

to see the guitar inside.

That's the first guitar

her, that's her

that's her guitar.

That's the guitar that do bought Loretta for her birthday for 17

after she had already had four kids.

He wanted to encourage her to sing.

And she taught herself how to play and she wrote her own songs.

And well, I'll talk about that more because she's the first female artist

to write a song in country music and have a number one hit that she wrote.

And so the guitar is in there and then the rocking chair is in

There's a neat story behind that rocking chair that

we talk about in the video.

What was the story behind that rocking

that her father.

dollars and 0.

50 for it and then walked six miles there and six miles back to get it

for his wife to rock the babies.

and we, we kind of call it out.

You mentioned a couple of times in the video that coal miners, then

it's, you know, specifically her father was only making 25 cents a ton.

Yeah.

And we don't really say a ton is 2000 pounds.

Now I have had some people say I can I, you know, growing up

on a farm, I could shovel a ton of corn in about 20, 30 minutes.

And I, yeah, corn is pretty light, right?

But shoveling a ton of coal would probably take you about an hour.

And so if you're doing eight hour days, 25 cents, you're making two bucks a day.

And so if he's getting that rocking chair, that is like a day of work a little

bit more and then to walk to get it.

it.

And so,

So she sings about this in her songs that, you know, they

don't have shoes and that's a norm.

So I have people ask me about that.

They only got shoes in the winter and people were very barefooted.

You really only had one or two pairs of clothes growing up.

And even then they were hand me downs.

It was a, it was a hard life.

It was a rural

It, it was a, it was a hard life, but if you think about it, it

really wasn't that out of the norm.

historically.

Now, it was, I'd say it was a little bit behind the times, you know, compared

to maybe the larger metropolitan areas across the country, across

the United States at that time.

But people had been living like that for hundreds, if

not thousands of years, right?

You know, living a substance life kind of substance farming, like you said.

So it wasn't out of the norm.

It just was a little bit behind the times of that era.

I mean, think about it.

Thirties and forties, like she's only got shoes in the winter time.

There's plenty of other places, you know, in large cities where

that is absolutely not the norm.

Sure.

And, but she emphasizes, and it really, when you think about it, this is a lot

like Dolly Parton's upbringing as well.

Dolly Parton's more in East part of Tennessee, but they're very

rurally the same and they are very close knit family connections.

And so the love and the, the support is strong.

And I think that family connection.

So that's what we saw a lot of.

Mac is a cousin and still very much emphasize her life and protects the story.

Web Grocery is owned by the family now.

It's very much like this real sense of loyalty and love that

you get from, from this basic.

Authentic rural

and, and that's really what worked its way into her music.

Yes.

And so when we talk about her music, you have to think, what do you do in your

spare time in a rural area like this?

You have to create your own entertainment.

Really, radios are around, but not as common.

And so you learn to play the spoons, you learn to play the harmonica, you

learn to play the banjo, you learn to play the guitar, and then you off.

sing,

and your family sings and you sing your gospel songs or you sing your bluegrass.

And this is where this all kind of comes from.

And even this area of Kentucky is a Paintsville Prestonburg Pikeville.

They call it the country music highway because a lot of famous

country music artists are from here.

And we didn't even know this.

We stumbled upon, uh, Chris Stapleton's hometown.

And we were in the visitor center of Chris Stapleton's hometown.

I think we were in Pikeville.

And the visitor center guide was like, Oh, Chris comes in here all the time.

And Chris does this.

And I'm like, Chris who?

He's Chris Stapleton.

I'm like, he's from here.

He's this is his hometown.

And again, to kind of expand the awareness of that part of the

country, it's Hatfield McCoy country.

And we have a future episode coming about that.

That was fascinating.

So this is like Dwight Yoakam, Patty Loveless, Chris Stapleton, Loretta Lynn.

This is where you're getting this real authentic country

bluegrass roots of country music.

And I didn't even know this existed like this.

It was Loretta Lynn that pulled us to this area.

But once you get there, there's a lot of country music, like legacy.

in the area.

. Scott: Now she got married pretty young, moved away.

And then, and then, like you said, had a couple of kids and got

started singing in the fifties and really broke out in the sixties.

So she marries at 15 years old in 1948.

So she'll basically leave that cabin and move to a place by Web Grocery.

Now Web Grocery is eventually owned by her brother.

So it becomes Web Grocery.

Loretta Lynn's maiden name is Web, but at the time it wasn't owned by her family.

So they moved by that store.

So when you visit that store, know that that's when you've seen Coal Miner's

Daughter, where is Sissy Spacek living with Tommy Lee Jones, who's playing do.

It's that area.

And so she's at 15 years old.

She marries him and he's, he's 19.

So that's not crazy

Again, of the era.

of the era.

And they only knew each other for a month, but they hit it off.

And so again, he encourages her, he buys her the guitar.

And so it's in the 1950s.

19.

Late 1950s, early 1960s, she starts playing clubs.

She starts doing, they start You'll see this in Coal Miner's daughter.

They start making a circuit.

the movie, I mean, her husband, even though he's not, doesn't treat

her the absolute best, he is the, like her, Most, and kind of diehard

advocate and champion, he really does push her to, to get out there and do

Yeah, and Loretta Lynn will and this is another I mean, I think

Alcoholism is prominent at the time for men in general But she always said

the deuce alcoholism is what causes the biggest problem in their marriage

and this is what causes a lot of that turmoil and that Volatile relationship,

but she claims and I stayed in in the video for every hit he gave me I hit him

twice So Loretta Lynn stands It's her ground, but he is her biggest supporter.

He really believes in her.

He's the one who will get in the car with the kids, take her records from

radio station to radio station, get her on the air and pump her music.

And even while she's touring, when she gets more famous, she'll have two.

She'll have four kids before she becomes famous, and then she has

twins girls after she becomes famous.

Dew holds the fort at home.

She eventually will get a big ranch in Tennessee, and they, that's their home

ranch, and they always invite fans, and people will see the Hurricane Hills

Ranch on TV and that's another place where she was very welcoming to people.

Yeah.

You know, it was an interesting thing.

I show a couple clips from the movie you know, the coal miner's daughter in it.

And I was trying to look up, there's a scene where she just kind of

yell on it at some of her kids.

She said, now you guys, you know, you guys be quiet and listen to me sing.

And she starts singing a song while I was looking up lyrics to that song.

That's actually not actually her song.

It's an Elvis Presley song.

She was a big fan of Elvis, of course, to the south.

Yeah.

And that's, and that's how you learn.

You, you learn by singing other people's songs, you kind of practicing there

and then she starts writing her own.

And Patsy Cline was a very close friend and mentor to her.

And then when Patsy dies, it really impacts her.

I mean, I will say catapults Loretta because Patsy with Loretta was

writing the coattails of Patsy.

And then when Patsy dies, Loretta gets pushed to the top.

In 1966, her hit, you ain't woman enough to take my man made her the first country.

music, female recording artist to write a number one hit.

So

Dolly Parton's

if you think about that song, you ain't woman enough to take my man.

What is that about?

It's about cheating.

It's about, you know, volatile relationships, which if you read

Dolly Parton's story, very much a pulled over from her parents as well.

So I, I'm not saying again, this is country or anything, but it's

something that Loretta Lynn is talking about real life and putting

it out there for the public.

And how do women deal with real life situations?

And that song, I mean, and she wrote it and it becomes a number one hit

Yeah, it was, I didn't realize how pivotal she was in country music

really until I started making this video.

And even honestly, I started doing some quick research, before the podcast

today, and I think you said she was, I mean, she was one of the first female

country music artists, I think, to have a gold album or something like that.

And so she really kind of broke through into what was a male

dominated genre for quite some time.

And then it was, you know, like you said, Patsy Cline and then Patsy Cline her out

there and Loretta Lynn just ran with it.

with it.

So, 1966 you, you ain't woman enough to take my man 1967 is when she becomes

the first woman in country music with a gold album for don't come home a

drinking with loving on your mind.

Another song about her real life situation that she's giving women

some agency to talk about, which again, Patsy, Patsy Loretta Lynn.

Never considered herself a feminist and she really didn't like that term

about herself Because she she was much more on a conservative side of a

woman's role But she really did give women agency to talk about things that

women were experiencing at home And these songs that became so popular,

is really

again, Gold album, first one is really about a woman having to deal

with a drunk husband who wants to come home and be amorous when she's

having to deal with everything else.

So I give her a lot of credit for that.

In 1972, she's named the first woman entertainer of the year

for country music the CMAs.

And that's a big, that's their big award.

So Entertainer of the Year is the big one.

Every time when you watch the CMAs, you're waiting at the end,

who's Entertainer of the Year?

And she's the first woman who gets it and she gets it in 1972.

And what I find remarkable about that is in 1980, she's the only woman

to be named Artist of the Decade.

So Loretta Lynn has 10 number one albums.

16 number one hits.

She wrote more than 160 songs, and she has put out 60 albums.

She has three Grammys, seven American Music Awards, 13 Academy of Country

Music Awards, and eight CMAs.

And then the movie about her life, Coal Miner's Daughter, won the Oscar

for Best Actress for Sissy Spacek.

That's, it really was incredible and it's, this was one of those

pleasant surprises for me, right?

Cause we were in the area.

So I knew some of the stuff he wanted to do when we, when we kind of found

out it was Hatfield McCoy country.

I was like, okay, yeah, that's what we're doing.

And then we got out to Loretta Lynn.

I was like, eh, okay.

You know, we're out there.

I like, I'll just enjoy it because I like getting off to

these off the beaten path places.

And for me, it was just neat driving out there in that part of

Kentucky, because you really do feel like you're driving into that era

and you really get a feel for it.

It was just a, it's a gorgeous part of the country as well.

It's absolutely beautiful.

was, it felt like we were driving into history.

So once you hit Web Grocery, and you should stop there to get your ticket, and

also they have some memorabilia inside.

Between Web Grocery and the Butcher Hollow cabin is the coal mine.

So if you want to stop, the coal mine is on the right.

You'll see it off to the right, but you really have to go up the hill, which

you went to, to get to the opening.

Yeah, they have bars

They have bars

openings now.

And they do actually a good job of showing kind of what it would

have looked like back then in

coal mine was built out.

So they, you got the coal mine, and then they're building logistics, like buildings

out to load it into railroad cars.

it from the actual

Yes, because they, you know, you have to get the coal onto rail

cards to get it out of the area.

But these are these are the actually openings to the mines.

So you can stand there.

And so you get a relative idea of how her father walked to work.

And if they walked to the grocery, don't think that they drove to the

grocery, like they walked to the grocery

Yeah, I think it was about a mile from Butcher Hollow to the coal

mine, maybe a mile and a half, and maybe another two miles, maybe ish from,

from the, from the coal mine to Web

Yeah, I think it's two miles to Webb grocery from the cabin and

about halfway point is the coal mine.

Yeah, so it's all relatively close, but there's lots of homes still out there.

There's hollows that you can go off on into.

It was, it was just.

So neat and was really fun to learn more about someone who's so pivotal

in country music like Loretta Lynn.

And there you have it folks, the incredible journey through the life

and times of Loretta Lynn straight from the heart of Butcher Holler.

Loretta's music wasn't just about lyrics and chords, it was a reflection of real

life, a testament to the struggles, triumphs, and everything from a simple

butcher holler home to the bright lights and fame of a Nashville stage.

Even today, when we remember Loretta Lynn, we can't help but carry

with us the echoes of her timeless melodies, each note resonating

with the stories of a bygone era.

As we wrap up this episode, take a moment to savor the essence of her

music, the twang of the guitars, and the soul stirring lyrics that have

become the soundtrack of so many lives.

If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe.

Please be sure to subscribe, rate, and leave a review.

And remember, the past may be behind us, but the stories we uncover continue to

shape the present and inspire the future.

Your supportive talk with history keeps the show growing because we

rely on you, our community, to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.

We'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.