Wouldn't you like to be in Hillbilly Heaven for the reunion between Loretta Lynn and BFF (best friend forever) Patsy Cline?
Almost 60 years after Cline died in a plane crash returning to Nashville from a concert with two other Grand Ole Opry performers, that homecoming is now possible. Lynn, providing the inspiration for Sissy Spacek's Oscar-winning role in "Coal Miner's Daughter," left this world Tuesday at age 90.
Spacek and Beverly D'Angelo, playing Cline, explored their characters' friendship in the 1980 movie directed by Englishman Michael Apted. Spacek was named Best Actress and DeAngelo, playing Lynn, the first female inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame, invested her part with a star's quality. Both singers' marriages -- Patsy to Charlie Dick, Loretta to Doolittle (or Mooney) Lynn, received a going-over.
Spacek, as Lynn, portrayed a naive girl from West Virginia who could not be trusted behind a live microphone. Although lacking the sophistication of Cline, she became the queen of country music after Patsy's passing. The strain of her career, pressures brought by her husband -- who at least fulfilled a biblical admonition of replenishing the earth -- and popping pills led to an on-screen collapse with Doolittle, played by Tommy Lee Jones, unable to lend much support.
Tammy Wynette, another Nashville trailblazer, sang "Stand By Your Man," clueing listeners into what it must have been like married to George Jones. Lynn lived out that story in real time, marrying at 13 and producing six children. One of her four living daughters is named Patsy.
Some might remember Lynn as the featured female singer on a country program hosted by Arkansans Doyle and Teddy Wilburn. About the same time, the shows airing Saturday afternoons in the 1960s on Little Rock's KARK-TV, country star Porter Wagoner had a program that brought Dolly Parton into the spotlight.
Whereas Parton became a superstar entertainer of great proportion (taking "Nine to Five" to No. 1 on the Billboard charts while appearing in the movie of the same name), Lynn basically remained country based, although her songs had an edge not usually heard then in Nashville.
Such hits as "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)" and "Rated X" spoke to a segment of the population that dealt with cheating, drinking husbands, many choosing divorce rather than toleration. She lifted the banner even higher with the 1975 release of "The Pill," putting herself on a par as a women's activist with Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer and Erica Jong. That she could release such a song in conservative Nashville attested to Lynn's stature within the industry.
Hollywood has enjoyed mixed success with movie biographies -- Lynn coming along when George Hamilton gave a forgetful performance as the troubled Hank Williams in 1964's "Your Cheatin' Heart," London-born Tom Hiddleston not faring much better in the 2015 release "I Saw the Light."
Although an appreciation of country music might be required for maximum enjoyment, "Coal Miner's Daughter" introduced Lynn and Cline to a generation unaware of their struggles. Loretta and Patsy will have a lot of news to kick around when they meet again. Maybe Loretta and Conway Twitty can crank out an oldies album.