When the night came, we put on our shiny outfits and went over to the old Ryman Auditorium. I was with David Skepner, and we stood around backstage just hoping I’d win one of the other awards. That’s some sight, all of us country bumpkins in our velvet and sequins and tuxedos, with the diamonds sparkling. I can remember when we were all wearing dungarees, with a little fringe on it—if we were fancy.
I was wearing a long green gown, which I had just bought. Since then, I stopped buying gowns in Nashville because I got tired of going to some big ceremony and seeing one of the other girls in the same exact dress. That happened once to me and Dottie West and it wasn’t funny. Now, if I make it myself, it may look homemade, but at least it’s not gonna look like anything else—you can bet on that.
Then they started giving out awards. First they gave me and Conway the award for Vocal Duo of the Year. Then they named me Female Vocalist of the Year, which I was pleased about. I won it the first year the award was presented, and Tammy Wynette won it three times after that, followed by Lynn Anderson. So I was glad to get it back.
They saved the biggest award for the end of the show, with Chet Atkins and Minnie Pearl presenting the Entertainer of the Year. When I heard ’em call out my name, I thought I was gonna flip. I was somewhere else the rest of the evening. I just kept saying, “I can’t believe it; I can’t believe it.” People kept telling me they were glad I won.
I kept waiting for Doo to call that night, but he was out in this little tavern in Colorado, listening to the news on television. When they announced I won, he got so excited that he bought a round for everybody. Then he said he couldn’t reach me on the telephone because a big bolt of lightning hit the wires.
People tried to make a big thing about Doo not being there. I just made a joke about it by telling ’em, “Doo’s out hunting—but I don’t know what he’s hunting.” That’s how I handle things usually, by making a joke out of it.
The next day, Doo got on a plane to Nashville. I was about worn out from being on the TODAY show before dawn. I was glad to see him, especially when he told me how proud he was. That’s still the biggest award I can get.
I remember people asking me if I thought the women’s liberation spirit had anything to do with my getting it. I told LaWayne Satterfield of Music City News, “You know better than that. The people did it and they didn’t pick the best man or the best woman—they just picked the one they thought was the best. That’s why I’m so proud.”
But I will say this: I think it’s good for people to realize that women can do things as good as a man. And I think show business is one of the places where that’s true.
There’re more women stars in Nashville all the time. They’ve got their own shows and their own buses, and they’re proving they can do the job the same as a man. I get along with all the women singers, but especially Dolly Parton, who was voted Female Vocalist of the Year in 1975. We’re good friends because we talk the same hillbilly language. Dolly is from Tennessee, and when we get going, nobody can understand us.
I love Dolly, and I understand why she wears all that fancy jewelry and makeup and piles her hair up the way she does. She once told me she was poor when she was a kid and now that she can afford pretty things, she said, “I’m gonna pile it all over me.” And I say good for her.
Me and Dolly like to talk about the old days when we were poor. We can remember how the snow and rain used to blow through the cracks. One time Dolly asked me, “Remember when you had company coming, how you’d shoo the flies out the door with a towel, then slam the door real fast?” That’s what it was like in those old cabins.
But whenever we talk like that around the new Opry, I get the feeling people are nervous. Hillbillies are going out of fashion in Nashville, I think.
I had some other wonderful honors following the Entertainer of the Year Award. I was named one of Tennessee’s top five women, along with women in college and medicine and government and business. In the Gallup poll in 1973, I was listed as an honorable mention, after the world’s ten most admired women. Golda Meir of Israel was first, so you could say I was in pretty good company.
I’ve won other big awards in music since then, too. In 1973, I got the Female Vocalist of the Year Award again, which gave some of my fans the idea that I owned the award. Well, friends, nobody owns nothing in this world. Even your breath is just loaned to you. There’re a lot of good country singers around, and nothing goes on forever.
That was my feeling in 1974, when they moved the awards show over to the new Opry and Johnny Cash was the master of ceremonies. I was nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year and Entertainer of the Year. Sure, I wanted to win ’em, but I was so tired of working I would rather have been on the beach in Mexico.
I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to win in 1974 because my own record company, MCA—it changed its name from Decca—had two women up for the same awards: myself and Olivia Newton-John. She’s an English girl who grew up in Australia and never appeared in Nashville. But she had three hit records in 1974, and a lot of people were saying she was gonna win something.
Some of my fans were upset because they said she wasn’t country. But her records had kind of a country sound to ’em, and they also sold big on the “pop” charts. I know MCA was glad to have her. It’s like a restaurant. Some people like steak, some people like lobster, so you sell both. And if you got something new on the menu, you advertise it a little extra.
That didn’t bother me any, but a couple of female singers were sitting around the dressing room on the night of the awards, griping ’cause Olivia Newton-John didn’t even come to America for the awards. She was on tour in Spain somewhere. Well, all I could remember was me winning the top female singer’s award in England four years in a row and how nice people were to me there. So I told the girls to cut it out. I hate to hear all that jealousy coming out.
Anyway, Olivia Newton-John did win the Top Female Vocalist Award. I don’t think the applause was very big, and some of the Nashville people were still grumbling backstage.
Later they even organized something they called the Association of Country Entertainers to make sure country musicians get their fair share of awards. But I stayed neutral. I don’t want to get involved in politics and jealousy. Besides, I never heard people complaining when Lynn Anderson’s record “Rose Garden” crossed over into popular music sales, or when Tammy Wynette crossed over with “Stand by Your Man,” or when Johnny Cash had a big record with “A Boy Named Sue.”
See, it’s like a double standard. If they were from Nashville, it was all right to win pop awards. But because Olivia Newton-John wasn’t from Nashville, they didn’t like her winning our awards. Well, I know that a lot of country fans—some of ’em my fans—have bought Olivia Newton-John’s records, so she must have something going for her. I’ve got no complaints. Look, she walked off with the Grammy Award for 1974 pop music. When you’re hot, you’re hot—that’s all.
Anyway, me and Conway did get the award for top country duo from the Country Music Association. And later I won the top female singer and top duet from the Academy of Country Music.
Besides, two nights later, I won the Music City News award for top female vocalist, and the fans vote in that one—not the big shots. They gave me that award at the United Talent show at midnight, at the Opry, and all the disc jockeys stood up and cheered. Conway got up onstage and said, “Who’s this Oliver Newton-June anyhow?” I got so embarrassed I almost fell through the floor. I gave Conway a dirty look that said, “No more of that.” But he was being funny—he likes Olivia, he told me.
I can remember Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells standing up for me when I came along. So Olivia Newton-John, when you come to Nashville, you give me a call, and I’ll help you any way I can. There’s room for all of us, honey.
27
Death Threats
We all know what our enemies will do…
—“Five Fingers Left,” by Loretta Lynn
There’s ano
ther part of my career I ain’t too happy about, and that is all the bad mail and telephone calls I get. It first hit a few years ago when I started winning all the awards. Then it seemed like every crazy person in the world was after me.
We’re supposed to have this unlisted telephone number at home, but sometimes my fans get it anyway. I don’t mind their calls too much. But when some nut calls up and says to leave $250,000 downtown, or else they’ll cut off my son’s head, now that’s just plain bad manners, folks.
Or one of my babies would pick up the phone and there’d be some character on the other end saying something she couldn’t understand. When those things started getting worse, we changed our number again, but people catch up with you.
I once asked my manager why I got this kind of stuff. He said other performers also get bad calls and he explained: “The same thing that makes you appeal to all the good fans also touches off some spark in the screwball. There’s a few public figures who manage to stir up a lot of people, one way or the other, Loretta—and you just happen to be one of them.”
That scares me, because I think of people like John and Robert Kennedy and George Wallace and Martin Luther King Jr., who get people stirred up. And all that stuff going on in Israel with the Arabs hijacking and scaring people to death. At the same time there was so much violence in the world, I had a whole rash of scary incidents.
There was one man who had robbed a couple of my western stores and then started traveling wherever we went. He would check into the same motel every night. At first, I didn’t think nothing of it. I’d be sitting in the room with the shades open and I’d see this young boy with long golden hair. I said to Doo, “Now, he’s a good fan.” But it turns out the police were looking for him. And the police were traveling around with me, too, only I didn’t know it.
One night in West Virginia, that fellow got a girl to come to me and say she wanted to show me some new songs. She seemed like she was drunk or on drugs or something. She no more than got into the room when the police busted in. They dragged her right out; they showed her no mercy. That night I was told that I was in danger; then three days later they caught him. I said I didn’t want to hear nothing about it. He’s in the pen now—I don’t know where.
That’s when I started to get nervous about these calls. One time I was on the road and a woman friend was traveling with me. I was taking a bath when I got a call and this man said he was five doors down from me. I didn’t pay it any mind. I just hung up. But my friend got all riled and I had to calm her down. I was really scared even though I said I wasn’t.
Just to calm her down, I said, “Well, I ain’t afraid to go out in the hall.” So I get dressed and open the door and there’s this man standing there. I stared at him and tried to act brave, but all of a sudden my knees got weak and I jumped back in the room and closed the door. Who knows what he had in mind?
One night in Beckley, West Virginia, I was all alone in my room in my bus getting dressed for my show, when I looked out in the parking lot and saw this young kid. I could swear he was loading or unloading a pistol. I got scared to death. I didn’t know what to do. Then he disappeared somewhere. The next thing I knew, I heard the bus door open. I had my room closed, so I couldn’t see who it was, but I got scared that it was the boy with the pistol. Usually, when something goes wrong, I do the right thing, so I talked loud, like my husband was with me. I said, “Hey, Doo, turn down that television; I think I hear somebody on the bus.” Well, I could hear the bus rocking as this guy walks outside. I never did see him again, but I was scared. I told my boys never to leave me alone on the bus again. So now there’s always someone guarding me.
And I mean guarding me right. More than one of my people carries a pistol. Some people get all scared about being around pistols, but it doesn’t bother me. Growing up in Kentucky, I got used to it. Doo carries a pistol around like I carry a pocketbook. It ain’t that you’re trying to be tough or anything; you’re just trying to protect yourself. And we feel we need to. Doo even offered to get me a pistol, but I’m too softhearted, and I know my boys will protect me.
The worst place for a while was Oklahoma. Every time we went through, there was something. One time the newspapers got a call that was supposed to be my sister, Crystal Gayle, saying I was kidnapped. Well, that couldn’t happen because she wasn’t even on the trip. But the FBI had to check it out anyway. Another time there was a call saying I drowned in Mexico. Still another time, somebody said I would never get off the stage in Oklahoma City. The FBI got into that, too.
They checked everybody out, even my old man, Doo, who’s got a permit to carry his pistol. But we got real tight with our plans. They took me off the bus outside of Oklahoma and sneaked me into another hotel, while the bus went to our regular place. But it didn’t matter: we got to our room, and five minutes later some guy called on the hotel phone and said, “We found out where you are.” Doo was standing by the door with his .38 out all night. The call had to come from the hotel because they won’t let outside calls go to my room. I don’t know how in the world they found me, but they did. We told the FBI, and they were all around me when I went to the show that night. I still get the shivers whenever we go to Oklahoma.
But it’s not just Oklahoma. We got a bomb threat during the Disc Jockey Convention in Nashville one year. Somebody said the show was never gonna go on because they blamed me for breaking up Conway Twitty’s marriage. Well, I didn’t know about it until I got backstage. They cleared out the place and didn’t find a bomb so they let the show go on. I was the last one to sing, and I said I was nervous. The stagehand said, “Don’t get nervous, Loretta. Every other man backstage is an FBI agent.” And when I looked, they all had their guns bulging inside their jackets. How I got through that show I’ll never know.
The last scare we got was in a motel. I was in my suite working on some songs when I got a call. This man said he was a hired killer, paid five hundred dollars to knock me off. He said he had been following me for three days and that he wasn’t gonna do it because he thought I was such a fantastic singer.
Finally the guy said, “I’m gonna tell them that I just couldn’t get close to you. But you better be careful, because the next guy they send might not be a big country fan like me.”
Well, I was half-scared and half-laughing at that line. I think the guy was putting on an act and just wanted attention, but I make it a point never to be alone.
When Doo ain’t with me, I register in different names now. And I always have my boys in rooms all around me. I always keep my door locked, and my calls and fan mail are screened. I only see the good letters; the others are sent to the FBI. They’re building up a file on these little deals. I also get connecting rooms with Jim Webb, my driver, or David Skepner, or any of the boys. And we keep these doors unlocked, so if I need help, they can just rush in. I feel better knowing that my boys are around me.
But for two whole years, I went onstage scared. I didn’t know what was gonna happen, if someone was gonna put a bullet in me, or what. Every time somebody took a flashbulb picture of me, I had no way of knowing whether it was the end. I got more and more nervous and started talking about getting off the tour completely. But when I asked my manager, he said, “Loretta, you have two choices. You can find some place out in Montana somewhere, and you can dig a big hole, and you can hide and never perform again. Or you can just go out there and not think about it.”
So that’s what I did. I made up my mind not to worry about threats anymore. I just go out and sing.
28
Baptized at Last
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer
Will still be heard.
I believe that Someone in the Great Somewhere
Hears every word…
—“I Believe,” by Ervin Drake, Irvin Graham, Jimmy Shirl, and Al Stillman
I don’t know if I could have lived through the sickness and the death threats if I hadn’t gotten stronger in my religion. When things were lookin
g bad for me, I just put myself in the hands of Jesus and let Him do what was best for me.
I’ve always been religious in my own way. When I was growing up, if we could afford just one book in the house, it was the Bible. We’d go to church on Sunday and listen to Preacher Elzie Banks tell us about God and the devil. I believed it all, but for some reason I was never baptized. After I started in music, I got away from going to church and reading the Bible. I believe I was living the way God meant me to, but I wasn’t giving God the right attention.
Coming from the mountains, I have kind of funny beliefs anyway—kind of a mixture of religion and superstition. I know people in the Church of Christ ain’t supposed to believe in reincarnation and séances and stuff, but I guess I do. I’ll probably get in trouble with the church for saying this, but I’ve often tried to make contact with people that have died, especially my daddy. I really feel like Daddy can hear me sing, even though he’s dead. The Bible says nothing about that, does it? Anyway, that’s one of my beliefs. I’ve always believed in a hereafter, even if I can’t imagine what it’s like. I guess nobody really knows what’s gonna happen to us. I figure we just do our best and hope we get to heaven by the grace of God.
I’ve never believed that man was too sinful; if he was, God would have destroyed him, like he did Sodom and Gomorrah. I think it’s up to a person to make their own life, good or bad. But I never considered getting baptized or making a strong stand about God until John Thornhill and I started talking about religion, even arguing sometimes.
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