In country music, women have a doubly difficult situation. To a certain extent, they are inherently disadvantaged, but they have to assert themselves in a segment that transports more traditional world and role models than most others.

While in the blues, as the examples Bessie Smith and Janis Joplin show, there can also be an emancipatory moment in the most undisguised articulation of suffering, which is an essential part of this art form, country offers less room for individual forms of expression because of its template-like nature.

Radical subjectivity is hardly possible in it and basically not intended, especially not for women.

Dolly Parton, the best-known country singer to date, drew the necessary conclusions early on and exaggerated her overall appearance to the point of self-parody.

Edo Reents

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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Nevertheless, emancipated women, to whom Dolly Parton can definitely be toughened, have made it in this field;

alongside June Carter, Emmylou Harris and Jessi Colter, above all Loretta Lynn.

As a member of the generation of those of Ray Charles, James Brown, Ike Turner and Johnny Cash, like these giants, she had a tough childhood and youth and quickly got through important milestones in her life: she was, or rather was, married at thirteen, and by the time she was eighteen she had four Children.

So she was out of the woods when her first record came out in 1960.

To date, in sixty years, it's about the same number of records;

only last year, at the age of 89, she released "Still Woman Enough", an amazingly fresh thing with which she completely

Love, Jealousy, Alcohol

If one can single out one period from this immensely long creative period, it might be the late sixties, early seventies, in which, one after another, she recorded her most significant musical albums with a voice that had reached its greatest power and clarity.

Even in the era of Woodstock and Altamont, she stayed away from the hippies, but was the talk of the town in the liberal-conservative milieu, representing a highly commercial but enlightened entertainment.

In 1969, as a quasi-universal-humanist declaration of war, she claimed in an album title Your Squaw Is On The Warpath, years before Cher made a splash with Half-Breed;

In 1972, she wished for "God Bless America Again," which came across as anything but reactionary nationalist during Nixon's twilight.

In fact, she never took a break.

As she entered old age, she was assisted by blues wizard Jack White, who could almost be her great-grandson—she was a grandmother by the time she was 29.

"Van Lear Rose" (2004) is a sometimes downright banging, sometimes intimate country and folk rock record that ranks among the most amazing things a singer of her age has ever done.

And that's the advantage of this genre: It's a corset that provides support;

That's why it doesn't get embarrassing so easily when old people let it rip a little.

But the grace and dignity of the late Loretta Lynn are still something special.

From country, folk, blues and easy listening, there are few standards that she would not have sung, usually competently and faithfully.

Her own, around two hundred songs revolve around the things that concern men and women, love, jealousy, alcohol and self-empowerment.

Literally, her warning "Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)" (1967 album title) was uttered by a woman who is quite willing to surrender but doesn't confuse surrender with bondage;

Submission and teeth-gritting have boundaries of her own making—old Tina Turner stuff, if you will.

Despite clear announcements to the men, she remained the “horse-stealing woman” type with her down-to-earth attitude and natural sense of humour.

Loretta Lynn's now very long life, which was always characterized by Bible firmness, gained an exemplary, perhaps also exemplary character when Michael Apted wrote the autobiography "Coal Miner's Daughter" in 1980, with which she ended her childhood in Kentucky with few church mice up to her Nashville retreat had disclosed, starring Sissy Spacek in the title role ( German " Nashville Lady " ) and Tommy Lee Jones and The Band drummer Levon Helm in the notable male leads.

"I am Paying for My Raising" is the name of one of her older songs - well, she could afford that price.

Her most recent record reads more radiantly: "They call me hillbilly, but I got the last laugh," she sang just last year.

So it's clear who laughs last.

Loretta Lynn turns ninety this Thursday.