Words by Helen M Jerome
Loretta Lynn – “definitelty the real, first, true pioneer woman” of country music says Carly Pearce
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
From the 1960s onwards, the dam burst for those following in the footsteps of country pioneers Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Previously, country music’s women might have sold bucket-loads of records, but they’d usually been pushed into a corner labelled ‘Love Songs’. Then these no-nonsense women started singing about real subjects from failing relationships and hard drinking to birth control. And suddenly the rules changed forever.