Dolly Parton, Carole King, Maren Morris, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and Brandi Carlile are among those wishing Loretta Lynn a happy 90th birthday in a new video honoring the coal miner’s daughter. Parton even sings for Lynn, ad libbing “we will always love you” during a brief rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
Reba McEntire, Ashley McBryde, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and Tanya Tucker also appear in the video, along with Alan Jackson, who says he’s having a drink for Lynn because — name-checking his 2003 hit with Jimmy Buffett — “it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”
Lynn, born April 14, 1932, in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, is also being celebrated at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. On the occasion of her birth, she’s donating memorabilia from her archives to the institute, including her handwritten original lyrics to “Fist City,” a first edition copy of her autobiography Coal Miner’s Daughter, and a dress she sewed by hand and wore in the Sixties.
“I just write about what I would do if it was me. Some of the songs was me going through the stuff I was writing about. Like ‘Fist City.’ There’s a lot of songs I’ve written that are about what things I’ve went through,” Lynn told Rolling Stone in 2016.
On the local level, Sony Music Entertainment, who released Lynn’s last four albums, including 2021’s Still Woman Enough, is dedicating a magnolia tree in Lynn’s name at Nashville’s Cheekwood Estate and Gardens. “Loretta Lynn (b. April 14, 1932) / Coal Miner’s Daughter / Music Icon / Celebrating Her 90th Birthday,” reads the bronze plaque accompanying the tree.