Vocalist Loretta Lynn, whose ascent from a small Kentucky coal-mining community to national country music stardom literally became the stuff of Hollywood, died on Tuesday (Oct. 4) at 90. According to a statement from her family, Lynn passed away in her sleep at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. “Our precious mom, Loretta Lynn, passed away peacefully this morning, October 4th, in her sleep at home at her beloved ranch in Hurricane Mills, the family said in a statement; an announcement about a public memorial is forthcoming.

Beyond the dramatic particulars of her life, Lynn, who recorded 16 No. 1 country singles, was among the music’s groundbreaking female singing stars.

She became one of the music’s brightest luminaries in an era when men dominated country. She wrote much of her hit material, and it was sharply-penned stuff, written from the point of view of a woman (usually a married one) who would take no guff from her man. And she did not shrink from controversial subject matter.

Lynn was born Loretta Webb on April 14, 1932 in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. “I’m always making Butcher Hollow sound like the most backward part of the United States — and I think maybe it is,” she wrote in her autobiography.

She was the second eldest of coal miner Melvin Webb’s eight children, and grew up in sometimes dire poverty in the heart of the Great Depression. One of the few distractions she had was the radio; 11-year-old Loretta became enamored of the Grand Ole Opry and its early female star, Molly O’Day.

At the age of 14, she married Oliver Lynn, known by his nicknames “Doolittle” and “Mooney.” A year later, the couple moved from Kentucky to Custer, Washington, a town of a few hundred near Bellingham. By 18, Lynn had four children. (Two more would follow later.)

Encouraged by her husband, Lynn began singing in the Washington clubs. In 1950, Don Grashey of tiny Zero Records arranged a session for her in Los Angeles. Backed by top-flight guitarists Speedy West and Roy Lanham, she cut her composition “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” inspired in part by Kitty Wells’ 1952 hit “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonky Angels.”