By Canadian Press

How Coal Miner’s Daughter Loretta Lynn got her big break in a Vancouver chicken coop

Oct 4, 2022 | 4:26 PM

VANCOUVER — British Columbia is a long way from the Appalachian coal fields, but the role that a south Vancouver chicken coop played in the rise of country music legend Loretta Lynn is being recalled after her death at the age of 90.

The neighbourhood’s connection to Lynn is described in a Vancouver Heritage Foundation plaque that marks the site of a poultry barn on the banks of the Fraser River that also served as a music hall.

The foundation says Lynn was discovered by Canadian producers Don Grashey and Chuck Williams when she performed at the chicken coop in 1959, and their Zero Records label produced her first hit, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl.”

B.C. writer Rob Howatson, who spent years researching Lynn’s connection to Vancouver, says he interviewed her in 2012 and she recalled her performance at the chicken coop.

Lynn’s family says she died peacefully in her sleep Tuesday morning at home on her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.

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Howatson says Lynn’s life journey, from the poverty captured in her memoir “Coal Miner’s Daughter” to superstardom, represented the American dream. 

“She was so polite, down to earth and without guile that she was a pleasure to talk to,” recalled Howatson.

— With files from The Associated Press. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 4, 2022.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

The Canadian Press