Jeremy Helligar is an Executive Editor at PEOPLE and an author (Is It True What They Say About Black ... human being. Loretta Lynn was a great artist, a strong and resilient country music pioneer ...

When Loretta Lynn and little sister Crystal Gayle posed for their joint PEOPLE cover story in 1978, they were two of country music's ... a coal miner who had black lung disease and died in 1959 ...

The secret of Loretta Lynn, historians Mary Bufwack and Robert ... and woman-focused perspective transformed country music, resulting in 79 charting records, including 52 Top 10s and 16 No ...