On Saturday, April 22, 2017, Loretta Lynn played an intimate show inside the 843-capacity Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York, just 25 miles north of New York City. The show marked Lynn’s final full concert before her death on October 4, 2022, at 90.
Backed by her sisters Crystal Gayle and Peggy Sue, daughter Patsy Lynn Russell, and her six-piece Coal Miner’s Band, Lynn, who was 85 at the time, moved through a 90-minute set of her iconic songs, and opened the night with the Merle Haggard classic, “Okie From Muskogee.”
The evening was set around most of Lynn’s classics, including “You’re Lookin’ at Country,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” “Fist City,” and more before closing on her 1970 hit “Coal Miner’s Daughter.” During her set, Lynn also delivered a stirring rendition of her 1966 “Dear Uncle Sam,” written from the perspective of a woman who loses her husband in the Vietnam War, and paid tribute to her friend Patsy Cline with a cover of her 1962 song “She’s Got You.”
Less than a week after her show, Lynn suffered a stroke at her ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee on May 5, 2017. “It’s a very scary thing when you find out you’re havin’ a stroke,” shared Lynn about her stroke in a 2018 interview. “Immediately, I wondered if I could sing. Mommy said ‘I was born singin’. That’s all I’ve ever done. I couldn’t believe that that could be taken away.”
Videos by American Songwriter
[RELATED: 5 Loretta Lynn Songs That Were Banned]
The country legend later regained use of her left arm and hand, following the stroke, but suffered another health setback several months later when she fell at her home and broke her hip on New Year’s Day. After several years of regaining her strength and health, Lynn returned with her 46th and final album Still Woman Enough in 2021, which went to No. 9 on the Country chart and was produced by her daughter Patsy Lynn and Johnny Cash‘s son John Carter Cash.
“I don’t have nothing to prove but I have stuff I want to do,” said Lynn, who wanted to play another string of dates following the album release “And my fans want me to do it too. My fans are out there with me saying, ‘Do it Loretta—do it.’” She added, “As long as you dwell on the bad, it’s taking the life away from you that you need to be living.”
Lynn’s final appearance on stage was at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on Monday, April 1, 2019, ahead of her 87th birthday(April 14). It was Lynn’s first appearance since her stroke in 2017, and drew in performers Gayle, granddaughter Tayla Lynn, along with Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, George Strait, Lee Ann Womack, Alan Jackson, Jack White, Dennis Quaid, Tanya Tucker, Brandi Carlile, Little Big Town, Keith Urban, Brandy Clark, Cam, Martina McBride, Miranda Lambert, Pistol Annies, Kacey Musgraves, Cam, and Margo Price, celebrating the music of the country legend.
The grand finale featured Lynn, backed by many of the guests from the evening, singing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” one last time.
[RELATED: The Story Behind the Final Song Loretta Lynn Wrote for Her Husband “Doo”]
Loretta Lynn Setlist, April 22, 2017, Tarrytown Music Hall:
- “Okie From Muskogee”
- “I Ain’t Never”
- “That’s All I’ve Got to Say”
- Sara
- “Tulsa Time”
- “They Don’t Make ‘Em Like My Daddy”
- “You’re Lookin’ at Country”
- “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill”
- “I Wanna Be Free”
- “Blue Kentucky Girl”
- “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl”
- “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)”
- “Love Is the Foundation”
- “Fist City”
- “She’s Got You”
- “Lead Me On”
- “One’s on the Way”
- “The Pill”
- “Free Fallin’”
- “Memaw’s Guitar”
- “Everything It Takes”
- “Your Squaw Is on the Warpath”
- “Don’t Come Home A’Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)”
- “The House at the End of the Road”
- “Cain’s Blood”
- “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven / Who Says God Is Dead! / Where No One Stands Alone”
- “Coal Miner’s Daughter”
The setlist for the April 22 show in Tarrytown was not available, but Lynn stuck fairly close to the set she performed the night before on Friday, April 21, 2017, at the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Brookville, New York.
Photo: Jim Smeal/BEI/Shutterstock (1231643j)
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.