Loretta Lynn Remembers Late Husband on What Would Have Been 73rd Anniversary

Loretta Lynn paid tribute to her late husband, Oliver Lynn, who was also known as “Mooney” or “Doo,” on social media this week, remembering him on what would have been their 73rd wedding anniversary. The 88-year-old posted a video of herself performing her song “I Can’t Hear the Music,” which first appeared on her 2000 album Still Country.

Co-written by Lynn, the song is about the loss of a partner who was the narrator’s “toughest critic” and “biggest fan.” “Today would be our 73rd anniversary,” Lynn captioned the performance. “I can’t believe it’s been that long. We fought hard and we loved hard. He was my biggest fan and the real force behind my career. He’s the only man I ever loved. I miss you, Doo.”

Lynn and Doo married in 1948 when Lynn was 15 and Doo was 21. They moved to a logging community in Custer, Washington and eventually had six children together — daughters Betty Sue, Cissy, Patsy and Peggy and sons Ernest Ray and Jack Benny, the latter of whom died in 1984 at age 34 while attempting to cross the Duck River near his family’s ranch on horseback. Betty Sue Lynn died in 2013 at the age of 64 from emphysema. Doo died in 1996 at age 69 of heart failure.

It was Doo who bought his wife her first guitar in 1953, and she soon started her own band, Loretta and the Trailblazers, before becoming the country music legend she is today. A number of Lynn’s biggest hits were inspired by her relationship with her husband, including “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)” and “Fist City,” a warning to other women to stay away.

“I could never have done it on my own,” Lynn wrote in her 2002 memoir, Still Woman Enough. “Whatever else our marriage was back in them days … without Doo and his drive to get a better life, there would have been no Loretta Lynn, country singer.”

Lynn wrote that Doo was an alcoholic who continually cheated on her and physically abused her, but she still stood by him. “I put up with it because of six kids,” she said. “And I loved him and he loved me.” In 2002, Lynn told CBS, “I miss everything about him. There was no decision I ever made without talking it over with him. It’s hard because who do you go to now?”