Album Review: Loretta Lynn, Still Woman Enough

Life yields few certainties save maybe these: death and taxes are inevitable, ice cream heals all, and Loretta Lynn will never make a boring album. If further proof were needed that the 88-year-old’s 50th studio album (depending on who’s counting what) is exhilarating, it’s there in Still Woman Enough’s final track, the blistering and self-explanatory “You Ain’t Woman Enough.” 

In what might be termed the anti-“Jolene,” Lynn confronts her cheatin’ paramour’s paramour not with a wrenching plea to let him go but rather, with a defiant feminist throwdown. That the other woman in this catfight is the estimable Tanya Tucker — as bona fide a heartbreaker as any — only underscores our heroine’s otherworldly vitality. If this is what 88 sounds like, sister, bring it on.

Tucker is one of several guests adding heft to this ace and brashly countrified set. Reba McEntire, Carrie Underwood, and Margo Price also feature on a stable of tracks written or co-written by Lynn or with particular significance to her, such as her cover of "Keep On The Sunny Side," an ode to the Carter Family (John Carter Cash co-produced the album with Lynn’s daughter, Patsy Lynn Russell). 

There’s also a reading of her debut single, "I'm A Honky Tonk Girl," a breathtaking dash through Hank Williams’s “I Saw The Light” and, perhaps most potently, a spoken-word recitation of her signature song, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” which, from the perspective of someone in their autumn years, carries skin-tingling resonance. 

Astute fans will note the album’s title is the same as Lynn’s 2002 memoir. While it’s tempting to view Still Woman Enough as a bookend of sorts to a remarkable and unparalleled career, it would be foolish to count Lynn out, even on the cusp of age 89 come April 14. This is a woman who brilliantly collaborated with the singular Jack White at age 72, for Pete’s sake! No epitaphs here.

Still Woman Enough was released March 19, 2021.
Listen to it here.