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Kennedy Center Honors Articles Featuring
Loretta USA Today Dec 8, 2003. - Kennedy Center throws a
salute & President salutes Kennedy Center honorees
President Bush and his wife, Laura, sat with the honorees
in the VIP box. Bush's father, former president George Bush,
lauded [Loretta Lynn] as "an American original" who "would
have made one heck of a politician." His son, he joked, is
"a couple of quarts low on musical talent."
New York Times December 8, 2003, - Five Eminences of the
Arts Are Honored, and They Don't Even Have to Perform
State Sec
Colin L Powell hosts dinner for Carol Burnett, Mike Nichols,
Itzhak Perlman, James Brown and Loretta Lynn, winners of
Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement in arts; Pres
Bush lauds artists at White House reception before awards
are presented at Kennedy Center gala.
The Tennessean - 'National treasure' Loretta Lynn
receives Kennedy Center Honor
By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — Loretta Lynn walked in from a night as crisp
and cold as a frozen tuxedo, moved across plush red carpet
and entered a building filled with chandeliers and famous
people, with warmth, applause and adoration.
Yesterday evening was a night of tribute to Lynn, a woman
whom former President Bush called ''a national treasure,''
who was being cheered for receiving a Kennedy Center Honor,
an award akin to British knighthood or the French Legion of
Honor.
The scene was nothing at all like the hillside cabin of
Lynn's Kentucky childhood, the place she wrote of in her
autobiography in song — Coal Miner's Daughter. Yet by her
very presence, Lynn seemed to bring the Butcher Holler house
— the center of an upbringing that has been her burden and
her muse — with her. The home was there last night, as real
as the coal miner's daughter sitting in the president's box.
For her part, Lynn smiled and cried a few tears as a stream
of esteemed friends and admirers approached the gleaming
white stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts'
Opera House to speak glowing words or to sing her songs.
One of those people was Bush, the first president to so
honor an inductee, who said, ''What Norman Rockwell did with
paint, Loretta still does with her voice and guitar.''
Lynn — the fourth country artist to receive a Kennedy honor
since the award show's 1978 inception — was the first of
five honorees at yesterday's show, sharing the night with
''Godfather of Soul'' James Brown, actress Carol Burnett,
director Mike Nichols and violinist Itzhak Perlman.
Sissy Spacek — the actress who won an Academy Award for her
portrayal of Lynn in the movie Coal Miner's Daughter — was
the first to speak about Lynn.
''I loved being you,'' she said, directing her comments to
the box that held Lynn, President Bush and other honorees.
''I would have gone on being you for the rest of my life,
but everybody knows there's only one Loretta Lynn.''
The actress introduced a video that depicted Lynn's rise
from a mountain childhood to a place among American music's
superstars.
Then former President Bush spoke, joking that his lack of
musical talent precluded him from delivering ''a special
rendition of Who Was That Stranger?''
After that, it was on to the music. Reba McEntire was the
first to sing, knocking out a feisty version of You're
Lookin' At Country.
Next, Garth Brooks stepped out of his retirement to join
Trisha Yearwood for a take on Lynn's duet with Conway Twitty,
Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man.
Lyle Lovett offered a wry-but-right version of Lynn's Rated
X, even going so far as to repeat Lynn's spoken aside near
song's end, ''Why, us women don't have a chance.''
And then Patty Loveless, herself a cousin of Lynn and the
daughter of a miner, delivered Lynn's signature Coal Miner's
Daughter, singing of the Van Lear coal mine, of a mother who
read the Bible by a coal oil light, and of the sheer
exhaustion that accompanies such an existence.
The song was a reminder of the humble beginning that has
given way to one of music's most remarkable and important
careers, and of the way that, as former President Bush said,
''her timeless body of work helps us celebrate what this
country and her people are all about.''
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