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Van Lear Rose (Loretta Lynn)(WORD)
Van Lear Rose (Loretta Lynn)(PDF)
Van Lear Rose (Chris Hill's version)(WORD)
Van Lear Rose (Chris Hill's version)(PDF)
At the BUG Jam on November 16, 2022, Chris Hill will lead us in his cover of the song - you can play along with his video below. Thanks Chris!
To play with the Loretta Lynn recording, use the Loretta Lynn songsheet.
Loretta Lynn and her daughter Patsy Lynn Russell wrote this as a tribute to Lynn's mother, Clara Webb. "Mommy was part Cherokee Indian," Lynn wrote in Honky Tonk Girl: My Life In Lyrics. "She was so pretty, with beautiful black hair that just curled and the loveliest skin. When I was little I wanted to look just like her, but I never could be as pretty as my mommy." Van Lear is the Kentucky coal-mining community where Lynn's childhood home in Butcher Hollow (or Butcher Holler) was located. As the story goes, the titular “Van Lear Rose” is a nickname that Loretta Lynn’s dad, one Ted Webb, had for her mother, whose name was Clara Marie. The “Van Lear” part of that moniker is actually a shoutout to the community where Loretta grew up, as in the locality where Ted and Clara met. And the “rose” part is symbolic of the affection and physical admiration the former had for the latter.
The album, Van Lear Rose, is the forty-second solo studio album by American country music singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn. It was released on April 27, 2004, by Interscope Records. Produced by Jack White, it is considered by many to be one of Loretta’s best records and resulted in a comeback moment for the country legend, who was 72-years-old at the time, working with the 28-year-old Jack White. The album was widely praised by critics, peaking at No. 2 on the US Billboard Top Country Albums chart and at No. 24 on the Billboard 200, the most successful crossover album of Lynn's 60-year career at that point. Released on Interscope Records, which is a division of the Universal Music Group, the album Van Lear Rose went on to be nominated for five Grammy Awards, winning two of them for Best Country Album, and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “Portland, Oregon” with Jack White.