Loretta Lynn opened her set at the Keswick Theater Friday night singing, "They don't make 'em like my daddy anymore," and the same goes for the country high priestess herself.
Miranda Lambert and Gretchen Wilson, who covered Lynn on the 2010 tribute album Coal Miner's Daughter, may have built on her take-no-prisoners persona, but they don't have Lynn's coiled grace, the killing blow delivered with a dainty smile.
At 80, she's physically frail - she cancelled a Philadelphia show in March 2011 for emergency knee surgery - and sometimes seemed to lose her way on stage. (As her eight-piece band cranked up one song, she murmured, "I ate too much supper.") Although on stage for barely an hour, she spent two songs of that having a sit-down while her band played on without her.
