Country star Jake Owen on Loretta Lynn: 'An incredible life ... a lasting legacy'

Jake Owen was still in a bit of shock over the news he heard an hour before he arrived at the Timuquana Country Club early Tuesday afternoon to play a round of golf with Jim Furyk, the host of this week's Constellation Furyk & Friends.

Loretta Lynn, the First Lady of country music with a career that spanned more than 60 years, passed away early Tuesday morning at the age of 90, at her home in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.

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“I was kind of surprised when I found out all this, so I hate to hear it,” said Owen, the headliner in Tuesday’s Furyk Foundation Concert at Daily’s Place. “She had an incredible life and she’s left a lasting legacy and impact on a lot of us [in country music].”

Owen, 41, recorded his first album in 2006, 46 years after Lynn’s first hit, “Honky Tonk Girl.” She grew up in poverty, “a Coal Miner’s Daughter,” she sang in one of her hits that was later turned into a best-selling book and a box-office hit movie.

Lynn married at the age of 15, had six children by the time she was 32 and never stopped championing the challenges women face with motherhood and marriage

Despite their age difference, Owen knew her personally. He lives 50 miles from Lynn’s home and bought a house from her.

“She has a large family where I live in Kingston Springs and I’d see her a lot there,” he said. “I knew she hadn’t been doing too well. She will always be revered and more importantly, she was a great community member.”

Lynn recorded 60 albums, 10 of which went to No. 1, and she had 16 No. 1 singles. Owen said her subject matter – women coping with marriage, divorce, children, cheating husbands and the women they cheated with – was controversial, shattered barriers and was sometimes banned from radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s.

But he said all the great ones create from the heart and don't worry who it might offend.

“When you look back at the greatest artists of all time, they did the same thing,” he said. “They kind of kicked doors down and did things their own way. For the way she grew up and what she came to be, as successful as she was and as honest as she was as well, was pretty impressive.”

Owen, probably like many Loretta Lynn fans, was hard-pressed to name his favorite song from her catalog.

“I don’t know,” he said. “They’re all pretty great.”

Contact Garry Smits at gsmits@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @GSmitter

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jake Owen praises Loretta Lynn for her 'incredible life, lasting legacy'