Even talented songwriters such as Dolly Parton did it. On her IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS (WHEN TIMES WERE BAD) album Dolly covered the following songs “It’s My Time”, “Harper Valley P.T.A.”,”Carroll County Accident” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”

I have covers of Loretta songs by virtually every female singer of the era and they all did a pretty good job on them because they were not trying to be Loretta clones – you see more of that by younger singers trying to do Loretta.

Also remember this – television has been the great leveling force in helping eradicate or smooth out many of the more extreme regional accents in this county – everyone tries to speak like Dan Rather orr Brian Williams. Many of the “girl singers” of the 1960s and 1970s came from the same part of the country as Loretta and her accent was their accent as well, so they might sound like Loretta but it wasn’t because they were consciously trying to do so – it came naturally

Yes, that’s basically what I was referring to. The reason I said Loretta is hard to cover is because I’ve heard relatively few who were able to adapt Lynn’s material to their own distinct vocal styles as successfully as Jones does here. You’ve probably heard more Loretta covers than I have though.

Thanks for getting a discussion rolling on this post, by the way ;)

I disgree that Loretta Lynn is hard to cover. She is hard for disco singers, rock singers, rappers, hip hoppers and metal singers to cover. Roots-based singers (meaning blues, R&B, country and bluegrassers) usually don’t have much problem with her material unless they consciously try to be Loretta clones, in which case they come across as sounding phony