Crystal Gayle

Crystal Gayle was born in Kentucky in 1951 and is the younger sister of country singer Loretta Lynn.   Their father was Ted Webb a miner, who had a small farm and there were several children in her family.
 Crystal was born Brenda Gail Webb, and chose Crystal Gayle as a stage name.   Gayle was from her second name and Crystal was from a brand of hamburgers. 

When she was a child, the family moved to Indiana where her father ran a small store.  He died a few years later of black lung disease, which often affected miners.   When Loretta began her career as a country singer, Crystal began to sing and play in her band, and thought of becoming a singer herself.  She learned to play guitar and in 1970 she signed with Decca Records.  Since there was already a singer called Brenda Lee, she chose her stage name… In 1971, she married…to Bill Gatzimos, her high-school sweetheart.

She tended to follow her sister’s country style but within a few years, she began to move towards middle of the road country pop, which suited her better. She had a big hit with the ballad “Don’t It make my brown Eyes blue...” and began to establish herself as independent of her sister’s kind of music.  She toured worldwide and had another huge hit with “Talking in your Sleep”… In the early 1980s she recorded songs for the soundtrack of Coppola’s film, “One from the Heart”, with Tom Waits.  She had striking good looks, with long dark hair which for many years was never cut....

 By the 1990s like many older country stars, she found that the country radio stations were less interested in them… However, like many country singers, she has worked as an actress and recorded theme songs for TV shows and is still working.  She has produced albums of songs for children.  In 2016, she became a member of the Grand Old Opry.