Loretta Lynn on the time Ernest Tubb gave up his Grand Ole Opry spot for her

Editor's note: This story originally ran in 2020. It was updated following the death of Loretta Lynn on Oct. 4, 2022.

Sixty-two years ago this October, a coal miner's daughter from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, stepped on stage at the Ryman Auditorium and began a lifelong relationship with a storied country music institution.

Loretta Lynn — weeks removed from kissing the concrete outside the Mother Church of Country Music on her first night in Nashville — made her Grand Ole Opry debut Oct. 15, 1960.

"I was so excited, I don't remember singing," Lynn told The Tennessean in 2014. "But I remember (tapping) my foot. Isn't that weird? I went off stage and thought, 'I forgot to listen to myself sing!'"

Obituary:Loretta Lynn, country music's iconic 'Coal Miner's Daughter,' dead at 90

It wasn't until after the show that Lynn said she learned Ernest Tubb offered up his spot on the Saturday night Opry — one of the hottest tickets in country radio — for her debut performance.

Tubb was one of the first in Nashville to support the "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" newcomer, booking her regularly for the Midnight Jamboree at his downtown record shop.

More: Loretta Lynn on her timeless friendship with Patsy Cline: 'I want us to be together forever'

"That was something for him to do that because he didn’t know me," Lynn said in a 2022 interview with The Tennessean. "And he put me in the Ernest Tubb Record Shop just about every Saturday night. Ernest Tubb helped me a lot."

A flourishing creative partnership with Tubb and Lynn would soon follow, the two recording regular duets, including a 1967 album, "Singin' Again."

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And it wouldn't nearly be the last time Opry listeners heard Lynn sing. She'd soon perform on the show that made country music famous "something like seventeen times," as told in her book, "Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline."

Nearly two years after her debut, on Sept. 25, 1962, Lynn became a full-time Opry member.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Grand Ole Opry: The time Ernest Tubb gave up his spot for Loretta Lynn