Crystal Gayle talks about ‘Brown Eyes,’ her sister Loretta Lynn and her floor-length hair

"Loretta thought I should be different. She knew the business and that we would be compared," said Gayle, who returns to Minneapolis on Sunday at the Parkway Theater. "People have to know you for you."

Nineteen years younger, Gayle grew up in different circumstances than her sister. Their coal miner father had developed black lung disease in Kentucky, and the family relocated to Wabash, Ind., after mom got a job there in a restaurant. Gayle, the youngest of eight children and the only one born in a hospital, was 4 at the time of the move.

Growing up in an urban environment in a town of 12,000 or so, Gayle heard all kinds of music but naturally gravitated toward a country career, especially after filling in for her ill sister at the Grand Ole Opry at age 16.

"He was sending it out to California for Shirley to hear it and I think Toni Tennille," Gayle said from Nashville. "When Allen heard it the night before they were going to send it, he said, 'You're not going to send that song anywhere.'"

"That's the first take you hear on the radio. I did try to re-sing it and it didn't work. Allen put strings on it; that was the only thing added later."

Her husband/manager Bill Gatzimos, who has known her since high school, tends to call her Brenda at home and Crystal when talking business. Theirs is one of the longest marriages in country music — since 1971 — right behind Brenda Lee's and Dolly Parton's.

She became popular enough to star in two CBS-TV specials in 1980, and two years later she took a detour by teaming with gravelly voiced pop singer Tom Waits on the soundtrack to the Francis Ford Coppola movie "One From the Heart," starring Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest.

"Tom Waits was taking a train to L.A. and he heard me sing 'Cry Me a River.' He thought that was the type of voice he wanted for the soundtrack," Gayle recalled. "It worked because it was so totally opposite in our voices."

Her most recent album, 2019′s "You Don't Know Me: Classic Country," includes her renditions of "Hello Walls" and "Walkin' After Midnight" as well as a 1969 demo sung with Loretta Lynn of "I've Cried (The Blue Right Out of My Eyes)."

"I wash it in the shower, let it dry, if I'm not performing, it's [worn] up a lot because it does get caught in everything," explained Gayle, 73, noting her hair is now shorter, somewhere between her knees and ankles. "I'm lucky to have healthy hair. I always attribute it to my American Indian blood, Cherokee. All the girls in our family, they could have long hair to the ground if they wanted to but I was the only one crazy enough to do it. It is a lot of upkeep. Once you get into the rhythm of it, it's OK."

Her hair has its own history. Like the time in junior high when she gave herself a perm and "messed it up." So she went to a hairdresser, who cut it extremely short, which upset Gayle's mother. "My hair looked like Midge, Barbie's friend," she said referring to the popular dolls.

When her career was taking off, Gayle was encouraged to get the au courant "big hair," but she couldn't afford a hairdresser to travel with her. "I could wash it and let it dry and hit the stage. That's how it became long."

Her hair presents challenges. For instance, she wears it up when she cleans. Sometimes, though, she gets headaches from wearing it up. So she lets it down. But she's not complaining.