Martina McBride: Loretta Lynn Was 'Our Northern light'

Martina McBride took some time to remember her good friend and country music icon Loretta Lynn on TODAY on Wednesday.

One day after Lynn's family revealed she died "peacefully" in her Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, home, Lynn's friend and fellow country music star McBride, 56, recalled what a great "trailblazer" she was in the music industry.

"There's just there's nobody like her and there never will be anybody like her," McBride told Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb on TODAY on Oct. 5.

"She was really the trailblazer when you think about it. She was the first woman to write her own songs and at a time when that just didn't happen ... She wrote about herself, but in that process, wrote about what so many women were going through and she was really the voice of so many women who didn't have a voice at that time."

In 1995, McBride received one of country music's highest honors, a membership in the Grand Ole Opry. She was inducted by none other than Lynn herself.

McBride remembers that Lynn, who died at 90, acted as a mentor to her and other women in the country music scene. That generosity will forever be "a part of her legacy" that she leaves behind, she said.

"She was like our northern light, like our northern star. She was always there, always true, always Loretta," McBride said. "And I feel like part of her legacy is us carrying that on and being a mentor and a friend to any new artists coming up, any new, especially female artists coming up. She was always so supportive, and so kind and so available to all of us."

McBride also said that it was always "astonishing" to her that Lynn considered her a friend.

"You never believe that you're going to grow up and become friends with your idol and your mentor," she said. "So, it was really special, our relationship, and I miss her."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com