When Loretta Lynn says that Patsy Cline was like a sister to her, she's not kidding. As in, Patsy Cline taught Loretta Lynn how to drive, how to shave her legs, and how to wear sexy lingerie.

Lynn's friendship with Cline is well known, even to the artists' most casual fans: it was movingly portrayed in the film Coal Miner's Daughter, and Lynn says Beverly D'Angelo got Cline just right. "Beverly was so great at playing that part," Lynn writes in her new book. "Too great. I wanted to run out of that place as fast as I could. I wanted it to be me and Patsy together on that stage for real."

As much as Lynn has written and spoken about her friendship with Cline, it's still a gift to have her new book Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline (buy now). At 88, Lynn poignantly writes, "I reckon I'll see her again, soon enough." The new book, written with Lynn's daughter who is also Cline's namesake — Patsy Lynn Russell — captures the warm and supportive friendship Lynn and Cline enjoyed from 1961 until Cline's death in 1963.

The two women, Lynn reminds us, are the same age: both born in 1932. When they met in 1961, Cline was one of the biggest stars in country music; Lynn was still relatively fresh out of Appalachia, though she'd been singing for several years. That she idolized Cline goes almost without saying; not only was Cline one of America's most talented vocalists, she was a trailblazer for women in country music.

The story of how they met is just like it was shown in the movie, writes Lynn...except that Cline's husband didn't actually sneak beer into the hospital where the star was recovering from a near-deadly car accident. ("Charlie mighta snuck in some home-cooking from Patsy's momma.") Cline summoned Lynn to the hospital after the latter dedicated "I Fall to Pieces" to the recovering singer on a radio broadcast from a Nashville record shop.

The two women bonded instantly and became close friends, united by their shared experiences and feisty sense of humor. Cline became a mentor to Lynn, like the cool kid who takes you under her wing when you start at a new school. In another legendary story recounted in the book, a group of Lynn's fellow female artists on the Grand Ole Opry got jealous of her talent and started conspiring to force her off the show.

In response, Cline — the clique's undisputed queen bee — was invited to a "Loretta b---h meeting," as in a meeting to b---h about Loretta Lynn. Cline accepted...and then showed up with a guest. "Hey everybody!" she cried. "Y'all know my friend, Loretta?" That broke down the barriers, and Lynn says she's remained close with "all those strong women" to this day.

Although Lynn briefly sketches her biography and Cline's for the uninitiated, Me & Patsy focuses on Cline as a person, and you'll have a new appreciation for both her music (she agonized over whether she was getting "too pop") and her significance in music history. She loved to entertain, Lynn writes, and had a similarly relationship to her husband: loving, but not infinitely patient when his eyes and hands went wandering.

Lynn writes about locking a woman in a broom closet when she made a move on Cline's man (the woman turned out to be the wife of an important music executive, but Lynn has no regrets); and kicking Faron Young in the leg when he slapped Cline's behind. "That'll teach ya!" crowed Cline. "Don't mess with Loretta!" Lynn's fury was inspired in part by how supportive Cline was when the red-haired rising star opened up after Bill Monroe pinched her own behind, "hard." She writes, "Bill was a dirty ole man, plain and simple. Being talented didn't make him trustworthy or a gentleman."

One of the book's revelations is just how devastated Cline was by that 1961 car accident. Not only did she have to recover her physical strength to perform and record again (Lynn was in the studio when Cline came in on crutches to record "Crazy"), she was deeply troubled by a visible scar running down her forehead.

In one hilarious chapter, Cline hires a professional makeup artist to try a new look, with a result so outrageously bad that the artist (who showed up drunk) ends up literally running out Cline's front door as the icon threatens to "kick her ass." In one of the book's most touching moments, though, Cline breaks down in tears after her daughter runs screaming from the star in a wig she uses to try to hide the scar. "I wish I would wake up from this bad dream," Cline whispers into the mirror.

Eventually, writes Lynn, "Patsy got to doing her makeup so good that even with all the scarring on her forehead she looked like a movie star. She'd ask, 'How do I look? How's my brow?' And I told her the God's honest truth: 'You look beautiful.'"

Lynn recalls hearing the shocking news of Cline's death in an airplane crash, and how a week after the funeral Lynn found Cline's widower Charlie lying on the floor of their music room, surrounded by empty beer cans and listening to Patsy's then-new album over and over. She laid down next to him and they cried together.

The author, of course, survived and thrived. She writes at that the all-star concert to mark her 87th birthday last year, the moment that "hit me like a ton a bricks" was when Brandi Carlile sang "She's Got You." Both Cline and Lynn had hits with the song, which includes the lyrics, "I've got your memory/ or has it got me/ I don't really know/ but I know it won't let me be."

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Upcoming Rock and Roll Book Club picks

Tune in to The Current at 8:30 a.m. (Central) every Wednesday morning to hear Jay Gabler and Jill Riley talk about a new book. Also, find Jay's reviews online.

June 10: Cult Musicians: 50 Progressive Performers You Need to Know by Robert Dimery (buy now)

June 17: Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest by Ian Zack (buy now)

June 24: Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music Broke the Binary by Sasha Geffen (buy now)

July 1: America the Band: An Authorized Biography by Jude Warne