Dolly Parton: country’s consummate tale

Barbara Walters interviewed approximately three zillion people, but when I asked about her favorite, she didn’t hesitate.
It was Dolly Parton.
Yes, Dolly — who died today (Aug. 25) at 80 — had the three elements of great interviewees: They need to be open and unfiltered, of course, but they also need to have given some real thought to their life. And they need to have a great life to recount.
Parton (shown here) had them all, as people will keep reminding us. At 10 p.m. today, CBS has a special about her. The news channels, I’m sure, have much more. Search the streamers and you’ll find movies and dramas based on her songs, on Netflix and Peacock. You’ll also find “9 to 5,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Rhinestone,” “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and more.
And her own story is forever worth recalling. For that, let’s turn to “Country Music” (Knopf, 2019), which Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns wrote, based on their brilliant PBS series.
Parton, they wrote, was the fourth of 12 kids in a family at the foothills of the Smoky Mountain. It was a musical bunch that performed at all the weddings, funerals and parties — gospel, bluegrass and old-style country.
At 5, she wrote her first song; at 10, she was making $20 a week on a Knoxville TV show … which her family couldn’t see until she bought a TV. On the day after high school graduation, she packed a cardboard suitcase and took a bus to Nashville.
She was a waitress who sang once a week on Ralph Emery’s radio show. Once, she brought her laundry; afterward, Emery dropped her off at the Wishy-Washy laundry … where she first met her husband-to-be, Carl Dean.
After three years, she was hired by Porter Wagoner, who propelled her to the spotlight. When he became too controlling, she broke away … but professed her fondness with the song, “I Will Always Love You.”
Under new management, Parton molded a crossover sound. The music sometimes leaned toward pop, but there was country in her voice, her soul and, especially, her look.
“This is a country girl’s idea of glamour,” she explained. “I wanted to have beautiful clothes. I wanted to wear makeup. I’d pattern my look after the town trollop in our hometown, because I thought she was beautiful.”
Or, as she put it more succinctly: “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.”
Beneath that glitter, Duncan and Burns wrote, was “one of the savviest artists in the business.”
That has particularly been on display in recent years. The former $20-a-week kid seemed to find fresh ways to market herself. There were the TV movies and specials …. duet and gospel albums … an expensive book … fresh emphasis on her Dollyland amusement park … and more.
Remember that line in “9 to 5” that went “tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen/pour myself a cup of ambition”? Sure enough, this year Parton came out with a coffee called Ambition.
She seemed to be on a fresh ascendancy. Then, after acknowledging kidney troubles, she died at 80. As her song goes, we will always love her.