Queen of America
She is the Tennessee girl with big dreams and bigger hair who became a global sensation. In a candid interview, Dolly Parton talks to Juliet Rieden about love, ambition and not having children and mourns singing partner Kenny Rogers.
She is the Tennessee girl with big dreams and bigger hair who became a global sensation. In a candid interview, Dolly Parton talks to
Juliet Rieden about love, ambition and not having children and mourns singing partner Kenny Rogers.
If you went looking for Dolly Parton’s finest musical moment, you might not have to go any further than the opening lines of 9 to 5, the theme tune she wrote for the ground-breaking 1980 comedy movie that later inspired a stage musical. “Tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen/ Pour myself a cup of ambition.”
Somehow Parton manages to bring a gritty positivity to the battle of the sexes while also being ironic, all to a thigh-slapping beat.
Talking to the song’s writer, I constantly catch sight of the razor-sharp mind and wry sense of humour, cloaked in those famous perky Southern vowels and big hair that powers this country music icon.
“That’s one of those lines as a songwriter when you just think, thank you, God. When I wrote that song, I was thinking about how you’re getting up and stumbling to the kitchen because that’s what you always do to pour a cup of coffee, and then all of a sudden that line just came to me. I got so excited. It’s all about your first cup trying to wake up, whether it’s coffee or tea or cola, to get you started and motivated. And I said, ‘Oh, my God, a cup of ambition!’”
When she played the song on set for her co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, they were blown away. “Lily and I had goosebumps,” Fonda has said.
“We knew it would become a huge hit and anthem.” It did. Today, 9 to 5 is a feminist anthem, a term Parton doesn’t identify with even though she says she’s “all for women”.
Since the film is about three female employees who plot to get even with their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss”, who, in Parton’s words later in the song, is one of those executives who, “just use your mind and they never give you credit”, Parton opts to pass the line off as a gift from a higher – male – power. “I was thinking, that must have come from somewhere else, because that’s one of my more clever lines, so I always try to credit that to those powers that be. I always say, ‘yes, thank you’ a lot for that one, up there,” she says.
POP CULTURE MOMENT
Parton does this undercutting a lot. It’s there, too, on the acclaimed podcast Dolly’s Parton’s America, a nine-part series looking at her life and times, the first of which examines the songwriter’s reluctance to call herself a feminist. And it’s there on the featurelength Netflix doco Here I Am – one of two new Parton productions with the streaming giant. The other is Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, an eight-episode anthology based on some of her most popular songs featuring Parton in cameo roles.
With those shows, she is clearly having yet another pop-culture moment.
Not that she’s one to crow about it. It’s not that she doubts her own powers, or that
“The Opry is like the song New York, New York – if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”
she’s afraid to put them on parade. Rather, it’s an inbuilt humility learnt from her pious upbringing that seems to click in whenever she feels she’s being too boastful. Her maternal grandfather – Jake Owens – was a Pentecostal preacher and she was raised on “love, spirituality and creativity” and, of course, that pride is a sin.
Parton says that her own morning cup of ambition involves a lot of stuff.
“I’m a very early riser and I’m a very spiritual-minded person. I like to start my day with my meditation and my prayers and my little ritual that I do to get myself anchored. So, I pour myself a cup of ambition in a lot of ways, through prayer and making little plans, communicating with God as I perceive him to be. I ask for guidance for the day so my cup runneth over with a lot of good things, and ambition is one of them.”
That ambition – and significant talent – is what catapulted Parton from poverty in the Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children born to Avie Lee Owens and tobacco farmer Robert “Lee” Parton, on to the lucrative Nashville country music scene. “We were very poor people, but everybody in those parts was poor. It’s more a personality trait back then than it was anything with me,” says Parton. “I was always a dreamer, talking about how I was going to be a star and sing on the Grand
Ole Opry. Other kids just thought, that’s farfetched – so I think it was more that people didn’t understand dreamers at the time.
“I was different in that I always thought that I was going to do something else and go somewhere else and be something else. I really wanted to do something more.”
SPECIAL FASCINATION
The Opry was a famous country music stage founded in 1925 as a weekly one-hour radio barn dance to showcase local music talent. It later morphed into a concert hall and it did indeed prove pivotal in launching Parton’s career.
“I got to sing on the Grand Ole Opry when I was about 10. For me, the Opry is like the song New York, New York – if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” says Parton. And at 13, she was introduced on the Opry stage by Johnny Cash.
She was on her way.
Music was like breathing in the Partons’ house, but for her it held a special fascination. It was part of her heart and soul, a means to express herself and to tell the stories swirling round her head. As the story goes, she composed her first song at age five. Little Tiny Tasseltop was all about the corn doll with corn-silk hair that her mum made for her. By seven, Parton was playing the guitar and starting to glimpse life beyond Locust Ridge.
“I always believed it early on because my Uncle Bill, one of my momma’s younger brothers, played guitar and he took a real interest in me because he saw how serious I was, and he dreamed of being in show business himself,” says Parton. “He would take me around to different places to sing and soon I was on a local radio show. I was about 10 when the crowd asked for an encore – I had to sing it over and over – and it was incredible. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, they like me, I’m going to be a star. This is what I’m going to do.’”
Parton says there was no doubt in her mind. “I felt that power of the energy that
“I was about 10 when the crowd asked for an encore and it was incredible. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, they like me, I’m going to be a star.’”
came from that surge of excitement, that thrill, of thinking that applause was for me. It was a tingling kind of feeling that gave me an inspiration and drive to think this is my calling.”
SIGNIFICANT ROLE MODELS
Although her family lived in a oneroom cabin, sharing beds and eking out a living, Parton says she never felt poor. “My mother always taught us that there was always somebody in worse shape than we were; no matter what we were going through, somebody had it harder, and somebody had less food than we did, somebody had less cover on their beds than we did. So she made us count blessings and realise that we were not poor. She always hated that word. She’d say, ‘We’re not poor people, we’re rich in things that matter, like loving, kindness, understanding and just togetherness.’”
The stability of her parents’ marriage was key to the Parton siblings’ upbringing, and while the children all played a part, raising each other, Avie and Lee were significant role models.
“I think the fact that Mom and Daddy stayed together was very, very helpful,” says Parton. “We didn’t have what some kids have where their parents are not there. We were always together and I think just knowing that gave us a certain kind of strength, too.”
I ask Parton if there was a secret to her parents’ marriage. “Well, love,” she replies laughing. “Mom and Daddy were really passionate. Even as they got older, they’d argue back and forth, but it was still passionate. They were cute and stayed with that childhood sweetheart kind of power and that kind of love. Obviously having one kid after another, they never lost their sex drive nor their passion for one another. We’d see them sneaking off
“My mother always taught us that there was always somebody in worse shape than we were, somebody had it harder.”
somewhere or walking down by the creekside, holding hands, Daddy with his arm around Mom’s waist, and we’d think, ‘Uh-oh, we’re going to have another baby before you know it.’
“My mom was also very jealous, because Daddy was very good looking. Other women found my dad very appealing because he had a great sense of humour and a magnetism about him. And so even if it was just Daddy being friendly, Mom would take it as Daddy flirting. She’d say, ‘Lee, now you didn’t have to talk that much’; ‘Lee, you don’t have to rag on her that much.’ Lee this, Lee that. He’d say, ‘Oh, Momma’s getting jealous.’ We thought that was cute, too, because we thought it was romantic.”
But beyond the romance, having 12 children over more than two decades would have been physically exhausting for Avie and taken a huge toll on her body.
“There’s only 18 months to two years’ difference in all of our ages. Momma was married at 15, she was 16 when she had my sister Willadeene, the first one, and she was 35 when she had the last one. She had one set of twins. Six of us were born at home in the mountains with my grandma, my aunts and my daddy to help. When she had problems, the local doctor, who was actually a missionary, would ride in on horseback to help. But Momma had one right after another and she never had vitamins, no follow-up care, no nothing. The last three children she had trouble with. Rachel and the twins just before that, so she had them prematurely and we almost lost the babies and almost lost Momma, too. That’s when the doctor said, no more. Her body was giving out. She got back on her feet after that, and she was strong. Until she died at 80, she was in pretty good health.”
FAITH AND POSITIVITY
Despite leaving home for Nashville as soon as she graduated from school, Parton remained very close to her mother. “I learnt faith and a positive attitude from Momma. She would quote those old sayings, like, ‘To thine own self be true’, which to me is one of the greatest sayings ever. If you really tear that apart and analyse it, it means know who you are. One saying that I made up is, ‘Find out who you are and do it on purpose.’ Just know what you’re about, who you are, accept yourself as you are.
“Momma always taught us to love people, to try to be caring and giving and understanding, to try to put ourselves in other people’s places. She said everybody feels just like you, everybody’s tears are wet, everybody’s blood is red, everybody’s heart is soft and tender.”
Parton didn’t want to leave home, she loved her family, but felt compelled to grab on to her chance for a bigger life. “I had a drive and an inner compass that was pulling me toward it. I knew I could always go back home if I didn’t make it. I always had that as a safety net. I prayed every day that God would bring all the right things and all the right people into my life, and take all the wrong things and people out.”
One of those people was her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, whom she met on her first day in Nashville outside the Wishy Washy laundromat. Dean has since said, “My first thought was I’m gonna marry that girl”, which is pretty much what happened. “I left two boyfriends back in East Tennessee and I thought, the last thing I want is a boyfriend. I don’t want anything to slow me down. I was just going to get a grand start on my career before I got caught up with any boys again. But I met Carl the first day I got to Nashville and just fell head over heels in love with him,” says Parton, chuckling.
“We’ve been together 56 years in May – married 54 years and we dated for two years before that, so, my goodness, I think it was meant to be, I really do.”
Dean never took to Parton’s music – he’s more of a hard rock, Led Zeppelin fan – though he has inspired many of her songs.
And he rarely goes to see her perform, but in many ways this has helped Parton thrive. “He certainly didn’t slow me up; he gave me freedom to work and gave me strength and inspiration. He gave me a safe place to come home to, a safe harbour,” says Parton.
NOT HAVING CHILDREN
Coming from such a big family, having children was always something Parton imagined she would do, but this was one thing not even she could make happen. “In the early days, we thought we would have children. We didn’t do anything about having them or not having them, and when my career started coming along pretty well, I thought, well, I don’t need to have them right now, so I took birth control pills. I came off those because they were causing me problems, but we never did get pregnant … Then I had some problems with my apparatus later on and life went on. I had to have surgery, which meant I then couldn’t have kids.”
Yet in typical Parton style there are no regrets. “I think it was meant to be and I say that because I’ve brought several of my younger brothers and sisters from the mountains to live with me not long after Carl and I got married, and all of them went to school here; we raised them like our own kids. Then when they got married and had kids, their kids are like our grandkids.”
Parton feels it’s all part of a divine plan, especially since not having her own children inspired her to set up her Imagination Library, a book-gifting charity that sends free books to preschool children all over the US. “I always say when talking about my literature programme, God didn’t mean for me to have kids, so everybody’s kids can be mine.”
Parton says that at 74, “I feel wiser and I know I’m older. I never think about being old unless I’m sick, when my husband’s always quick to remind me, ‘Well, it’s your age.’ I don’t have time to get old. I tell him
I may not be as young as I used to be, but I refuse to get any older, even though I may in time. If I want a little nip and tuck here and there, I’ll go do it. Anything that makes me feel a little better about myself. I think everybody should, if you’ve got the nerve and the money to do it, and the desire.”
Her glamour look – the wigs, the acrylic nails, the skintight rhinestone studded outfits and high camp make-up – are all part of her image, famously inspired by the “streetwalkers” whose sparkly look she admired as a teenager. But it’s also part of her mystique. “I’ve always thought that a certain bit of what magic I may have had in the minds of people was based on the fact that I look completely artificial. But I am completely real as a human being.”
BEDROCK OF HER SUCCESS
Parton seems to come from a bygone era, from those Smoky Mountains of her childhood and a country music background that is also part of conservative bible-belt America. Yet beyond those famous ballads, which are the bedrock of her global success, there are many layers to Parton. Her dogged control of her career is impressive, especially in an industry where so many fall prey to unscrupulous managers. Her creation of a theme park – Dollywood – which not only supports her view of the world and builds her brand, but also provides tourism and employment in Tennessee, has proven to be shrewd. And now Parton is everywhere. As well as the podcast and TV shows, 9 to 5 the Musical, which was due to open in Australia in May, has been packing them in in London. It’s been a timely revival. She says, “With the #MeToo movement last year and the previous year, the issues around women in the workplace have started up again and needed to be addressed.”
“A certain bit of what magic I may have had in the minds of people was based on the fact that I look completely artificial. But I’m completely real.”