I remember where I was when Princess Diana died– Madison, Wisconsin, in my kitchen in the house I grew up in. I remember where I was when Prince died– Rochester, Minnesota, in a hotel lobby near the Mayo Clinic. My Prince Story I will always remember where I was when Dolly died too.
Maybe you have your own list of iconic legends, who seem far from dead after they’re gone? Some people simply seem larger than life, almost blessed with a journey that’s incredibly influential, and sadly always ends tragically. How could their story end any other way? To have them gone feels like it causes a shift, a flood of massive proportions that swipes over the surface of the earth and grabs the attention of everyone. The balance is off without them. Natural disasters that follow within days seem oddly connected, no matter if you believe in that sort of thing or not. It’s hard to make sense of either type of event, so we have a choice– Press pause, or press play. What would Dolly do?
When Dolly Parton died, I was sitting in my cubicle at work. I heard a co-worker read a text she received out loud. I didn’t even flinch. I did check my own phone to confirm. It’s amazing how quickly news travels. I believe that I recently prepared myself for her death. It was nothing more than simply realizing that we are all going to die some day, and that when she died it would be a loss of great magnitude for our culture, country and world. However, I also knew that she would come as close to not ever dying as I believe a human can possibly come. Her stories, and songs and influence will live on and keep her alive. She made sure of it.
The first time I heard a Dolly Parton song, I was in the front passenger seat of a truck that was being driven by my friend’s mom. I’m not sure where we were going exactly. If I had to guess, maybe something like a girl scout camp for the weekend, driving up a hill out in the country. If I imagine it now, I add mountains in the distance like I saw in Nashville, Tennessee decades later. I know there weren’t any because we lived in the Midwest, but it seems fitting to place the backdrop in my memory, so I will. It wasn’t any song in particular that I recall. Gosh, she had so many! But I do remember not being sure I knew what to think of Dolly Parton then. We didn’t listen to Dolly when I was growing up in my childhood home. I had a feeling like country music wasn’t quite my thing, although I loved folk music and banjo and guitar that my dad would sing and play with me. I think I just had an impression that she was out of my scope of what I’d listen to at the time, something that only some adults listened to. My friend’s mom smoked, she had a big car, and sometimes seemed a bit tough and rough around the edges. If she listened to country, and Dolly was on the station, I associated her music with that.
My thoughts about Dolly changed after I started writing music myself. Of course, I’d seen her in movies like Steel Magnolias, but it made me cry my eyes out. So, I loved it and her character, but limited my viewing. I watched a Netflix series called Dolly Partons’ Coat of Many Colors about her life growing up in the Appalacian mountains of Tennessee. It sparked my curiosity into her life and music further. I connected to the story because I was bullied as a child just like she was. My Bullies and Boobies Stories SearchForDolly Broadway Audition
Her song “Coat of Many Colors” became something I studied when I started learning to become a songwriter myself. I saw how she could take a personal story and turn it into a song, in a very unique and somewhat unconventional way. It was unlike any other music I’d heard before. It was sometimes even sad, and hopeful all in one fell swoop. I realized, Dolly Parton was more than a songwriter, she was a fantastic story teller. She wrote a book called Dolly Parton Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. I read all about the making of and inspiration behind all of her most popular songs. It’s a huge coffee table book, and I savored the stories as I could hear her voice speaking to me through the words. I began to feel like I knew Dolly.
Just after the Covid-19 pandemic, I began recording cover songs, including a handful of Dolly’s songs.
River Of Happiness
With Bells On
Wildflowers
Coat Of Many Colors
I Will Always Love You
They say never meet your heroes, but I feel like on some level I most certainly have met Dolly. I also got another huge coffee table book called Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. It was all about the costumes and her wardrobe over the years. It detailed how her style came to be, and how being blonde and big chested shaped her persona in a way that she found her own way to control. She embraced her differences and qualities without shame or needing to feel that she needed an explanation. She reminded me of my grandma Mary Jean who would openly say how she believed she thought she needed makeup, and that there was nothing wrong with that. She liked to look nice and “put together” all of the time. She taught me to value being the best version of myself possible. She helped me through the awkward stages of my young development, when I was teased for my appearance and didn’t look like my sisters, who I sometimes compared myself to. I had a bigger chest like she did, and like Dolly did. At times I wanted to look different, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. I learned from them, that it’s how you carry yourself that matters. Keep your chin up, and chest up too for that matter. It makes you feel a whole lot more confident.
Besides reading about Dolly and listening to her music, as I worked my way through her books and catalogue of songs, I also listened to Dolly Parton’s America. It’s a podcast that captures Dolly’s voice and story in interviews, and also the sounds of the location in the mountains where she grew up. I felt like I was right there when I listed to that, along for the tour and immersing myself.
It seems strange to realize I’ve never met Dolly, but also very simple to feel like I haven’t lost her. She has left us so much to remember her by. Dolly Parton is the closest secular person, who I can think of from my lifetime, who I’d consider a saint. I know she’d hate that I say that. She never liked how people would sort of worship her. She’d say “I’m no saint, believe me.” But, her ability to connect, and inspire, and be gracious, and thankful and generous was truly on a scale that should be noted as extraordinary. She is not a political figure. She is not a religious figure. She is simply, Dolly– A one-of-kind, that will leave her mark like a butterfly kiss on your cheek, for years and years to come.
If I could wish anything to come from her passing, it would be that more of us would do like Dolly would do– connect instead of divide, love instead of hate, give instead of take, and create instead of cancel.
I remember hearing Dolly say that the word “dog” spelled backwards is God. She loved animals and her dogs. The unconditional love of a dog was something she brought attention too, and was another thing I whole heartedly connected with. My dog Savannah, who died last year, had the same birthday as Dolly– January 19th. “I will always love” knowing that.
Did you know that Dolly Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You”? Yup. Made popular by Whitney Houston, in the film The Bodygaurd, Elvis wanted to buy it from her and she said, “nope.” Dolly was also a business woman, and I’ve always admired her for that as well. She told of how she recalls hearing the song on the radio for the first time and how proud she was of the incredible way Huston brought it into the world. Dolly had written the song after leaving Porter Wagoner’s show, after she had just told him she was moving on. She’s talked about their complicated relationship, that time, and how it led to the song. When she was headed out the door, Wagoner basically said to go home and write a song about it. So she did.
Last year, I auditioned to be a part of the new Dolly Parton musical on Broadway. I chose “Coat of Many Colors.” Annie’s Broadway Audition It was an exciting moment to do something I’ve always wanted to do, and followed by a trip to New York City for the first time as well. New York City Adventure Stories
I’ll leave you with a picture of my new calendar/daily journal. It makes me happy and feels like something Dolly would do. I got it the week before Dolly passed away, and I love it.
