Dolly Parton on style, stardom and sexists: 'I know how to push men off and get the hell away'
You don’t, I suspect, say no to Dolly Parton, which is why the roll call of names on her new rock album is so ridiculous. She sings Let it Be with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with Mick Fleetwood on drums and Peter Frampton on guitar; she has Debbie Harry and Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford. And Elton John. It’s not just the ageing greats – Lizzo is there too, on Stairway to Heaven. The album, Rockstar, Parton’s 49th, started with her inauguration to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which she initially felt unworthy of because she didn’t consider herself an artist in that genre. And so, at the age of 77, Parton became a rock star.
We meet in an expensive hotel in London where Parton has taken over the top floor. It is busy with assistants, bodyguards and publicists, though when I’m shown into a room where Parton, queenly, is to receive me – everything timed to the second – we are left alone. Not remotely grand, she is warm and funny, skilled at deflecting awkward questions with a joke. She is also luminous, as sometimes very famous people are, but with her it’s something else. Later, I realise it’s gratitude. “I’ve been grateful for every good thing ever happened,” she says. “God has always blessed me, surrounded me with good people. I pray that every day God will bring all the right things, all the right people, into my life.”
Recording these classic rock songs – the playlist is inspired largely by the favourites of Parton’s husband of nearly 50 years, Carl, “a real rock’n’roll freak” – has been “a big deal for me, and I felt very responsible. I didn’t want to maim them up, and I tried really hard to sing them well and stay as true as I could to the form, but with my voice.” Her version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird is, I think, even better than the original. Her roar of freedom, when you know the legend of her life story – the impoverished girl who grew up in the backwoods of Tennessee, defied all expectations and grew up to be the all-conquering country star – is made for it.
As well as the album, Parton is releasing a new book, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, which documents her life and career in clothes and costume (next, she is planning the small matter of launching a TV network). “I’ve been at this so long, I’ve worn some of the most bizarre things – my hairdos have always been so out there,” she says. “At the time you think you look good, then you look back on it, like, what was I thinking?” She laughs, but the book is wonderful, documenting the dresses made from sacks she wore as a child, and her “coat of many colours”, sewn by her mother from fabric scraps, to the most lavish stage costumes. Blond hair that gets bigger and bigger, like a cake rising; jumpsuits in every colour; dresses weighed down with rhinestones and pearls.
Parton has always been sure of her look, even when she was young, a look – as she has said before – modelled on the “town tramp”, a local woman who wore high heels and tight skirts, who Parton would look out for on trips into town. “She was flamboyant. She had bright red lipstick, long red fingernails. She had high-heeled shoes, little floating plastic goldfish in the heels of them, short skirts, low-cut tops, and I just thought she was beautiful. When people would say, ‘She ain’t nothing but trash,’ I would always say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m gonna be when I grow up.’”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/09/dolly-parton-on-style-stardom-and-sexists-rockstar-behind-seams-my-life-in-rhinestones
Terrific article. Dolly is one of my all-time heroes.
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Just a little kid, I watched Porter Wagner with my Mom on our little black and white TV. Dolly had that angel's voice, and was just beautiful, with her big blonde hair and great dresses.
And what a great songwriter! Not many can compare.
