There's a reason people who like Dolly Parton rarely just say: I love her songs. They say: I love Dolly, it's like you're talking about an aunt, a godmother, someone who was there to guard your heart while someone else thinks about whether you've eaten, whether you have shoes and a coat... Parents are sometimes boring, and an aunt is always just a heart.
My generation discovered Dolly somewhere around 2004 when The White Stripes covered it Jolene. They found out about Johnny Cash a little earlier because he processed Hurt Nine Inch Nails. My initiation rite happened earlier, much earlier... It was the late eighties, a dry summer, an old house with thick walls from the beginning of the last century. Dad took out a record player from somewhere and let us sort through the records. A cover completely enchanting for a five-year-old girl: playing cards, with two kings and two queens on them. Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Brenda Lee and her, doll-like. Too young to know English and to understand that her name means just that - doll - I just stared in fascination at her icy blonde hair (later I'll try to wear it myself, but Dolly is a smart woman, she wore wigs), at a row of teeth just a shade whiter than her hair and, for today's trends, an unimaginable amount of black eyeliner on her eyes (I've never dared to do that).
The record player was a no-go zone for kids, so I asked my dad to play the record. I want to believe that the record needle fell on purpose on the duet between Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson Happy birthday baby!... And so, at the first bars, I fell in love all at once with the blues, and with country, and with Dolly, and with Willie (God save us Willie Nelson).
photo: ap photo...
THE SMARTEST "STUPID BLONDE"
These days clips with the wittiest statements of Dolly Parton are circulating on the net. The world mourns because she is gone and that is exactly what she deserved. Personally, my favorite is the clip in which, when asked if it bothers her to be called a stupid blonde, she answers: "No, because I'm not stupid, and be sure that I'm not a blonde either." Somehow it builds on another one, in which she is asked how long it takes her to do her hair: "How do I know, I'm never present when they do it."
For decades, she played the character of a petite, bubbly blonde very well (she herself will say, a bit "slutty"), and under the wig, sequins and heavy make-up was hidden not only enormous talent, but also bloody hard work. Estimates say that she has written more than 3000 songs, and that, let's agree, goes beyond talent and into craft. She inherited her work ethic, she said, from her father, who was a completely illiterate farmer from Tennessee. She inherited her talent for music from her mother. At age 18, the day after graduating from high school, she headed to Nashville, the capital of country music. In the first days of her new life, she met Carl Dean. She married him as soon as she turned 20 and they lived happily ever after.
Resumes are the dumbest part of anyone in memoriam- and because there is Wikipedia, and besides, a book can be written about Dolly. Her life was so rich that it is enough to capture only the parts that are dearest to us and to talk about them for a long time.
Legend has it that she wrote the same afternoon Jolene i I will always love you, a song she first recorded herself, but was only made famous by Whitney Houston in the nineties. And therein lies the secret of Dolly Parton's success: in each decade, she found a way to reach new generations. Is it thanks to the movie Steel magnolias from the eighties, Bodyguard and the song sung by Whitney, and then appearing in the Disney series Hannah Montana with his godmother Miley Cyrus (now a global star) or a year ago by giving permission to cover Beyonce Jolene... Only, her career never died and never depended on nostalgia because she allowed each new generation to discover her and love her anew.
A HEART AS BIG AS THE WORLD
In 1995, she founded Imagination Library, a program that mails one free book to every registered child from birth to age five each month. Families pay nothing. She was inspired by her father Robert Parton.
He was an extremely intelligent man, but he could not read or write. Dolly often said that it was because of his illiteracy that she realized how life-changing reading can be. That's why she wanted no child to go to school without having their own books at home. The program started in one county in Tennessee, and today it covers the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and Australia. More than 330 million books have been distributed so far, with more than three million books still being sent each month.
At the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, she donated a million dollars to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for covid 19 research. The money went to a fund that was later named the "Dolly Parton COVID-19 Research Fund". Her money funded key early research that helped the team at Vanderbilt develop and test the technology that became part of Moderna's mRNA vaccine development. The researchers themselves later said how crucial her donation was at that early stage.
So there are people who know how to read how the world works and use it to their advantage. And there are those who go a step further and try to change this and that world a little for the better. Dolly has done both: People have been looking at breasts, wigs and sequins for decades, and she's built an empire during that time. That may be her greatest feminist trick.
While men thought they were underestimating her, she negotiated copyrights, retained ownership of her songs, refused to sell I Will Always Love You Elvis because she didn't want to lose publishing rights, built an amusement park, foundations and educational programs. She was a businesswoman before it was fashionable.
ALWAYS WARM, NEVER CYNIC
Maybe that's the reason that today, when she's no longer with us, people don't just talk about songs. They talk about what kind of person she was. It's a rare kind of legacy. Her death caused a wave of sincere farewells precisely because many saw her as a symbol of generosity, work and warmth, and not just as a star.
Every in memoriam is somewhat unfortunate because the author writes more about himself than about the deceased. But when you're no longer five years old but well over 40, you're no longer impressed by the fact that Dolly Parton was beautiful, but by the fact that she managed to remain gentle. And that is much more difficult, especially in today's world. She did not become cynical. She didn't let success kill her curiosity. She didn't become snarky even when she had every reason to be. All her life she insisted that kindness is not naivety but a choice. Well, that's the hardest thing a man can do, especially if he's a woman.
When you love Dolly Parton for 38 years, she stops being your idol and becomes proof that you can be both gentle and strong, kitsch and glamorous, serious, ambitious and generous, smart, without having to prove to anyone how smart you are.
And maybe that is her greatest song. No Jolene, not even I Will Always Love You, not even Coat of Many Colors, but the life she wrote herself. A life she lived without an iota of cynicism.
And one more thing: Dolly Parton was never cool, nor did she try to be. She was too sincere for irony, and too emotional to feign distance. She rejoiced too much in other people's successes to be cynical. At a time when cynicism became some measure of intelligence, she remained a woman who believed in kindness. Again, not because she is naive, but because she chose to be kind. Whoever doubts that, let it go Jolene. I know the song was on everyone's head in the days after Death Valley. But, try to listen to her as if you were hearing her for the first time and pay attention to how much consideration, decency and kindness Dola's heroine addresses her rival Jolin.
