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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Chuck here on a Wednesday for an intro

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Speaker 1: for a very special release because yesterday we learned that

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Speaker 1: music icon and country music legend and philanthropist and just

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Speaker 1: all-around amazing person Dolly Parton passed away after a short

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Speaker 1: battle with cancer. And a few years ago in April

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Speaker 1: of 2023 we recorded this episode, Why Does Everyone Love

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Speaker 1: Dolly Parton? And, you know, I think that title, Josh

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Speaker 1: came up with that title, and it really hits it

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Speaker 1: on the head. She was a beloved person that seems

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Speaker 1: to have crossed different musical genres, of course, and, you know,

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Speaker 1: political boundaries. And she was just one of those people

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Speaker 1: that kind of everyone seemed to be united in agreement

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Speaker 1: that Dolly Parton is and was an amazing human being.

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Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing we detail in this episode.

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Speaker 1: And We try to get to the heart of why

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Speaker 1: she's so beloved. And I think for me, Dolly was

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Speaker 1: just someone who seemed like her guiding principles were kindness

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Speaker 1: and love and joy. And that seems to be what

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Speaker 1: led her to do just about everything in her career

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Speaker 1: and every decision she made and people who she worked

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Speaker 1: with and, you know, nonprofits she decided to get involved

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Speaker 1: with and certainly her philanthropic efforts and everything that she

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Speaker 1: gave to the world, it seems like she led with

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Speaker 1: her heart first. And that's just kind of a rare

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Speaker 1: trait these days. So Dolly is certainly a rare breed

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Speaker 1: and just an amazing woman. Somebody who I think we

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Speaker 1: can all agree should be revered and looked up to.

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Speaker 1: And the world is a little dimmer today without her

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Speaker 1: light shining. So Here we are today, the day after

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Speaker 1: she passed, releasing this special episode, hoping everyone can give

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Speaker 1: it a listen as we pay tribute to the great

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Speaker 1: Dolly Parton with our episode from 2023, Why Does Everyone

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Speaker 1: Love Dolly Parton? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And today we're going to

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Speaker 2: make some joyful noise together here on Stuff You Should Know.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: I just poured myself a cup of ambition. Uh-huh.

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Speaker 2: I had a few of those this morning.

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Speaker 1: Uh, Livia helped us with this one. And, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've remarked about how Livia is getting great at titling

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Speaker 1: the articles, even though she doesn't even have to.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: She does it because she's creative and talented. And her

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Speaker 1: title for this is Why Does Everyone Love Dolly Parton?

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Speaker 1: And we're going to explain that. But I think the

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Speaker 1: easiest thing to say is since the 1970s, this is

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Speaker 1: a woman who has basically just put goodness into the

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Speaker 1: world at every turn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I was reading an interview with her

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Speaker 2: in Rolling Stone from 1980, like 9 to 5 had

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Speaker 2: just come out. And you might as well have told

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Speaker 2: me it was from 2023. Yeah. She's been the same

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Speaker 2: way this whole time. That's great. She doesn't get into

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Speaker 2: any political stuff. She said, I'm not political. I won't

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Speaker 2: talk about politics. She leaves hot button issues alone. But

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Speaker 2: if it means something to her, it's really meaningful, she'll

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Speaker 2: come out in favor of it, endorsing it. But she

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Speaker 2: doesn't put anything down. She might support something, but she's

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Speaker 2: not going to put anything down publicly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So the other kind of funny thing about this

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Speaker 1: one from Livia is she always includes her sources, and

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Speaker 1: she may have broken her own source record. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot.

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Speaker 2: Oh, boy.

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Speaker 1: There were probably 100 sources, but we did want to

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Speaker 1: mention one in particular because I listened to this from

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Speaker 1: Jad Abumrad, the great Jad Abumrad of Radiolab fame, like

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Speaker 1: four years ago put out the wonderful series Dolly Parton's America. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And Livia binged it, and I listened to it back then,

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Speaker 1: and Back then I was like, oh, man, I want

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Speaker 1: to do an episode on Dolly Parton. But it's like

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Speaker 1: Jad did it, like he covered it so well, like

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Speaker 1: what's the point kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: But now four years on, I was like, well, we

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Speaker 1: can give it the stuff you should know treatment, which

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Speaker 1: is to say not as deep a dive. But it's

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Speaker 1: a great series. If you want to learn more about

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Speaker 1: Dolly Parton, then check out Dolly Parton's America.

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Speaker 2: Very nice. And then just to button up, Chuck, we

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Speaker 2: were trying to answer that question, why does everybody love Dolly? Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: I came up with another hypothesis too. Okay. And it's that,

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Speaker 2: you know, when, when somebody is like, they can be

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Speaker 2: anything anybody wants them to be like, they're interpretable from

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Speaker 2: all different angles. So everybody just assumes they're like them.

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Speaker 2: Dolly is not like that. She is her own person

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Speaker 2: who can't be pigeonholed into one box or another. Right.

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Speaker 2: But she's, Likeable from all sides.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Like find someone that's going to talk smack about

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Speaker 1: Dolly Parton. And then you and I are going to

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Speaker 1: have a discussion in the parking lot with that guy.

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Speaker 2: It's a sad state of affairs, though, dude, because there's

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Speaker 2: think pieces all over the Internet about how it's just

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Speaker 2: amazing that everybody doesn't hate Dolly Parton. And it's like,

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Speaker 2: good God, like this is what we've come to. Like,

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Speaker 2: everybody hates everybody casually. So, I mean, how has she

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Speaker 2: escaped it so long? And it's just like such a

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Speaker 2: sad state of affairs that that's normalized by even writing

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Speaker 2: pieces like that. But they're out there for sure. But

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Speaker 2: the upshot of it is people are amazed that people

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Speaker 2: don't hate Dolly Parton. And it's true. People don't hate

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Speaker 2: Dolly Parton.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And she's someone that is so, I think, kind

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Speaker 1: of universally beloved and internationally beloved that, as you'll see

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Speaker 1: later in this episode, she's been studied. by anthropologists and sociologists,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. And so let's start at the beginning,

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Speaker 1: shall we?

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Speaker 2: Wait, hold on, one more thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, more praise.

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Speaker 2: The other thing about her I think that's so amazing

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Speaker 2: and so remarkable is that she, this is the reason

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Speaker 2: why everybody's just so fascinated with her right now. She's

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Speaker 2: maybe the one person who is straddling both sides of

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Speaker 2: the political and social divide as wide as it is

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Speaker 2: in the United States today, and is not like hanging

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Speaker 2: on by her fingernails. She's like, I got a foot

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Speaker 2: here and I'm not lying about it. Got a foot here,

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Speaker 2: I'm not lying about that either. I'm not trying to

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Speaker 2: fool either side. This is what I'm into. And I

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Speaker 2: like both of you, basically.

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Speaker 1: It's almost like being a genuine human who 100% stays

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Speaker 1: true to who they are is something we should all

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Speaker 1: aspire to.

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Speaker 2: Sure. But it also shows, she shows that That's such

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Speaker 2: a rarity in this world that you can be globally

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Speaker 2: beloved by just doing that and also making like a

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Speaker 2: ton of really great music, too.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, come on. We're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about all this stuff. But can we go back to

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Speaker 1: the beginning now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.

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Speaker 1: OK. Hey, never apologize about singing the praises of Dolly Parton.

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Speaker 2: That's a great rule of stuff.

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Speaker 1: You should know motto. And I just can't wait till

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Speaker 1: we get to the Dollywood stuff because you you've been

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Speaker 1: and I have not. All right, so she was born,

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Speaker 1: Dolly Rebecca Parton, in 1946, in January 19th of 1946,

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Speaker 1: in rural Tennessee. How do you pronounce that? Is it

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Speaker 1: Sevier County?

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Speaker 2: I think it's Sevier.

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Speaker 1: Oh, it's just Sevier.

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Speaker 2: I'm almost positive it's Sevier.

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Speaker 1: Okay, S-E-V-I-E-R. And see, immediately, this is, I'm sure, Jad's

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Speaker 1: episode pronounced it perfectly right off the bat. I don't remember.

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Speaker 2: He just threw his face into his palm like, these guys....

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Speaker 1: Uh, but she was born to a big family of

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Speaker 1: 12 kids and it's kind of fun to look up

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Speaker 1: photos of, uh, Dolly and all her siblings because, you know,

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Speaker 1: a few of her sisters look a lot like her. Um,

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Speaker 1: all her brothers look like, you know, they should be

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Speaker 1: like shooting pool down at the pool hall, you know,

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Speaker 1: all very just sort of genuine article, smoky mountain, Tennessee

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Speaker 1: foothills people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And there were 12 of them, did

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Speaker 2: you say?

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Speaker 1: 12 sibs, including her. She was the fourth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the fourth of 12. And all 14 people in

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Speaker 2: her family lived in a two-room cabin. And I've seen

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Speaker 2: a replica of this cabin. And it is no joke,

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Speaker 2: a two-room cabin and 14 people lived in it in

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Speaker 2: the Smoky Mountains.

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Speaker 1: You mean two bedrooms with an office, right? Right.

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Speaker 2: I mean two rooms, my friend, with the outhouse, no

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Speaker 2: running water, no electricity. Like she grew up as Smokey Mountain,

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Speaker 2: as a Smokey Mountain person can grow up. Like even

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Speaker 2: people in other parts of Tennessee are like, wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But she said she had a great childhood running around,

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Speaker 2: just being outside. And because she was the fourth of 12,

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Speaker 2: she wasn't particularly like, paid attention to, so she could

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Speaker 2: just kind of go off and do her own thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I get the idea that they were semi-feral sort

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Speaker 1: of mountain kids. Her granddad was a Pentecostal minister, very

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Speaker 1: fiery and brimstone-y, and she still mentions God a lot.

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Speaker 1: I get the sense that she's a little less overtly religious,

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Speaker 1: but spirituality is still very much a mainstay in her life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's more of a personal relationship between

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Speaker 2: her and God.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is how it's supposed to be.

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Speaker 2: So she really lucked out because she had an uncle

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Speaker 2: named Bill Owens, who was a musician, a songwriter who noticed.

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Speaker 2: that she wanted to get into music from a very

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Speaker 2: young age and was maybe the only person in her

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Speaker 2: entire life or her early life that noticed and then

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Speaker 2: nurtured it. And she later said when he died a

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Speaker 2: few years back at his funeral, like she wouldn't be

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Speaker 2: here today if it wasn't him. Like she owed him everything.

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Speaker 2: Because he nurtured it in her. He encouraged her. He

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Speaker 2: supported her when she got rejected. And he helped her

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Speaker 2: break into the business. So Bill Owens was a huge

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Speaker 2: influence in her life. But he noticed, like I said,

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Speaker 2: from a very early age, I think she wrote her

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Speaker 2: first song when she was five.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Little Tiny Tassel Top about her homemade corn husk doll.

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Speaker 1: And she would pretend... You know, she would get a

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Speaker 1: tobacco stick and a tin can and act like it

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Speaker 1: was her microphone and mic stand. And she would sing

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Speaker 1: for the chickens in her yard and had obviously a

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Speaker 1: real talent from the beginning. If you listen to her

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Speaker 1: very first recording, Puppy Love from 1959, it sounds like,

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Speaker 1: you know, 13 year old Dolly Parton. You know, you

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Speaker 1: can hear Dolly in that young voice. And like I said,

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Speaker 1: she was 13. And that was the same year that

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Speaker 1: she made her very first appearance in At the Grand

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Speaker 1: Ole Opry, introduced by none other than Johnny Cash.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, who was her first big crush. So it was

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Speaker 2: even more amazing for her.

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Speaker 1: Unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: Her family didn't get to see it, though, because Dolly

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Speaker 2: Parton was on TV before her family had a TV

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Speaker 2: at home. Yeah. Which is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Was it on TV back then?

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Speaker 2: I believe there was a TV appearance, yes.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: And if that one wasn't, whenever it was, she was

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Speaker 2: on TV first. Her family still didn't have a TV

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Speaker 2: back then.

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Speaker 1: Gotcha.

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Speaker 2: So thanks to Uncle Billy taking her around and banging

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Speaker 2: on doors, she ended up making her debut on Mercury

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Speaker 2: Records in 1962, which is nothing to sneeze at. But

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Speaker 2: I get the impression that it wasn't like her– it

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Speaker 2: wasn't like, okay, this is a serious recording contract. It's like, okay,

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Speaker 2: let's test this girl out. Back then they called any

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Speaker 2: woman in country music a girl singer. Right. Right. So

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Speaker 2: she was a bit of a novelty, not just because

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Speaker 2: of her age, but because she was a woman as well.

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Speaker 2: But she had her sights set on becoming a country

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Speaker 2: music star. And so the day after she graduated high school,

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Speaker 2: the day after she graduated high school, she got on

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Speaker 2: a bus for Nashville and moved there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Amazing. 1964. And very soon after she moved there,

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Speaker 1: she met a man that would become her husband and

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Speaker 1: a mainstay in her life to this day, who is

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Speaker 1: remarkably hard to find stuff about. His name is Carl Dean.

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Speaker 1: They met very famously at a laundromat when she was

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Speaker 1: 18 and he was 21. Married a couple of years later.

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Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people that don't know

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Speaker 1: a lot about Dolly Parton think she might be single

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Speaker 1: or something because she never had kids. But she's been

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Speaker 1: married to Carl Dean since 1966. And he just, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to be in the limelight. He never did.

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Speaker 1: He's her biggest fan. fan and supporter, she's always said,

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Speaker 1: you know, off the stage, but he just doesn't want

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Speaker 1: any part of the limelight. And it's hard to even

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Speaker 1: find a lot of pictures of this guy. There's a

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Speaker 1: handful out there, but he started an asphalt laying business

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Speaker 1: in the late seventies, still runs that business today, which

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Speaker 1: is just amazing. And yeah, I read an article from

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Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. She was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: Carl and I, we like to run errands. She said,

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Speaker 1: we go to the 24 hour stores, you know, in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the night, like Walmart and places. And

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Speaker 1: she said, and there are fewer people there to come

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Speaker 1: up to me. And she said, I don't mind it.

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Speaker 1: I love people. She said, I just don't want it

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Speaker 1: to get in the way of our shopping.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And, you know, Carl's not wild about it. So they

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Speaker 1: just live a very simple kind of pure life together,

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Speaker 1: I think, outside the limelight.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've read an interview with her somewhere, and she

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Speaker 2: said that in her opinion, if she's out in public,

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Speaker 2: that time belongs to her fans. So she doesn't have

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Speaker 2: a problem with people coming up to her, asking for autographs.

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Speaker 2: She knows that she's out in public, and that's a

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Speaker 2: risk that she runs, right? Sure. But her leisure time,

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Speaker 2: her time away is like secluded off with Carl, just

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Speaker 2: the two of them usually. Maybe she has a very

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Speaker 2: close best friend. I can't remember her name. They go

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Speaker 2: everywhere together. So she's almost like a stand in for

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Speaker 2: Carl when Dolly's traveling around. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And she's always been very her persona is very flirty

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Speaker 1: and she's always sort of flirted around with. In fact,

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Speaker 1: no friends that have worked on like commercial shoots with her.

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Speaker 1: And they were like, man, she's the biggest flirt you

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Speaker 1: would ever know. And that's just her personality. And she

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Speaker 1: said that Carl understands that. And that's just how she

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Speaker 1: sort of has fun and relates to people. And it's

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Speaker 1: always very innocent. And I just think it's kind of

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Speaker 1: kind of cute and fun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 1: I want her to flirt with me, you know, I

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Speaker 1: think is what I'm saying.

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Speaker 2: This, this episode might be your big break, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, um, would you just like turn bright red and

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Speaker 2: like dig your, the toe of your foot.

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Speaker 1: Into the, I kind of am a little bright red.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was the stuff you should know sign

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Speaker 1: in here, casting a red beam on my face.

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Speaker 2: No, it's you thinking about being flirted with by Dolly Parton.

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Speaker 1: I know. Well, dude, I grew up as you did,

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Speaker 1: but I'm, you know, a little bit older. Like The

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Speaker 1: heyday of early Dolly was when I was a kid. And,

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Speaker 1: of course, my dad was in love with her. And,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was just she was one of the

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Speaker 1: biggest stars in the world. And my parents were kind

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Speaker 1: of into country music. So she was just sort of

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Speaker 1: prevalent in our household somehow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, my introduction to her was through 9 to 5.

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Speaker 2: And my mom, that whole message and the idea behind

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Speaker 2: it was right up my mom's alley. So she would

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Speaker 2: watch it. With her hands clasped together at the side

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Speaker 2: of her face.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.

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Speaker 2: Just an adoration of everybody, including Dolly Parton, too. I

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Speaker 2: think my family was never really into country music, so

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Speaker 2: I think that that was like a big introduction and

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Speaker 2: probably a win over for my family was 9 to 5.

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Speaker 1: All right. Well, we'll talk about 9 to 5 and

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Speaker 1: crossover success more. It's a good setup. But how about

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Speaker 1: we take a break?

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 1: And we'll be right back with more Dolly Parton.

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Speaker 2: Music Music OK, so we're talking about Dolly becoming a star.

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Speaker 2: Like she's had a couple of record contracts, nothing serious, though.

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Speaker 2: But then in 1965, she signed with Monument Records. That

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Speaker 2: was her big her first big record contract I read.

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Speaker 2: But they wanted her to be a pop singer, which

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Speaker 2: is kind of ironic because she actually would kind of

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Speaker 2: become a pop singer later on in her career. But

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Speaker 2: at first she was like, no way. Like, have you

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Speaker 2: seen my house? And do you know how many people

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Speaker 2: are in my family? I'm not a pop singer. I'm

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Speaker 2: a country singer. Right. So she persisted and hung in

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Speaker 2: there and they ended up like folding and giving in.

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Speaker 2: And she went on to become a full fledged country singer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, in 1967, her first record, Hello, I'm Dolly, which

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Speaker 1: is just great how they used to do records like

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Speaker 1: that and title them like that when you introduce her

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Speaker 1: to the world. But as would become a thing in

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Speaker 1: her career, most of the songs that she's well known for,

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Speaker 1: most of the songs she's recorded, she's done plenty of

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Speaker 1: covers because everyone does that, especially in country music. But

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Speaker 1: she is... most well known as a songwriter. And we'll

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Speaker 1: get into that more in a little bit. But she

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Speaker 1: wrote two. Now, Libby has a number 24, but I

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Speaker 1: saw that they were both top 20 on the country charts.

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Speaker 1: Dumb Blonde, which is written by a guy named Curly Putman.

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Speaker 1: Great name. And Something Fishy written by Dolly. And I

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Speaker 1: think the album itself was a top 20 hit. Her

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Speaker 1: debut right off, you know, on the country charts, right

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Speaker 1: off out of the gate.

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Speaker 2: Yes. I was looking up something fishy, and it's about

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Speaker 2: a woman who's become convinced that her husband's fishing trips

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Speaker 2: aren't actually fishing trips and that he's running around on her.

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Speaker 2: So one of the lines is, I guess some largemouth

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Speaker 2: bass left that lipstick on your shirt. I don't think

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Speaker 2: you're a fisherman, honey. I think you're a flirt. That's

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Speaker 2: like perfect debut dolly. Age 19, I think, is how

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Speaker 2: old she is. Yeah, that's pretty great.

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Speaker 1: And Porter Wagoner is someone that we talked about on

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Speaker 1: our Grand Ole Opry show. And he had the Porter

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Speaker 1: Wagoner show. He hires Young Dolly to replace his other

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Speaker 1: young woman sidekick singer. And basically, she elevated the show

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Speaker 1: to the point where it was the number one syndicated

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Speaker 1: show in the country, radio show.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: And they started doing duets together and albums together, including

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Speaker 1: their first one, Just Between You and Me, in 1968. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And they started touring a lot, too. And she learned

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Speaker 2: a tremendous amount about touring, performing live, the music business.

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Speaker 2: Everything she needed to learn early on came from touring

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Speaker 2: with Porter Wagner. But he was also really well aware

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Speaker 2: that he had like a real cash register on his hands.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And he kept her under his thumb as much as

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Speaker 2: he could, both emotionally blackmailing her, I get the impression,

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Speaker 2: but also locking her into just really exploitive contracts because

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Speaker 2: she might not have known what she was signing. She

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Speaker 2: probably did and just figured like, OK, at least it's

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Speaker 2: going to help me get to where I'm going. That's

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Speaker 2: the likelier explanation, if you ask me. But he was

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Speaker 2: definitely in charge for the first many years of her

378
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Speaker 2: serious career.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. But because she's Dolly Parton and so beloved, when

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Speaker 1: they eventually broke up their relationship, I think it was

381
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Speaker 1: kind of rough. And she ended up writing a song,

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Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You, about that relationship. And ultimately

383
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Speaker 1: they worked it out and she reconciled and was at

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Speaker 1: his deathbed with his family. And it was kind of

385
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Speaker 1: one of those no hard feelings kind of situations.

386
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Speaker 2: Oh, really? I read that his last dying words were,

387
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Speaker 2: I'll never forgive you. That's what I'm going to say

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Speaker 2: on my deathbed.

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Speaker 1: No.

390
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Speaker 2: I'm just going to wave my finger around the room

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Speaker 2: to everybody standing there.

392
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Speaker 1: And we're all going to be like, is he talking

393
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Speaker 1: about me?

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Speaker 2: Exactly. You guys can spend the rest of your lives

395
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Speaker 2: figuring it out.

396
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Speaker 1: And Yumi will just look at me and say, he's

397
00:20:29,930 --> 00:20:30,560
Speaker 1: talking about you.

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Speaker 2: Totally.

399
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Speaker 1: Uh, so they, uh, while they were a duet, wait, wait,

400
00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:38,860
Speaker 1: hold on.

401
00:20:38,859 --> 00:20:41,139
Speaker 2: One more thing you brought up. I will always love you,

402
00:20:41,220 --> 00:20:43,500
Speaker 2: which everybody knows. One of probably your most, one of

403
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Speaker 2: our most famous songs, arguably her other most famous song, Jolene. Yeah.

404
00:20:48,170 --> 00:20:48,570
Speaker 1: Great song.

405
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Speaker 2: She apparently wrote those songs on the same day, start

406
00:20:52,970 --> 00:20:55,990
Speaker 2: to finish. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.

407
00:20:56,130 --> 00:20:59,010
Speaker 1: I mean, she, she now says like, you know, if

408
00:20:59,070 --> 00:21:01,380
Speaker 1: it wasn't the same day, it was in the, Within

409
00:21:01,420 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: a couple of days of each other. But like either way,

410
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:05,420
Speaker 1: it's remarkable.

411
00:21:05,720 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's possible it was the same day. She

412
00:21:08,060 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 2: just doesn't remember. Yeah. That really like kind of goes

413
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Speaker 2: to show what kind of she she was drinking cups

414
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,330
Speaker 2: of ambition left and right, apparently. Because not only is

415
00:21:17,369 --> 00:21:20,510
Speaker 2: that story potentially true, she also put out 25 albums. Yeah.

416
00:21:23,750 --> 00:21:27,090
Speaker 2: both duets with Porter Wagner and then some solo albums

417
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Speaker 2: in the five year period between 1968 and 1973. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable. She started, um, and that's kind

419
00:21:35,570 --> 00:21:37,230
Speaker 1: of where I was headed anyway. She kind of started

420
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: recording her own solo stuff as she was, you know,

421
00:21:41,820 --> 00:21:43,320
Speaker 1: it was kind of obvious. She just had, she was

422
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:46,920
Speaker 1: too prolific of a songwriter. I mean, she supposedly, her

423
00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:49,859
Speaker 1: quote is that she's written more than 3000 songs and

424
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:53,359
Speaker 1: three of them are good. Uh, She's also humble, another

425
00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,460
Speaker 1: reason people love Dolly Parton. But she had too much

426
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: to say early on, and so started making solo records

427
00:22:01,100 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 1: while she was still with Wagner. And it was in

428
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:06,140
Speaker 1: that time period, I think in the early 70s, is

429
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:09,449
Speaker 1: when those iconic songs, Jolene and I Will Always Love You,

430
00:22:09,490 --> 00:22:09,850
Speaker 1: came out.

431
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Speaker 2: Right, but still under the tutelage of Porter Wagner, right?

432
00:22:14,530 --> 00:22:17,489
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, those are solo albums. And I think

433
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Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You was about them splitting apart,

434
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Speaker 1: so it was... Sort of right there at the end,

435
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Speaker 1: I think.

436
00:22:22,140 --> 00:22:24,380
Speaker 2: It definitely was. And I heard a story years back

437
00:22:24,420 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 2: that he said, OK, I'll let you out of your

438
00:22:26,760 --> 00:22:30,840
Speaker 2: contract if you let me produce this amazing song. Oh,

439
00:22:30,859 --> 00:22:31,780
Speaker 2: that song?

440
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:32,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

441
00:22:32,380 --> 00:22:34,540
Speaker 2: I will always love you. Right. And then apparently he

442
00:22:34,580 --> 00:22:36,820
Speaker 2: turned around and sued her anyway for breach of contract.

443
00:22:37,859 --> 00:22:39,820
Speaker 2: But she she got out of it. She got out

444
00:22:39,859 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 2: of this this this terrible contract, this exploitive contract. She

445
00:22:44,780 --> 00:22:48,699
Speaker 2: got out from under a very domineering mentor. And this

446
00:22:48,780 --> 00:22:51,530
Speaker 2: is a really big time of transition for her because

447
00:22:51,570 --> 00:22:54,570
Speaker 2: not only did she get away from Porter Wagner, which

448
00:22:54,609 --> 00:22:58,869
Speaker 2: was enormous because in a sense, she was like a

449
00:22:58,930 --> 00:23:02,210
Speaker 2: pinball that had just been plunged when she was released

450
00:23:02,310 --> 00:23:06,449
Speaker 2: from Porter Wagner, just looking for like the next bumper

451
00:23:06,490 --> 00:23:11,120
Speaker 2: to just shoot her off in another direction. That's my analogy, buddy. Yeah.

452
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,780
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened. But she also had to

453
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:17,040
Speaker 2: break up with her family band. Like they were her

454
00:23:17,100 --> 00:23:19,770
Speaker 2: original backing band. She had to be like, I got

455
00:23:19,790 --> 00:23:22,810
Speaker 2: to get better musicians, you guys. And she made some

456
00:23:22,869 --> 00:23:26,570
Speaker 2: really hard decisions, but they ended up paying off. And

457
00:23:26,630 --> 00:23:29,389
Speaker 2: from what I understand, there were no lasting hard feelings

458
00:23:29,450 --> 00:23:29,780
Speaker 2: from it.

459
00:23:30,340 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty great. She hosted a TV show for

460
00:23:35,260 --> 00:23:38,880
Speaker 1: one season, just like us. It was called Dolly. You know,

461
00:23:38,900 --> 00:23:41,790
Speaker 1: back then they had all this great variety shows. This

462
00:23:41,810 --> 00:23:46,350
Speaker 1: was 76 into 77. And then a very important man

463
00:23:46,410 --> 00:23:48,910
Speaker 1: comes into her life by the name of Sandy Gallen,

464
00:23:49,690 --> 00:23:55,090
Speaker 1: who was a Uber manager, got the Beatles on Ed Sullivan,

465
00:23:55,550 --> 00:23:59,150
Speaker 1: would later manage Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand and Cher.

466
00:23:59,790 --> 00:24:02,930
Speaker 1: And Sandy Gallen was a pretty instrumental person for a

467
00:24:03,380 --> 00:24:09,070
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One is kind of. encouraging the crossover success.

468
00:24:09,270 --> 00:24:09,490
Speaker 2: Yeah.

469
00:24:09,550 --> 00:24:10,990
Speaker 1: Like he booked her at the bottom line in the

470
00:24:11,030 --> 00:24:14,450
Speaker 1: Greenwich village who, you know, everyone from Springsteen to Lou

471
00:24:14,490 --> 00:24:15,390
Speaker 1: Reed were playing there.

472
00:24:15,690 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 2: Like Andy Warhol came and watched her show. There's an

473
00:24:18,710 --> 00:24:20,459
Speaker 2: awesome picture of them sitting together.

474
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:21,980
Speaker 1: Yeah. Talk about crossover.

475
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And she was nervous. I saw that she

476
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:27,920
Speaker 2: was nervous on the, on the way to being scared.

477
00:24:28,580 --> 00:24:32,500
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah. Uh, he had her tour Europe, exposed

478
00:24:32,540 --> 00:24:37,970
Speaker 1: her internationally. Um, uh, he, uh, took her to Studio 54,

479
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: which is probably where she also hung out with Andy Warhol.

480
00:24:41,420 --> 00:24:44,419
Speaker 1: But the other big reason is that Sandy Gallen was gay.

481
00:24:44,980 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 1: He died like five years ago. And this was a

482
00:24:48,270 --> 00:24:52,550
Speaker 1: very instrumental relationship. And I get the impression, you know,

483
00:24:52,690 --> 00:24:55,830
Speaker 1: Dolly is very famous for being sort of an icon

484
00:24:55,869 --> 00:24:57,690
Speaker 1: in the LGTBQ community.

485
00:24:57,869 --> 00:24:59,290
Speaker 2: Yeah, from very early on.

486
00:24:59,690 --> 00:25:02,430
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it seems like this is kind of where

487
00:25:02,470 --> 00:25:06,139
Speaker 1: it all started was having this relationship with Sandy and

488
00:25:06,820 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: you know, just the gay community wrapping their arms around

489
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 1: her early on, not necessarily because, you know, she had

490
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,490
Speaker 1: a gay manager, but, you know, I don't think it hurt.

491
00:25:17,109 --> 00:25:19,930
Speaker 2: Right. And the New York Times wrote that she got

492
00:25:20,090 --> 00:25:24,650
Speaker 2: a warm welcome in San Francisco from transgender fans and, quote,

493
00:25:25,250 --> 00:25:27,629
Speaker 2: other exotic urban cult audiences.

494
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,540
Speaker 1: Well, Dolly's always said, you know, she's one of those

495
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:36,230
Speaker 1: love is love types. And, you know, It's just like,

496
00:25:36,390 --> 00:25:38,790
Speaker 1: it's the way to live life. Like she doesn't judge

497
00:25:38,830 --> 00:25:43,050
Speaker 1: people and she never has. And she's always just embraced

498
00:25:43,170 --> 00:25:46,310
Speaker 1: like whatever community wants to love her music. Like, why

499
00:25:46,330 --> 00:25:49,980
Speaker 1: would she, I never get it when people like intentionally

500
00:25:50,020 --> 00:25:51,960
Speaker 1: sort of turn audiences off.

501
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 2: Right.

502
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 1: You know?

503
00:25:53,540 --> 00:25:58,180
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. But also like it's,

504
00:25:58,740 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 2: that's so true. And it's so prevalent when, when you

505
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,020
Speaker 2: read about her, watch interviews with her. just listen to

506
00:26:05,060 --> 00:26:08,620
Speaker 2: her talk, you're almost like, what's your angle, Dolly? Right.

507
00:26:08,740 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 2: What are you really up to here?

508
00:26:13,230 --> 00:26:18,330
Speaker 1: Her big crossover hit was Here You Come Again, which

509
00:26:18,450 --> 00:26:20,530
Speaker 1: was considered a pop song. I mean, I've always kind

510
00:26:20,570 --> 00:26:23,250
Speaker 1: of thought it was a country song, I guess, because

511
00:26:23,410 --> 00:26:26,650
Speaker 1: her voice is in it, and she insisted on steel guitar,

512
00:26:27,470 --> 00:26:29,179
Speaker 1: so it still had a little country tinge to it.

513
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:30,300
Speaker 2: But it's like a perfect.

514
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:31,020
Speaker 1: It was a huge song.

515
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 2: It's a perfect crossover.

516
00:26:32,980 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: Like, it's exactly.

517
00:26:34,710 --> 00:26:38,010
Speaker 2: perfectly balanced. Like there couldn't have been a better song

518
00:26:38,030 --> 00:26:42,270
Speaker 2: to transition from full on country singer to country pop singer.

519
00:26:42,830 --> 00:26:45,050
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it went number one on the country chart,

520
00:26:45,109 --> 00:26:49,310
Speaker 1: number three on the pop charts. Album went platinum. And

521
00:26:49,369 --> 00:26:52,630
Speaker 1: this is, you know, the late 70s when she really, really,

522
00:26:52,670 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: really blew up.

523
00:26:53,490 --> 00:26:55,580
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that. She just took off like a

524
00:26:55,630 --> 00:26:58,820
Speaker 2: rocket from there. One of the things that she did

525
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:02,180
Speaker 2: very wisely in the late 70s, early 80s, right around

526
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:06,649
Speaker 2: this time, was just hop on the TV circuit. She's

527
00:27:06,670 --> 00:27:11,550
Speaker 2: been on at least a few hundred TV appearances, but

528
00:27:11,590 --> 00:27:13,490
Speaker 2: a lot of them took place in the 70s and

529
00:27:13,790 --> 00:27:16,469
Speaker 2: 80s when she was just making herself known, making herself

530
00:27:16,540 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 2: a household name. And none of this was by accident.

531
00:27:19,740 --> 00:27:24,460
Speaker 2: She's wanted to be a megastar since she was a kid,

532
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 2: and this was part of... She apparently makes a lot

533
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,730
Speaker 2: of lists, and they turn out to kind of be

534
00:27:30,770 --> 00:27:33,610
Speaker 2: five-year plans, and I'm sure... Getting on the talk show

535
00:27:33,630 --> 00:27:35,590
Speaker 2: circuit was part of one of those lists.

536
00:27:37,050 --> 00:27:38,909
Speaker 1: And that explains why, as a kid growing up in

537
00:27:38,930 --> 00:27:41,020
Speaker 1: the 70s, I saw a lot of Dolly Parton.

538
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:41,710
Speaker 2: Exactly.

539
00:27:42,220 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: She was everywhere.

540
00:27:43,140 --> 00:27:45,300
Speaker 2: Dolly wanted you to see a lot of Dolly Parton.

541
00:27:46,900 --> 00:27:50,120
Speaker 1: In the 80s is when she continued some of her

542
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: collaborations with other artists, very famously with Kenny Rogers with

543
00:27:54,340 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: Islands in the Stream. Huge, massive hit.

544
00:27:56,980 --> 00:27:57,510
Speaker 2: Haven't heard it.

545
00:27:57,980 --> 00:28:03,709
Speaker 1: And then 1987, my favorite... Collaboration at least came out

546
00:28:03,890 --> 00:28:07,330
Speaker 1: and maybe my favorite dolly stuff period. Oh, yeah was

547
00:28:07,350 --> 00:28:09,950
Speaker 1: the album trio Yeah that she recorded with Linda Ronstadt

548
00:28:09,970 --> 00:28:13,689
Speaker 1: and Emily Harris. Mm-hmm Just three of the best voices

549
00:28:13,730 --> 00:28:16,790
Speaker 1: in the history of music coming together to sing together

550
00:28:17,170 --> 00:28:19,510
Speaker 1: They ended up making three albums over the years together

551
00:28:20,390 --> 00:28:21,820
Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to any of this stuff

552
00:28:21,930 --> 00:28:24,700
Speaker 1: highly recommend trio from 1987 She.

553
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,740
Speaker 2: Also released some bluegrass albums in the late 90s the

554
00:28:28,780 --> 00:28:32,469
Speaker 2: grass is blue little sparrow halos and horns and And

555
00:28:32,570 --> 00:28:36,590
Speaker 2: then she released her first Christmas album in 30 years

556
00:28:36,770 --> 00:28:41,050
Speaker 2: back in 2020, A Holly Dolly Christmas, which is pretty good.

557
00:28:41,170 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 2: It's cute. But I think the best Christmas album she

558
00:28:44,220 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 2: released was Once Upon a Christmas in 1984. There's a

559
00:28:47,860 --> 00:28:49,110
Speaker 2: lot of Kenny Rogers on it.

560
00:28:49,700 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: I made a joke this last Christmas on Instagram. I

561
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: think that like probably 50% of Dolly Parton's Christmas songs

562
00:28:57,070 --> 00:28:58,890
Speaker 1: are about sex.

563
00:28:59,910 --> 00:29:00,370
Speaker 2: It's true.

564
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:02,500
Speaker 1: Or there's like sexual overtones.

565
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,700
Speaker 2: Right, exactly. Yeah, it's good stuff. But that 1984 album

566
00:29:07,740 --> 00:29:11,340
Speaker 2: has Hard Candy Christmas on it, which is, I mean,

567
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,220
Speaker 2: maybe her best one, if you ask me.

568
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,900
Speaker 1: Great song. All right, so now let's talk a little

569
00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 1: bit more about her songwriting. I think that's the thing

570
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,820
Speaker 1: that she's sort of most proud of. She said in

571
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 1: a 2020 book, if I had to choose just one

572
00:29:27,900 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: thing to be, I would choose to be a songwriter.

573
00:29:30,710 --> 00:29:33,700
Speaker 1: She's always said that she loves writing from the male

574
00:29:33,740 --> 00:29:36,340
Speaker 1: point of view. She loves writing songs for men because

575
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:39,950
Speaker 1: a lot of her songs are sort of narrative stories.

576
00:29:40,230 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: type songs. And she's written a lot of big, huge

577
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,660
Speaker 1: hits for people like Merle Haggard and Kenny Rogers and

578
00:29:46,700 --> 00:29:49,460
Speaker 1: Hank Williams Jr. and all kinds of dudes. Right.

579
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,330
Speaker 2: She also plays a bunch of instruments. The guitar, she says,

580
00:29:53,390 --> 00:29:56,350
Speaker 2: is her strongest. And there's a lot of other string

581
00:29:56,390 --> 00:29:58,830
Speaker 2: instruments that she can play. I saw a video recently.

582
00:29:59,290 --> 00:30:02,230
Speaker 2: One of her concerts, she's got a banjo slung around her.

583
00:30:02,670 --> 00:30:03,170
Speaker 1: Yeah.

584
00:30:03,310 --> 00:30:05,590
Speaker 2: She's got a strap hanging from a strap while she's

585
00:30:05,630 --> 00:30:08,410
Speaker 2: playing a fiddle really fast. It's pretty amazing. But if

586
00:30:08,430 --> 00:30:11,390
Speaker 2: you really want to be amazed by Dolly, you should

587
00:30:11,450 --> 00:30:15,690
Speaker 2: watch her play the saxophone. And in particular, at the

588
00:30:15,710 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 2: Glastonbury Music Festival in 2014 in the UK, in front

589
00:30:19,860 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: of a crowd of 100,000, she busted out Yakety Sax.

590
00:30:24,340 --> 00:30:24,580
Speaker 1: Yeah.

591
00:30:24,660 --> 00:30:27,979
Speaker 2: The Benny Hill theme song. And it just killed. Yeah.

592
00:30:29,300 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: It did. That whole show is a fun watch because it's,

593
00:30:32,380 --> 00:30:35,340
Speaker 1: you know, it's in, it's at the Glastonbury Festival and

594
00:30:35,380 --> 00:30:38,340
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know. I think her legendary status

595
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: just like grew with that appearance.

596
00:30:40,260 --> 00:30:42,260
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Like she was, you know, kind of a

597
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:44,610
Speaker 2: cult favorite in the UK and then she became like a,

598
00:30:45,260 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 2: like a pop culture favorite after that show.

599
00:30:47,940 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nine to five, the movie that you mentioned before

600
00:30:51,460 --> 00:30:54,530
Speaker 1: in 1980 is when she got into movie making and

601
00:30:54,610 --> 00:30:57,210
Speaker 1: it is a movie, boy, not only does it hold

602
00:30:57,470 --> 00:31:01,650
Speaker 1: up today, but, It was ahead of its time and

603
00:31:01,730 --> 00:31:03,610
Speaker 1: even more relevant today than it probably was then.

604
00:31:03,910 --> 00:31:05,950
Speaker 2: Which is sad, if you stop and think about it.

605
00:31:06,030 --> 00:31:06,950
Speaker 1: No, no, totally sad.

606
00:31:07,130 --> 00:31:09,430
Speaker 2: But it was based on an actual movement called 9

607
00:31:09,430 --> 00:31:11,390
Speaker 2: to 5, the 9 to 5 movement from the early

608
00:31:11,450 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 2: 70s that I guess Jane Fonda was aware of, because

609
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 2: she was one of the creators behind the movie 9

610
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,820
Speaker 2: to 5. And that was an actual movement led by

611
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 2: secretaries starting in Boston, and it spread around the country.

612
00:31:24,300 --> 00:31:29,620
Speaker 2: And they were... protesting sexual harassment, low pay, getting passed

613
00:31:29,660 --> 00:31:32,940
Speaker 2: over for promotions. And they had a great slogan that

614
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,140
Speaker 2: I saw. Raises not roses.

615
00:31:36,700 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: Raises not roses. Yeah. I love that.

616
00:31:38,980 --> 00:31:39,580
Speaker 2: I love it too.

617
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: Like, I don't need your flowers.

618
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 2: Exactly.

619
00:31:41,620 --> 00:31:42,160
Speaker 1: About some money.

620
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 2: Exactly.

621
00:31:43,220 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: I'll buy my own flowers.

622
00:31:45,060 --> 00:31:48,020
Speaker 2: Right. I can buy my own flowers. Yeah.

623
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:50,520
Speaker 1: That's what the back of the t-shirt said. And then

624
00:31:50,580 --> 00:31:52,370
Speaker 1: parentheses quit pinching my butt.

625
00:31:52,880 --> 00:31:56,060
Speaker 2: Plus also that's a Miley Cyrus song. Who is Dolly

626
00:31:56,100 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 2: Parton's goddaughter?

627
00:31:58,660 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: That's right.

628
00:31:59,300 --> 00:31:59,500
Speaker 2: Yeah.

629
00:32:00,140 --> 00:32:03,670
Speaker 1: And Dolly credits that relationship with the fact that millennials

630
00:32:03,930 --> 00:32:04,430
Speaker 1: love Dolly.

631
00:32:04,790 --> 00:32:08,190
Speaker 2: Yeah. I wasn't aware of this. So everybody knows, even

632
00:32:08,490 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 2: I know, that Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana on Nickelodeon from,

633
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:13,459
Speaker 2: I think, 2006 to 2011, right? And she would have

634
00:32:13,500 --> 00:32:20,500
Speaker 2: Dolly on forever. Here there is Aunt Dolly, like her aunt,

635
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 2: Hannah Montana's aunt. And I guess like millennials just grew

636
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:28,180
Speaker 2: up watching that. And that she just exposed herself, not literally,

637
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 2: but figuratively to an entirely new generation. And it stuck

638
00:32:32,860 --> 00:32:35,380
Speaker 2: like that's that's how they that's how they met Dolly.

639
00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:37,350
Speaker 2: And they just kept following her and loving her from

640
00:32:37,390 --> 00:32:38,030
Speaker 2: that point on.

641
00:32:38,550 --> 00:32:40,870
Speaker 1: I love it. She was in a bunch of movies

642
00:32:40,930 --> 00:32:44,350
Speaker 1: over the years. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Burt Reynolds,

643
00:32:44,390 --> 00:32:49,700
Speaker 1: of course, part of the ensemble and Steel Magnolias. Very disappointingly,

644
00:32:49,780 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: Livia doesn't mention my second favorite Dolly Parton movie, which

645
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: was Rhinestone with Sylvester Stallone. One of my big HBO

646
00:32:59,460 --> 00:33:01,820
Speaker 1: movies early on. I watched that thing over and over again.

647
00:33:03,020 --> 00:33:05,790
Speaker 1: Stallone sings. Have you ever seen it? No, I never have.

648
00:33:06,070 --> 00:33:08,330
Speaker 2: I turned the TV off after Life Force.

649
00:33:10,850 --> 00:33:14,650
Speaker 1: You should check out Rhinestone because the premise is she's

650
00:33:15,570 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: to make a country star out of Sylvester Stallone. And

651
00:33:19,700 --> 00:33:24,860
Speaker 1: he has a song in there called Drinkenstein instead of Frankenstein.

652
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,620
Speaker 1: And the chorus is, Budweiser, you've created a monster, and

653
00:33:28,660 --> 00:33:30,070
Speaker 1: they call him Drinkenstein.

654
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:30,770
Speaker 2: Wow.

655
00:33:31,170 --> 00:33:33,950
Speaker 1: But Stallone really sings, and it's just, I think it's

656
00:33:33,990 --> 00:33:36,230
Speaker 1: known probably as a bad movie, but it has a

657
00:33:36,230 --> 00:33:37,370
Speaker 1: very special place in my heart.

658
00:33:37,650 --> 00:33:39,430
Speaker 2: It sounds like the prequel to Tulsa King.

659
00:33:39,910 --> 00:33:40,490
Speaker 1: Right.

660
00:33:42,250 --> 00:33:46,070
Speaker 2: So she also, did you mention Sand Dollar yet? No.

661
00:33:46,490 --> 00:33:51,150
Speaker 2: She founded a production company with Sandy Gallen, her longtime

662
00:33:51,210 --> 00:33:54,470
Speaker 2: manager and friend. And they went on to produce movies

663
00:33:54,490 --> 00:33:55,730
Speaker 2: like Father of the Bride.

664
00:33:55,750 --> 00:33:56,610
Speaker 1: Yeah.

665
00:33:56,910 --> 00:33:58,850
Speaker 2: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie.

666
00:33:59,310 --> 00:33:59,530
Speaker 1: Yeah.

667
00:34:00,010 --> 00:34:03,730
Speaker 2: She also did Straight Talk, which she was in, where

668
00:34:03,770 --> 00:34:07,310
Speaker 2: she plays a woman who accidentally becomes a radio host and,

669
00:34:07,330 --> 00:34:10,489
Speaker 2: of course, just shoots into the stratosphere and popularity.

670
00:34:10,930 --> 00:34:11,629
Speaker 1: I never saw that.

671
00:34:12,530 --> 00:34:14,630
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it was okay.

672
00:34:15,090 --> 00:34:15,310
Speaker 1: Okay.

673
00:34:17,050 --> 00:34:19,410
Speaker 2: Not her best work, but still. She was amazing in

674
00:34:19,450 --> 00:34:24,100
Speaker 2: Steel Magnolias. I mean, like, if you go back and, yeah,

675
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 2: if you go back and watch some of those scenes

676
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 2: between her and her husband in particular, she's a really

677
00:34:29,620 --> 00:34:31,419
Speaker 2: good actress. No, she's good.

678
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,240
Speaker 1: In fact, but the Shelby I just did was more

679
00:34:34,500 --> 00:34:36,810
Speaker 1: Sally Field. Now that I think about it.

680
00:34:37,010 --> 00:34:39,980
Speaker 2: I detected a hint of Sally Field in there. All right.

681
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:43,219
Speaker 1: I think let's take another break and then we'll this

682
00:34:43,300 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: is going to go a little long, but that's OK,

683
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 1: because we're about to dive into Dollywood right after this. Shelby.

684
00:34:48,300 --> 00:34:49,460
Speaker 2: Shelby.

685
00:35:13,750 --> 00:35:17,710
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, here we are. I'll set it

686
00:35:17,790 --> 00:35:19,430
Speaker 1: up with how it starts and then you can just

687
00:35:19,469 --> 00:35:23,150
Speaker 1: take over because you've actually been there. But in an

688
00:35:23,210 --> 00:35:27,820
Speaker 1: interview in 1982 with Barbara Walters, Dolly Parton said something

689
00:35:27,860 --> 00:35:31,219
Speaker 1: about being interested in opening up a theme park back home.

690
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:32,340
Speaker 2: Yeah.

691
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,219
Speaker 1: And there was a theme park, Silver Dollar City in

692
00:35:35,260 --> 00:35:39,300
Speaker 1: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. And the owners, Jack and Pete Herschend,

693
00:35:39,739 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: heard this interview and gave her a call and was like,

694
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 1: let's get together on this. And they did to great success. Yeah.

695
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,900
Speaker 2: Four years later, Dollywood opened. It reopened as Dollywood, I

696
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 2: should say. Just that first year, they doubled their entries

697
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 2: to 1.3 million people coming. And that's not just a

698
00:35:59,660 --> 00:36:02,259
Speaker 2: full year. It snows and everything kind of shuts down

699
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:06,830
Speaker 2: in the wintertime in Pigeon Forge or in the Smokies.

700
00:36:06,870 --> 00:36:09,750
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing they crammed a lot of those people

701
00:36:09,830 --> 00:36:11,910
Speaker 2: in in a very short amount of time, probably summer.

702
00:36:12,190 --> 00:36:13,970
Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm going off on this tangent,

703
00:36:13,989 --> 00:36:15,350
Speaker 2: but it just seemed important when I started.

704
00:36:15,370 --> 00:36:17,610
Speaker 1: It's called how theme parks work. They close in the winter.

705
00:36:17,950 --> 00:36:21,410
Speaker 2: Be quiet, you. So it was a success right out

706
00:36:21,450 --> 00:36:23,750
Speaker 2: of the gate, I should say. And little known fact,

707
00:36:24,110 --> 00:36:26,129
Speaker 2: or it's a rumor that a lot of people don't

708
00:36:26,170 --> 00:36:30,530
Speaker 2: realize is actual fact. They buried a time capsule there

709
00:36:30,650 --> 00:36:34,660
Speaker 2: on opening day. And it contains an unreleased Dolly song.

710
00:36:34,860 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: No way.

711
00:36:35,739 --> 00:36:37,660
Speaker 2: That is not to be opened until I think she's

712
00:36:37,660 --> 00:36:38,660
Speaker 2: 99 years old.

713
00:36:39,140 --> 00:36:43,230
Speaker 1: Wow. Mm-hmm. Which is, what is she now, 76?

714
00:36:43,230 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 2: 78, I think. Okay.

715
00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:47,020
Speaker 1: So it's close.

716
00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:48,219
Speaker 2: Yeah. We can wait.

717
00:36:48,500 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: She sees it, yeah.

718
00:36:49,239 --> 00:36:49,860
Speaker 2: Oh, we'll wait.

719
00:36:50,780 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 1: So tell me about Dollywood. I want to know more.

720
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 2: So it is a, you can definitely believe that it

721
00:36:57,260 --> 00:36:59,450
Speaker 2: used to be a silver dollar city. They preserved a

722
00:36:59,489 --> 00:37:02,500
Speaker 2: lot of stuff. There's a coal-fired... train that kind of

723
00:37:02,540 --> 00:37:06,260
Speaker 2: takes you around on some neat vistas and everything. We

724
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:09,570
Speaker 2: went around Christmas time, which kind of undermines my argument

725
00:37:09,610 --> 00:37:12,830
Speaker 2: about things shutting down in the winter. We went for

726
00:37:12,870 --> 00:37:14,770
Speaker 2: Yumi's birthday, actually, like one year. And.

727
00:37:16,890 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 2: There was like a Christmas show where there's like singing

728
00:37:19,700 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 2: and dancing, but it was so corny that I was

729
00:37:21,980 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 2: waiting for everybody to be like, oh, you know, we're

730
00:37:23,940 --> 00:37:26,759
Speaker 2: just joking. Here's the real show. It never happened. It

731
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:30,050
Speaker 2: was just that like kitschy and American and earnest. Yeah.

732
00:37:30,090 --> 00:37:32,670
Speaker 2: And just corny. But it was very sweet in retrospect,

733
00:37:32,730 --> 00:37:36,310
Speaker 2: especially hard to sit through, but very sweet. And then

734
00:37:36,330 --> 00:37:38,689
Speaker 2: there's just a lot of like people dipping candles. There's

735
00:37:38,830 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 2: tons of food to eat. There's a roller coaster that

736
00:37:43,180 --> 00:37:46,610
Speaker 2: neither you me nor I went on. But there's a

737
00:37:46,650 --> 00:37:50,300
Speaker 2: museum there that's closed temporarily because apparently they're reimagining it.

738
00:37:50,870 --> 00:37:54,090
Speaker 2: But it was originally called the Chasing Rainbows Museum. And

739
00:37:54,140 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton is a just self-professed pack rat. She saved.

740
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:04,020
Speaker 2: everything chuck everything the coat of many colors that she

741
00:38:04,060 --> 00:38:06,620
Speaker 2: sings about it's there you can see it in real

742
00:38:06,660 --> 00:38:09,700
Speaker 2: life right there and it's the tiniest cutest little thing

743
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,910
Speaker 2: you've ever seen in your entire life it's so tiny

744
00:38:13,250 --> 00:38:14,070
Speaker 2: and this is a coat.

745
00:38:13,870 --> 00:38:15,589
Speaker 1: Her mom made for her when she was a kid

746
00:38:15,630 --> 00:38:17,010
Speaker 1: right out of old rags that.

747
00:38:16,890 --> 00:38:18,910
Speaker 2: She sang about in that coat of many colors yeah

748
00:38:19,150 --> 00:38:21,109
Speaker 2: and it's what a great song but then just to

749
00:38:21,650 --> 00:38:23,350
Speaker 2: just to love that song and then see the actual

750
00:38:23,390 --> 00:38:25,549
Speaker 2: coat and then just see how dinky it is It

751
00:38:25,590 --> 00:38:28,310
Speaker 2: was just amazing. Those lists I told you she used

752
00:38:28,330 --> 00:38:30,910
Speaker 2: to keep, she kept those. Those are on display. Wigs,

753
00:38:31,330 --> 00:38:35,800
Speaker 2: rhinestones everywhere. But it's not just like this ode or

754
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,980
Speaker 2: tribute to Dolly. It's a genuine, like, curated look into

755
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 2: her whole career. And it was one of the best

756
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:45,800
Speaker 2: museums I've ever been to in my life of any kind.

757
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 1: Why didn't you guys ride the roller coaster?

758
00:38:48,570 --> 00:38:50,130
Speaker 2: We're both scared of roller coasters.

759
00:38:50,790 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think I... remember that.

760
00:38:52,950 --> 00:38:55,549
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been scared of roller coasters for decades, but

761
00:38:55,710 --> 00:38:58,550
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm starting to come out of it. OK.

762
00:38:58,770 --> 00:39:00,750
Speaker 2: And I might go challenge myself and ride a few

763
00:39:00,790 --> 00:39:04,090
Speaker 2: roller coasters this summer and see if I'm correct or

764
00:39:04,130 --> 00:39:05,590
Speaker 2: if I'm really, really wrong.

765
00:39:06,170 --> 00:39:09,469
Speaker 1: Well, you should go to Six Flags with Ruby and I,

766
00:39:09,530 --> 00:39:13,149
Speaker 1: because there's nothing like getting your courage worked up than

767
00:39:13,190 --> 00:39:16,390
Speaker 1: a seven year old who will ride anything. Staring you

768
00:39:16,410 --> 00:39:16,930
Speaker 1: in the face.

769
00:39:17,070 --> 00:39:19,489
Speaker 2: Okay. All right. I may use that. That's just the

770
00:39:19,530 --> 00:39:20,569
Speaker 2: elixir I'm looking for.

771
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,540
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. She'll go on whatever. She wouldn't understand. She'd

772
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:25,490
Speaker 1: be like, why don't you want to go on it?

773
00:39:25,500 --> 00:39:26,700
Speaker 1: What do you mean you're scared?

774
00:39:27,630 --> 00:39:29,850
Speaker 2: I don't. You're kind of ruining things for me.

775
00:39:31,420 --> 00:39:33,259
Speaker 1: Well, I want to go to Dollywood, so maybe we

776
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:35,450
Speaker 1: can go to Six Flags and then Dollywood and just

777
00:39:35,469 --> 00:39:36,890
Speaker 1: do a theme park roundup.

778
00:39:37,110 --> 00:39:40,310
Speaker 2: I strongly recommend it because there's like all sorts of

779
00:39:40,350 --> 00:39:42,850
Speaker 2: stuff in nearby Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Yeah, of course.

780
00:39:42,910 --> 00:39:44,070
Speaker 1: I've been to Gatlinburg.

781
00:39:44,090 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 2: Ripley's Museums and just all sorts of just cool, super

782
00:39:48,460 --> 00:39:49,940
Speaker 2: kitschy touristy stuff.

783
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

784
00:39:51,980 --> 00:39:52,800
Speaker 2: Oh, what's his name?

785
00:39:52,820 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

786
00:39:54,670 --> 00:39:57,280
Speaker 2: The guy who sings Proud to be an American?

787
00:39:57,550 --> 00:39:58,439
Speaker 1: Lee Greenwood.

788
00:39:58,620 --> 00:40:01,660
Speaker 2: There's the Lee Greenwood Cafe where they no joke play

789
00:40:01,700 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 2: that song on a loop over and over again the

790
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:07,859
Speaker 2: whole time. You're like, where's the next song? They don't

791
00:40:07,900 --> 00:40:08,740
Speaker 2: play the next song.

792
00:40:09,260 --> 00:40:11,620
Speaker 1: I heard that song every night of the summer for

793
00:40:11,660 --> 00:40:13,270
Speaker 1: like five summers when I worked at the Stone Mountain

794
00:40:13,290 --> 00:40:13,670
Speaker 1: Laser Show.

795
00:40:13,910 --> 00:40:14,529
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I'll bet.

796
00:40:14,890 --> 00:40:15,610
Speaker 1: I got my fill of it.

797
00:40:16,010 --> 00:40:17,450
Speaker 2: Yeah.

798
00:40:17,590 --> 00:40:20,290
Speaker 1: So we can talk a little bit more about her politics.

799
00:40:20,330 --> 00:40:23,529
Speaker 1: She's and this is where the sociologists and anthropologists come in.

800
00:40:24,219 --> 00:40:28,590
Speaker 1: There's a sociologist named Tressie McMillan Cottom that has written

801
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,530
Speaker 1: about how black women have always looked up to Dolly

802
00:40:31,550 --> 00:40:34,549
Speaker 1: Parton as a role model, even though she is like

803
00:40:34,630 --> 00:40:37,850
Speaker 1: it's a very specific sort of white southern thing that

804
00:40:37,890 --> 00:40:42,380
Speaker 1: she embodies. Again, just, you know, testifies to her crossover

805
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:46,420
Speaker 1: appeal that she is to be admired by anybody. Her

806
00:40:46,460 --> 00:40:48,700
Speaker 1: Q score, if you don't know what a Q score is,

807
00:40:48,739 --> 00:40:51,900
Speaker 1: it's a marketing tool that basically there's a bunch of

808
00:40:51,920 --> 00:40:53,610
Speaker 1: things that go into your Q score, but it's basically

809
00:40:53,620 --> 00:40:56,140
Speaker 1: how How much people like you, how much they recognize

810
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,100
Speaker 1: your name. And her Q score is like legendarily one

811
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: of the top Q scores of all time, celebrity wise.

812
00:41:02,380 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 2: She has a high positive Q score. They also do

813
00:41:04,660 --> 00:41:07,180
Speaker 2: a negative Q score. And she has a very low

814
00:41:07,300 --> 00:41:10,350
Speaker 2: negative Q score. So she's among the most beloved and

815
00:41:10,390 --> 00:41:13,790
Speaker 2: among the least disliked people in the entire world.

816
00:41:14,170 --> 00:41:15,469
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to know my Q score.

817
00:41:15,930 --> 00:41:17,330
Speaker 2: I looked it up. We don't have one yet.

818
00:41:17,860 --> 00:41:18,300
Speaker 1: OK, good.

819
00:41:18,550 --> 00:41:21,150
Speaker 2: But I was reading this article on the conversation and

820
00:41:21,170 --> 00:41:24,310
Speaker 2: these two Australian marketing people were trying to figure out

821
00:41:24,390 --> 00:41:27,430
Speaker 2: who would have been Australia's Dolly. And they landed on

822
00:41:27,489 --> 00:41:29,910
Speaker 2: Hugh Jackman. And I'm like, I can't disagree with that.

823
00:41:30,890 --> 00:41:31,670
Speaker 1: He's pretty likable.

824
00:41:32,070 --> 00:41:33,750
Speaker 2: Sure. Everybody likes Hugh Jackman.

825
00:41:34,290 --> 00:41:35,549
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that.

826
00:41:36,530 --> 00:41:38,410
Speaker 2: Even though he did The Greatest Showman.

827
00:41:38,850 --> 00:41:39,069
Speaker 1: Right.

828
00:41:39,330 --> 00:41:41,069
Speaker 2: People still like Hugh Jackman.

829
00:41:42,660 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: The anthropologist comes in, a man named Jonathan Zilberg in 1995.

830
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:52,440
Speaker 1: talked about how she was loved in Zimbabwe of all places.

831
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:56,340
Speaker 1: And again, it's just like, you know, pick a country

832
00:41:56,820 --> 00:41:58,850
Speaker 1: and chances are people there love Dolly Parton.

833
00:41:59,730 --> 00:42:02,009
Speaker 2: And in Dolly Parton's America, then they talk about how

834
00:42:02,230 --> 00:42:05,370
Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela, while he was in prison in South Africa,

835
00:42:06,010 --> 00:42:10,990
Speaker 2: got his jailers to play Jolene for the whole jail.

836
00:42:11,150 --> 00:42:15,069
Speaker 2: Basically all Shawshank Redemption. Pretty cool.

837
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,980
Speaker 1: Pretty cool. And like you said earlier, she basically just

838
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 1: avoids politics. She doesn't let any politician on either side

839
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,700
Speaker 1: use her music. If a Democrat uses it, she shuts

840
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: them down. If a Republican uses it, she shuts them down.

841
00:42:29,260 --> 00:42:33,940
Speaker 1: She just sort of sidesteps all that stuff. She's always been,

842
00:42:34,060 --> 00:42:36,819
Speaker 1: you know, growing up, of course, in the 70s, there

843
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:41,230
Speaker 1: were a lot of playground jokes about Dolly Parton's breast size.

844
00:42:41,590 --> 00:42:43,989
Speaker 1: She was very well known for it. And she's always

845
00:42:44,030 --> 00:42:45,810
Speaker 1: been the first one to jump in and joke about

846
00:42:45,830 --> 00:42:48,830
Speaker 1: it herself instead of being like the butt of the joke.

847
00:42:49,430 --> 00:42:52,149
Speaker 1: She can just go along with it. And that's just

848
00:42:52,250 --> 00:42:55,069
Speaker 1: that's another really likable quality is someone who can and

849
00:42:55,230 --> 00:42:57,550
Speaker 1: can laugh at themselves and not take things too seriously.

850
00:42:58,010 --> 00:43:02,879
Speaker 2: I also saw it put that she she knows that

851
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:04,739
Speaker 2: these jokes are going to be made anyway, so she

852
00:43:04,780 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 2: can diffuse them by getting out in front of them

853
00:43:07,219 --> 00:43:09,819
Speaker 2: and topping, you know, the lame jokes that like old

854
00:43:09,860 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 2: talk show hosts would make.

855
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:12,100
Speaker 1: Yeah.

856
00:43:12,260 --> 00:43:14,900
Speaker 2: I saw once she said that she burned her bra

857
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,460
Speaker 2: and it took the fire department three days to put

858
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 2: it out. Like that kind of stuff. That's hilarious. That

859
00:43:20,940 --> 00:43:21,919
Speaker 2: was her joke? Yeah.

860
00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: Oh, that's good. That's very funny.

861
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 2: So I think we mentioned this before. Do you know

862
00:43:26,700 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 2: that Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal on the planet,

863
00:43:31,020 --> 00:43:34,280
Speaker 2: was named Dolly because she was grown from a mammary

864
00:43:34,300 --> 00:43:35,070
Speaker 2: gland cell?

865
00:43:35,110 --> 00:43:35,300
Speaker 1: Yeah.

866
00:43:35,890 --> 00:43:38,380
Speaker 2: I can't remember where we talked about that. But it

867
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: really just goes to show, like, that's how ubiquitous Dolly

868
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,180
Speaker 2: Parton's boobs were in the 20th century.

869
00:43:44,260 --> 00:43:44,980
Speaker 1: I know.

870
00:43:45,060 --> 00:43:47,340
Speaker 2: Like, they were as big as she was, basically.

871
00:43:47,980 --> 00:43:50,069
Speaker 1: Yeah. No pun intended.

872
00:43:50,180 --> 00:43:52,250
Speaker 2: They were definitely part of her brand, for sure.

873
00:43:52,969 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, she was smart enough to lean into it.

874
00:43:57,130 --> 00:43:59,170
Speaker 1: Another thing that she had done over the years is

875
00:43:59,489 --> 00:44:01,270
Speaker 1: there are a lot of really dark songs that she's

876
00:44:01,310 --> 00:44:06,230
Speaker 1: written about, even though she's never kind of outright considered

877
00:44:06,250 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: herself a feminist. She very much is. And a lot

878
00:44:08,900 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 1: of the songs she's written over the years have been

879
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:15,860
Speaker 1: very dark songs about women who are either abandoned or

880
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: suffering from sexual double standards. Or there's one brutal song

881
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:23,380
Speaker 1: from 1970 called Daddy Come and Get Me about a

882
00:44:23,420 --> 00:44:25,580
Speaker 1: true story of a relative in her family that was

883
00:44:25,940 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 1: basically institutionalized by her husband. So she's never been afraid

884
00:44:30,380 --> 00:44:32,100
Speaker 1: to go down sort of in the tradition of the

885
00:44:32,219 --> 00:44:34,900
Speaker 1: old sort of dark country murder ballad thing, go down

886
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:36,959
Speaker 1: these darker roads with some of the songs she's written.

887
00:44:37,420 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that she considers herself not a feminist,

888
00:44:40,980 --> 00:44:43,379
Speaker 2: but in favor of all women. She's for all women.

889
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:47,700
Speaker 2: So it's like she doesn't subscribe to the movement part,

890
00:44:47,910 --> 00:44:52,310
Speaker 2: but what the movement's ultimately about, she's totally in favor with.

891
00:44:52,590 --> 00:44:58,130
Speaker 2: And that's super her. She made a very rare, overt

892
00:44:58,190 --> 00:45:02,270
Speaker 2: statement when she came out in support of Black Lives Matter.

893
00:45:02,910 --> 00:45:05,190
Speaker 2: And I really like. At a time where it was

894
00:45:05,210 --> 00:45:08,450
Speaker 2: like you're casting your lot one way or another. And

895
00:45:08,510 --> 00:45:11,020
Speaker 2: she stood up for it, which is pretty cool.

896
00:45:11,660 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 1: She did. She also, in 2018, there was at Dollywood,

897
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:20,890
Speaker 1: the Dixie Stampede. She changed the name to Dolly Parton

898
00:45:20,910 --> 00:45:25,569
Speaker 1: Stampede after people complained about the whole Dixie connotation and

899
00:45:25,650 --> 00:45:27,589
Speaker 1: Civil War theme. She changed that up and she was

900
00:45:27,630 --> 00:45:30,430
Speaker 1: just like, you know, I never really thought about, you know,

901
00:45:30,489 --> 00:45:34,570
Speaker 1: the Confederate imagery, meaning what it meant to, And so

902
00:45:34,630 --> 00:45:37,910
Speaker 1: she was happily changed it. And that's just the kind

903
00:45:37,950 --> 00:45:39,029
Speaker 1: of person she is, I think.

904
00:45:39,270 --> 00:45:40,950
Speaker 2: And she got guff for that. And she got guff

905
00:45:40,969 --> 00:45:44,190
Speaker 2: for supporting Black Lives Matter from some of her her

906
00:45:44,270 --> 00:45:48,430
Speaker 2: right leaning fans. But she she can always explain herself,

907
00:45:48,850 --> 00:45:50,950
Speaker 2: you know, and she does so in such a great

908
00:45:51,010 --> 00:45:54,180
Speaker 2: way that you're just kind of like, well, fine. It's

909
00:45:54,219 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 2: hard to be you can't keep a grudge against her

910
00:45:56,620 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 2: even if she goes against you politically. But she just

911
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: so rarely does it. Yeah.

912
00:46:00,700 --> 00:46:03,810
Speaker 1: Agreed. Uh, she is, uh, we're going to wind it

913
00:46:03,850 --> 00:46:07,550
Speaker 1: down with her business and philanthropy. Um, very savvy business

914
00:46:07,570 --> 00:46:10,439
Speaker 1: person from the very beginning. Uh, she was smart enough

915
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: to hang on to her, um, the rights to her

916
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: own music and never give them up. Even when Elvis

917
00:46:15,580 --> 00:46:18,819
Speaker 1: Presley came calling and wanted to cover, I will always

918
00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:21,580
Speaker 1: love you. He wanted half the publishing rights. And she

919
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:24,100
Speaker 1: was like, no way. He'd take a walk. Elvis Presley.

920
00:46:24,580 --> 00:46:27,140
Speaker 2: He didn't. Apparently Colonel Tom called her up on the

921
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:30,859
Speaker 2: morning of the scheduled recording session. And sprung that on her,

922
00:46:30,900 --> 00:46:33,299
Speaker 2: and she turned him down. And she said she was

923
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,259
Speaker 2: hoping that Elvis was as disappointed as she was. But

924
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 2: that took a lot of gumption, especially to have it

925
00:46:38,580 --> 00:46:41,299
Speaker 2: sprung on you like that. And she said, nope, not

926
00:46:41,340 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 2: doing it. But that's one of the things that made

927
00:46:43,340 --> 00:46:47,580
Speaker 2: her so incredibly wealthy. Like, apparently her music catalog has

928
00:46:47,620 --> 00:46:51,509
Speaker 2: a net worth of about $ 150 million and brings in

929
00:46:51,550 --> 00:46:54,509
Speaker 2: about $ 6 to $ 8 million a year for her, according to,

930
00:46:54,550 --> 00:46:58,089
Speaker 2: I think, Forbes. And then her stake in Dollywood is her...

931
00:46:59,230 --> 00:47:03,050
Speaker 2: her most valuable asset. I think it's like $ 165 million.

932
00:47:04,430 --> 00:47:04,810
Speaker 2: Pretty neat.

933
00:47:05,450 --> 00:47:06,830
Speaker 1: She has done quite well for herself.

934
00:47:06,850 --> 00:47:07,310
Speaker 2: Yeah.

935
00:47:09,010 --> 00:47:13,549
Speaker 1: Uh, she, I mean, these days she's, she's not stopping either. She's, um,

936
00:47:14,170 --> 00:47:17,359
Speaker 1: she's on Duncan Hines, buttermilk biscuit mix with her little

937
00:47:17,390 --> 00:47:22,359
Speaker 1: cartoon face. They have fragrances branded by Dolly. Uh, they

938
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,910
Speaker 1: have pet clothes that she's branded with. Um, Like, just

939
00:47:27,190 --> 00:47:29,430
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. She's not afraid to license her image.

940
00:47:29,710 --> 00:47:30,150
Speaker 2: No.

941
00:47:30,230 --> 00:47:30,830
Speaker 1: For sure.

942
00:47:31,010 --> 00:47:33,970
Speaker 2: We've got the Duncan Hines frosting in our pantry.

943
00:47:34,270 --> 00:47:34,989
Speaker 1: Do you?

944
00:47:35,030 --> 00:47:37,930
Speaker 2: The chocolate cream frosting. And then one other thing I saw, Chuck,

945
00:47:37,969 --> 00:47:40,410
Speaker 2: she wrote a book, co-wrote a book with James Patterson,

946
00:47:40,850 --> 00:47:44,140
Speaker 2: one of the best, most favorite novelists in the entire world.

947
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:47,100
Speaker 2: It's called Run, Rose, Run. And it's a thriller based

948
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,540
Speaker 2: kind of loosely on Dolly's story of making it in

949
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: the music biz.

950
00:47:51,420 --> 00:47:51,920
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.

951
00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:54,020
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it just came out. Okay.

952
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,840
Speaker 1: I might have to check that out. Yeah. Uh, she

953
00:47:57,219 --> 00:47:59,740
Speaker 1: is very charitable as well. She started the Dollywood foundation

954
00:47:59,960 --> 00:48:04,140
Speaker 1: in 1988, uh, just to get literacy going in her

955
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:08,700
Speaker 1: home County. And it grew and grew and grew to

956
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,310
Speaker 1: the point where it is now in the U S Canada, Australia,

957
00:48:12,350 --> 00:48:15,550
Speaker 1: the UK and Ireland. And to date, uh, the program

958
00:48:15,590 --> 00:48:21,770
Speaker 1: has given out more than 204 million books across these countries. And, um,

959
00:48:22,250 --> 00:48:24,170
Speaker 1: you know, she'll build a hospital in her County, um,

960
00:48:25,790 --> 00:48:30,430
Speaker 1: Anytime there's like wildfires nearby, she's chipping in. She very

961
00:48:30,469 --> 00:48:35,230
Speaker 1: famously donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center

962
00:48:35,690 --> 00:48:40,600
Speaker 1: for COVID-19 vaccine research. And, you know, people don't credit

963
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: her with the Moderna vaccine, but they're like that million

964
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:47,420
Speaker 1: dollars was instrumental in getting that vaccine to trial.

965
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, she also was like, everybody go get jabbed.

966
00:48:51,030 --> 00:48:53,110
Speaker 2: She yeah, there was a video at one around of

967
00:48:53,190 --> 00:48:57,259
Speaker 2: her getting her own vaccine, the first one, I think.

968
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,739
Speaker 2: And she was singing Vaccine to the tune of Jolene.

969
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,260
Speaker 1: Pretty nice tie-in.

970
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,819
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It was great. So one other thing, though,

971
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:11,540
Speaker 2: about her foundation, one reason she got into literacy programs

972
00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 2: was because her father never learned to read. And apparently

973
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 2: he told her just before he died that he was

974
00:49:16,700 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 2: most proud of her for that work that she'd done.

975
00:49:20,010 --> 00:49:23,640
Speaker 2: with promoting literacy around the world. It's pretty cool. It

976
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:24,500
Speaker 2: makes it even neater.

977
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: And in addition to the vaccine Jolene song, she also

978
00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,359
Speaker 1: did a version of I Will Always Jab You.

979
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:33,020
Speaker 2: That was less popular.

980
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:34,180
Speaker 1: Less popular.

981
00:49:34,380 --> 00:49:35,300
Speaker 2: Sounds a little aggressive.

982
00:49:35,900 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: She's been nominated for 53 Grammys. 53. Uh, she's won 10,

983
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,950
Speaker 1: which I think that number should be higher. Uh, but

984
00:49:45,010 --> 00:49:49,170
Speaker 1: you know, they have given her like lifetime achievement awards and, uh,

985
00:49:49,810 --> 00:49:52,129
Speaker 1: Jolene and I will always love you were inducted into

986
00:49:52,150 --> 00:49:54,890
Speaker 1: the Grammy hall of fame. So they have like heaped

987
00:49:54,969 --> 00:49:57,290
Speaker 1: awards on her, even when she has not won the

988
00:49:57,350 --> 00:50:00,660
Speaker 1: actual Grammy. Uh, and she's also won an Emmy, right?

989
00:50:00,780 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 2: Yeah. She was also up for two Oscars for best

990
00:50:04,460 --> 00:50:11,060
Speaker 2: song for, um, Oh, Traveling Through for Transamerica in, I think, 2006.

991
00:50:11,060 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 2: And then 9 to 5, the song.

992
00:50:13,580 --> 00:50:14,439
Speaker 1: Did 9 to 5 not win?

993
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:16,540
Speaker 2: No, it was beaten by Fame.

994
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: Oh, boy, that's a tough year.

995
00:50:19,580 --> 00:50:22,739
Speaker 2: Traveling Through was beaten by Hard Out There for a

996
00:50:22,820 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 2: Pimp from Hustle and Flow.

997
00:50:25,070 --> 00:50:25,779
Speaker 1: That's a good song, too.

998
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:26,700
Speaker 2: How are you going to top that?

999
00:50:27,219 --> 00:50:30,010
Speaker 1: It's really hard. I was getting ready to trash whatever

1000
00:50:30,050 --> 00:50:33,050
Speaker 1: beat out 9 to 5, but Fame is a great song.

1001
00:50:33,090 --> 00:50:34,049
Speaker 1: That's a tough year.

1002
00:50:34,170 --> 00:50:36,650
Speaker 2: That was a very tough year. But she also has

1003
00:50:36,810 --> 00:50:39,890
Speaker 2: two Guinness World Records to her name, one of which

1004
00:50:40,390 --> 00:50:43,779
Speaker 2: is most decades with a top 20 hit, which really

1005
00:50:43,820 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 2: just goes to show how long she's been around and

1006
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:47,220
Speaker 2: how long she's been huge.

1007
00:50:47,980 --> 00:50:49,020
Speaker 1: You know what else she has two of?

1008
00:50:49,540 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 2: What?

1009
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,300
Speaker 1: Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1010
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:52,720
Speaker 2: Two.

1011
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 1: I know.

1012
00:50:53,320 --> 00:50:54,660
Speaker 2: Is there anybody else who has that?

1013
00:50:55,260 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 1: I think so. People in different media, although probably not

1014
00:50:59,900 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I bet it's a pretty short list.

1015
00:51:02,460 --> 00:51:07,399
Speaker 1: One in 1984. And then one in 2018 when, I guess,

1016
00:51:07,420 --> 00:51:10,390
Speaker 1: the final trio of trio albums came out.

1017
00:51:11,140 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 2: So if you think Dolly's slowing down, friend, you are

1018
00:51:14,180 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 2: dead wrong. Yep. She's got a new album coming out.

1019
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 2: So she was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall

1020
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 2: of Fame despite her protests. She's like, I'm not a rocker. Apparently,

1021
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:24,110
Speaker 2: she's like, all right, well, I better go be a

1022
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:28,709
Speaker 2: rocker and earn that honor. So her next studio album,

1023
00:51:28,890 --> 00:51:33,290
Speaker 2: her 49th, is coming out, I think, this fall. And

1024
00:51:33,330 --> 00:51:35,950
Speaker 2: it's called Rockstar. And she's going to be singing with

1025
00:51:36,010 --> 00:51:37,450
Speaker 2: some other rock stars, too.

1026
00:51:37,980 --> 00:51:40,980
Speaker 1: Yeah. Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Cher. I love it.

1027
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:43,340
Speaker 2: Yep. Vince Neal?

1028
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:45,399
Speaker 1: No, not Vince Neal.

1029
00:51:45,900 --> 00:51:47,620
Speaker 2: That's correct, not Vince Neal. Oh, okay.

1030
00:51:49,610 --> 00:51:51,230
Speaker 1: That'd be pretty amazing, actually.

1031
00:51:52,489 --> 00:51:54,370
Speaker 2: You got anything else about Dolly Parton? Oh, I've got

1032
00:51:54,430 --> 00:51:54,969
Speaker 2: one other thing.

1033
00:51:55,410 --> 00:51:55,770
Speaker 1: Let's hear it.

1034
00:51:55,810 --> 00:52:00,750
Speaker 2: Before you answer. She wakes up at 3 a.m. every day. Oh.

1035
00:52:01,230 --> 00:52:02,290
Speaker 1: Daughter of a sharecropper.

1036
00:52:02,510 --> 00:52:03,250
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.

1037
00:52:04,070 --> 00:52:04,650
Speaker 1: That's amazing.

1038
00:52:04,930 --> 00:52:06,109
Speaker 2: Okay, you got anything else?

1039
00:52:07,070 --> 00:52:08,089
Speaker 1: I got nothing else.

1040
00:52:08,530 --> 00:52:11,700
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't either. I don't think. But I'm going

1041
00:52:11,719 --> 00:52:13,820
Speaker 2: to think of 10 things after we're done recording.

1042
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:16,779
Speaker 1: I know. I've been listening to Dolly Parton all day,

1043
00:52:16,820 --> 00:52:18,100
Speaker 1: so it's going to continue on.

1044
00:52:18,260 --> 00:52:21,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not hard to do. If you want to

1045
00:52:21,700 --> 00:52:24,259
Speaker 2: know more about Dolly Parton, friend, go listen to Dolly Parton.

1046
00:52:24,280 --> 00:52:26,500
Speaker 2: Go watch videos of Dolly Parton. Go read interviews with

1047
00:52:26,540 --> 00:52:29,980
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton. She was once described as a black belt interviewee.

1048
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:32,900
Speaker 2: So you'll never be disappointed with a Dolly Parton interview.

1049
00:52:33,380 --> 00:52:35,219
Speaker 2: And since I said you'll never be disappointed by a

1050
00:52:35,260 --> 00:52:38,700
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton interview, that has opened up listener mail.

1051
00:52:41,380 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this great email. Follow up from arcades. Hey, guys,

1052
00:52:45,260 --> 00:52:47,810
Speaker 1: want to tell you a story of my very traditional grandmother.

1053
00:52:49,570 --> 00:52:52,150
Speaker 1: She was very traditional in the Midwestern sense, and she

1054
00:52:52,170 --> 00:52:52,870
Speaker 1: was a homemaker.

1055
00:52:52,890 --> 00:52:53,490
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

1056
00:52:53,530 --> 00:52:57,530
Speaker 1: Books for my grandfather's iron working concern. She didn't tolerate

1057
00:52:57,570 --> 00:53:00,510
Speaker 1: cussing or fussing and was a conservative dresser.

1058
00:53:00,850 --> 00:53:01,950
Speaker 2: She liked the calico.

1059
00:53:03,050 --> 00:53:06,919
Speaker 1: She didn't have any obvious vices, save one. Pac-Man.

1060
00:53:07,340 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.

1061
00:53:08,260 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 1: To hear her tell it, there was a time where

1062
00:53:09,500 --> 00:53:11,220
Speaker 1: she would wake up before her husband and five children,

1063
00:53:11,700 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: power up the Atari, and start a Pac-Man game. After

1064
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,420
Speaker 1: 30 minutes or so, she would get breakfast on the table,

1065
00:53:16,890 --> 00:53:18,910
Speaker 1: get her family out the door, and do the books,

1066
00:53:18,989 --> 00:53:21,529
Speaker 1: clean the house, and then finally get back to her

1067
00:53:21,570 --> 00:53:24,150
Speaker 1: paused Pac-Man game, which she would play until it was

1068
00:53:24,190 --> 00:53:26,390
Speaker 1: time to start dinner when her family came back home.

1069
00:53:26,410 --> 00:53:28,490
Speaker 2: That's awesome. She had Pac-Man fever.

1070
00:53:28,890 --> 00:53:31,510
Speaker 1: That's good. Wouldn't be much of a story, guys, except

1071
00:53:31,570 --> 00:53:34,850
Speaker 1: here's the thing. She was really, really good at Pac-Man.

1072
00:53:34,870 --> 00:53:35,310
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah?

1073
00:53:35,780 --> 00:53:38,130
Speaker 1: She once told me she had the first 40-something levels

1074
00:53:38,250 --> 00:53:41,009
Speaker 1: memorized and could use them to rack up points and

1075
00:53:41,050 --> 00:53:43,989
Speaker 1: then thus extra lives. She got to a point where

1076
00:53:44,010 --> 00:53:46,090
Speaker 1: she could play the same game all day long. Eventually,

1077
00:53:46,130 --> 00:53:48,890
Speaker 1: she would describe getting to a high enough level where

1078
00:53:48,910 --> 00:53:49,830
Speaker 1: the game would freeze.

1079
00:53:50,230 --> 00:53:50,390
Speaker 2: Oh.

1080
00:53:50,930 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: And what she was describing was level 256, the kill screen.

1081
00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: But since she was home alone every time she reached

1082
00:53:57,640 --> 00:53:59,900
Speaker 1: it and the internet wasn't a household thing, no one

1083
00:53:59,940 --> 00:54:01,160
Speaker 1: ever knew what she was talking about.

1084
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:03,740
Speaker 2: She just ran out the door and was like, somebody, anybody,

1085
00:54:04,020 --> 00:54:04,459
Speaker 2: come look.

1086
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 1: It was until many years later that I saw King

1087
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:10,009
Speaker 1: of Kong and saw the footage of the kill screen

1088
00:54:10,050 --> 00:54:13,370
Speaker 1: my grandmother had described. Couldn't believe my eyes or the

1089
00:54:13,410 --> 00:54:16,410
Speaker 1: fact that my conservative grandmother was such an early skilled gamer.

1090
00:54:16,430 --> 00:54:17,490
Speaker 2: That's neat.

1091
00:54:17,510 --> 00:54:19,350
Speaker 1: She's since passed away, but every time the subject of

1092
00:54:19,410 --> 00:54:22,009
Speaker 1: Pac-Man comes up, brings a smile to my face and

1093
00:54:22,030 --> 00:54:25,790
Speaker 1: I remember her and her high scores. That is from

1094
00:54:25,810 --> 00:54:28,950
Speaker 1: Aaron Miller of Kansas City, the Kansas side.

1095
00:54:29,969 --> 00:54:32,530
Speaker 2: Oh, that's rare. You don't usually hear from those people.

1096
00:54:33,090 --> 00:54:33,629
Speaker 1: Kansas side.

1097
00:54:33,650 --> 00:54:37,210
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Well, thanks a lot, Aaron. That's a fantastic story.

1098
00:54:37,430 --> 00:54:39,299
Speaker 2: I'm glad you could smuggle that message out of the

1099
00:54:39,340 --> 00:54:42,860
Speaker 2: Kansas side of Kansas City to us. And if you

1100
00:54:42,900 --> 00:54:44,800
Speaker 2: want to be like Aaron and get in touch however

1101
00:54:44,900 --> 00:54:48,000
Speaker 2: way you can, try putting it in an email. Sending

1102
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 2: it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.

1103
00:54:54,580 --> 00:54:57,420
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

1104
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:01,540
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1105
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:03,530
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.