Dolly Parton

Oh no! LOL  Dolly Parton Raps on Queen Latifah Show, Calls Boobs Her "Wrecking Balls"

Call me a neo-feminist, but Dolly Parton >>>>>>>>>>>>> Miley Cyrus  

Focus On... Dolly Parton
She's 71, born the 4th of 12 in a dirt-poor part of Tennessee and so on. Hard to know what could come from this that was remarkable for being unfamiliar. Dollywood got its mentions, her friendship with Kenny Rogers is apparently stronger than ever, and her Glastonbury turn got its due, as well as her friendship to Billy Ray Cyrus, the identity of the real Jolene, and so on. Still, the music is outstanding.

Brian Johnson's Life on the Road: Dolly Parton
Brian went to Nashville to talk to one of country's biggest stars. She talked of her poor background, and Brian empathised. She said her husband loves AC/DC. She worked with Porter Waggoner for 5 years and then moved on. Elvis wanted to record I Will Always Love You, but when the Colonel got heavy about rights, she turned him down. She wrote Jolene on the same night she wrote IWALY.  She's been married 52 years, and devoted to her family, even with no children of her own. Dollywood was a way to repay her hometown, been open 32 years. Her touring life revived in 2008 when she started touring the world again. She felt her Glastonbury turn was a triumph. She's working on the music for a Jennifer Aniston film with roots in her own story. Brian shared a country tune of his own.

The Golden Hour - Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
Curious need to put two big enough stars together, even with a few duets to work with. Some predictable hits were included (hers more than his, though maybe that's just relative), some surprising omissions, and interesting inclusions.

National Enquirer Investigates: Dolly Parton
A somewhat half-hearted attempt to recount her story with any sense of outrage. Her plastic surgery is hardly a revelation. Her poor upbringing has led to her giving back to her community by building them a theme park to work in. She may have had a fling with Burt Reynolds and Kenny Rogers, but she otherwise seems to have stayed happily married for decades. The odd failure on television hasn't taken much shine off her bubble.

Dolly Parton - Here I Am
A new major tribute with Dolly and others recounting her epic story, looking along the way at the signposts of her major songs like Jolene and 9 to 5. Kylie Minogue, Linda Perry and Jane Fonda all sang her praises too.

The Stream - Dolly Parton's America
A happy coincidence with the above. Jad Abumrad runs a regular podcast with his title, after his dad met Dolly after she suffered a car accident in 2013. The global reach of her music was the theme here, how folks across the world see strength in her tunes. Perhaps the headline anecdote came from Nelson Mandela who apparently spoke of hearing Jolene when he was incarcerated at Robben Island, and how it spoke to both the prisoners and the guards. Well, there we are.

Song By Song: Dolly Parton
A 2013 iteration of the 6-part series, with Dolly herself, and many friends and country stars singing her praises, including Vince Gill, Kenny Rogers, Brad Paisley, Miley Cyrus, Janis Ian, Marty Stuart, Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert. The usual stories came one after another, with the final episode stuff about 2005's film Transamerica being interesting for being usually ignored by other tributes to her.

Dolly Parton - 50 Years at the Opry
A special tribute show with Dolly sharing some memories of old times, singing to an appreciative crowd, and some special guests doing her songs too. So that included Lady Antebellum, Emmylou Harris, Dierks Bentley and Hank Williams Jr. A good show.

Dolly Parton @ Glastonbury 2014
Repeated to back up the above, her infamous Sunday evening "legends" spot which ran for 70-odd minutes, and were packed with most of her key hits, and an all-new tribute to Glastonbury, Mud Song. In both progs, she ended with I Will Always Love You.

Showreel - Dolly Parton
An inevitable option for a series like this. Nothing too imaginative in choices, though some less expectable collaborators did get a showing for once, eg George Jones, Jeremy Jordan, Linda Ronstadt.

The Big Interview w/Dan Rather - Dolly Parton
They chatted at Dollywood. She described herself as having "the waist of a wasp", but she also trotted out other cliches like "I'll never graduate from collagen" etc. Her current album was "Blue Smoke", for which she wrote 9 of the 12 tracks. She claimed to have written more than 3 thousands songs, and published many of them. She rises early to benefit from "wee hour wisdom". The music comes from her mother's side. Jolene is her most covered song, and she told of refusing Elvis over I Will Always Love You. She spoke fondly of working with Kenny Rogers, and having been married for 48 years (plus 2 years before that when they were dating). She's not a party girl at home. She talked of knowing Willie Nelson almost as long as she's been around. They have different takes on Nashville. She supports a literacy program for children which started in Tennessee, but has spread nationwide.

She turned 75 yesterday 

Dolly Parton at the BBC
A reasonable mish-mash running from 9 to 5 through to I Will Always Love You, adding in her bluegrass stylings, some old standards, live triumphs and so on. Some of the more interesting material came from shows which have been long forgotten.

Music Legends: Dolly Parton
Her turn. She's a multi-instrumentalist who can't read sheet music. She has had 26 Billboard country #1's and 11 Grammys. She got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984. She's written over 3,000 compositions. Her family were dirt-poor. She started on guitar at 7, and started making radio appearances. She got encouragement from Johnny Cash, moved to Nashville and almost never looked back. She worked on the Porter Waggoner show, ultimately leading to her writing I Will Always Love You. She became a huge solo star, then moved into movies. She worked with other artists and even managed to make some bluegrass albums. Then there's the Dollywood project, and her own perfume, and helping to fund covid research. She's a true phenomenon.

She's been fairly quiet, career-wise, but was the recent recipient of a $100 million charity award from well-known philanthropist (!) Jeff Bezos. He apparently wants to share some of his obscene fortune with others deserving of it. So it's more a story about him than her (or any other recipient).

Dolly Parton's Greatest Moments
Ostensibly a rundown, but really just a fair retread of her life story, from the humble beginning, through making it big in Nashville, going solo, making movies, and other business projects. She remains indefatigable, despite some lows like in the mid-80s.

Her new album Rockstar came out last week and entered the UK album chart at #5 

Grand Ole Opry Live - Dolly Parton
She was on in 2002, for the first time in a decade, pushing her "Halos and Horns" album, and doing the title track, as well as Coat of Many Colours. Also on were Joe Nichols, Kevin Welch, and the Stevens Sisters.

misery guts wrote:Her new album Rockstar came out last week and entered the UK album chart at #5 

Dolly Parton - In Her Own Words...
A new career thing to partly push the new rock sound, and with kind words from Emmylou Harris and Peter Frampton.

Bad news story for once, as her Dollywood complex has been the victim of severe floods 

How Dolly Got Rotherham Reading
Sarfraz Mansoor looked into the story of her reading scheme to provide a monthly book service for small children, which started in the US, but which had been expanded to other countries, and whose UK launch came in Rotherham. Grateful mothers and council leaders were bemused but grateful.