From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Jan 19, 2003  7:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Dolly Parton
 
DOLLY PARTON (By Alain Dormoy)

Born Dolly Rebecca Parton, 19 January 1946, Locust Ridge, Tennessee

The 4th of 12 children. The legend has it her farming parents paid the
doctor in corn meal for her birth.
Singing in church as a child will bring her a lot of inspiration in the
years to come. She made a guest appearance on the Grand Ole Opry
age 13 in '59 and cut her first single, "Puppy Love", in '60 for the tiny
Goldband label.
Still as a teenager, Dolly started to spend time in and out of Nashville
where she moved for good only after graduating from high school in '64.
She signed with Monument in '66, but her first success came as a
songwriter's with "Put It Off Until Tomorrow (you've hurt me enough
today)" sung by Bill Phillips. Her first hit as a performer was "Dumb
Blonde" in '67, an attack on sexist stereotypes.
Dolly will never be a hard core feminist but certainly a woman
unafraid to put forward a strong female perspective.
An important turn of her career came when she joined the Porter
Wagoner TV show in '67. She and Wagoner recorded numerous songs
together, beginning with "The Last Thing On My Mind", and including
"We'll Get Ahead Some Day", "Tomorrow Is Forever" and "Daddy Was
An Old-time Preacher Man".
Later signed by RCA, both as a solo performer and Porter Wagoner's
duet partner, she soon began to eclipse her partner. She had her first
solo # 1 hit: "Joshua", her own composition in 1971, then three more
in '74: "Jolene", "Love is like a butterfly" and "I will always love you"
which was a farewell to Wagoner when she left his show that year
(which Wagoner took very badly). He continued to produce her records,
still under contract until 76, including the # 1 hit "The Bargain
Store" in '75. One of Dolly's most famous songs, "The Coat Of Many
Colors" (#4 in 1971) was an account of the humiliation suffered at
school when classmates made fun of her patchwork homemade coat.
1970 to the mid '70s proved the most creatively fertile period of Dolly's
country music career. She was voted CMA's Vocalist of the year both
in '75 and '76.
She had grown up in a very traditional surrounding, but she said in
interviews that she knew very early that she would feel the urge to get
away from it some day, to get a wider view of the world. In '73 "My
Tennessee Mountain Home", was an album looking back at the traditional
life she had left.
First album after taking her independence from Porter Wagoner: "New
Harvest, First Gathering" (1977) with # 1 single "Light Of A Clear Blue
Morning". Same year the album "Here You Come Again", a successful
attempt at Country-Pop crossover.
Through Dollywood, a theme park she opened with other investors in
1985 in Pigeon Forge near Sevierville where she grew up in East
Tennessee, Dolly vastly contributed to her home county's economy
and to scholarship programmes for highschool students. There is now
a life-size statue of her outside the Sevier county courthouse.
Dolly had her Hollywood period, which produced quality but also
"Rhinestone" in which it was attempted to make Sylvester Stallone a
credible country singer.
CMA named her Entertainer of the Year in 1978. Her country career
became somewhat erratic from then on.
Triumph in 1987 with the acoustic country album "Trio" (with Emmylou
Harris and Linda Ronstadt) granted a Grammy for Best Country Album.
In 1992, Whitney Houston had one of the biggest hits of all time (# 1 pop
for 14 weeks) with "I will Always Love You", included in the soundtrack
of the film "Bodyguard".
"Honky Tonk Angels" in '93, Dolly with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.
Certainly a "commercial" album but a genuine country one at that though.
"Slow Dancing With The Moon" the same year, a trifle more on the pop
side, but the title song still sends shivers down my spine.
"The Grass is Blue" in '99, a remarkable bluegrass album followed a
few months later by "Little Sparrow", of the same vein though somewhat
more quiet. Both received a wide critical acclaim in the country and
bluegrass circles.
Anything but dizzy, a strong woman and a gifted business person,
Dolly Parton has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1969.
She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.
Her work as a songwriter amounts to more than 3000 songs.

Representative recordings: The Essential Dolly Parton RCA *vol 2*.
The Rough Guide of Country Music (Kurt Wolff 2000) suggests skipping
vol. 1 altogether as mostly a compilation of Dolly's late '70s early
'80s pop-country hits. On the other hand, vol 2 focuses on Dolly's
early RCA country period with classics like Jimmie Rodger's "Mule
Skinner Blues", "Touch Your Woman", "Coat Of Many Colors", "Joshua"
and the original recording of "I Will Always Love You".

Also on the traditional side before Dolly crossed over: "The Essential
Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton (1996 RCA).

And for those who like bluegrass, "The Grass Is Blue" (1999) is a
must. An absolute gem in my opinion.

Further reading: Autobiography: "Dolly. My Life And Other Unfinished Business".
London: HarperCollins, 1994.