Dolly Parton: Barbie With Serious Legs

By: Dennis Cook

Back through the years
I go wonderin’ once again
Back to the seasons of my youth
I recall a box of rags that someone gave us
And how my momma put the rags to use

Dolly Parton by Kii Arens

Dolly Parton is a serious musician. Not everyone realizes that, distracted by her sheer platinum “Dolly-ness.” She’s a hot pink firecracker that chirps and chuckles with an ease most of us quietly desperate souls will never know. The fourth child of twelve kids who grew up dirt poor in a one-room house in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, she began working professionally in music around 1955, when the 10-year-old Parton became a regular on local radio and television. By 13 she was singing at The Grand Ole Opry. A record holding 25 #1 singles and 42 Top 10 country albums later, she’s released Backwoods Barbie, her first foray into mainstream country in 17 years, at the end of February on her own Dolly Records.

“I write everyday. I write something all the time, and no matter how many Dollywoods or Dixie Stampedes or any of the other things I do, music is still my number one love,” says Parton, a dedicated musician that often doesn’t get the credit she deserves. “Well, I am serious, and it took years for a lot of people to realize that because my ‘Backwoods Barbie’ look has thrown a lot of people off, not knowing if I take myself seriously or not. Through the years, people who’ve really watched it know I’m dead serious about my work. I don’t take myself that serious but I take my work dead serious. This is what I do. This is my art, my gift. I’ll never give it up. I’ve often joked that I’ll be making my records even if I have to sell them out of the trunk of my car.”

“I tried to come up with some good stuff for mainstream country that’s still ‘Dolly.’ [The song] ‘Backwoods Barbie’ sort of reminds me of ‘Coat of Many Colors.’ I purposefully focused on doing something really good that also gets some radio play in addition to pleasing fans. I figure a good fan is going to buy it anyway, whether it’s good or bad [laughs]. I’ve been doing acoustic things and bluegrass stuff and that’s mainly because I wasn’t getting much action from radio for a long time. Bluegrass, though I love it, doesn’t sell many records. I still would love to chart records in the mainstream. You’d be surprised that when I was doing my bluegrass things, even though they got critical acclaim, they don’t sell anything. If you’re gonna do it, well, it’s the music business. You think of success and money and being able to afford your habits,” observes the unabashed capitalist.

The week of release, Barbie entered the Billboard Country Album chart at #17 and the Billboard Indie Album chart at #2. While the new album can hold it’s own against anything out there in commercial country it retains Parton’s hallmarks – characters with dirt under their nails and skeletons in their closets. Her tunes have gentle insight into the workings of human beings that drink and lust and love hard, and usually find themselves a touch wiser on the other side of life’s challenges. Despite her sometimes baroque shows of success, she still resonates most deeply with working folks wrestling with day-to-day concerns and hurts.

“Music is a gift in my family. All my mother’s people write songs and play some sort of musical instrument. Most of us play several different instruments. My grandfather, who was a great Pentecostal preacher, was a great writer and musician. So, I grew up with that spiritual background as well as the music background. I just loved it,” says Parton. “I learned to play when I was little and I started writing songs when I was about seven. After I learned to play the guitar then all them words just started coming. I started writing songs about dogs and cows and dolls. I would write about anything I thought or felt or saw [laughs]. I had a gift for rhyme. I started singing on radio and TV when I was 10 and most of those were songs I’d written.”

Her compositions are lessons in songcraft. Parton is as worthy of study as Kris Kristofferson, Paul Simon or any other acknowledged master of songwriting fundamentals. The 1975 single “The Bargain Store” is a primo example of the clarity and flow of her writing:

My life is like unto a bargain store
And I may have just what you’re lookin’ for
If you don’t mind the fact that all the merchandise is used
But with a little mending it could be as good as new

The bargain store is open come inside
You can easily afford the price
Love is all you need to purchase all the merchandise
And I will guarantee you’ll be completely satisfied

“That’s one of my favorites! When I wrote that they wouldn’t play it on the radio because they thought it was too suggestive. We’ve come a long way, baby! Now you can just show the body, show all the parts I was talking about,” says Parton. “Even when I wrote ‘Down From Dover’ [from 1970’s The Fairest of Them All], another of my favorite songs, which is about a girl who’s pregnant, they wouldn’t play it then either. I keep thinking if somebody now would do ‘The Bargain Store’ it would be a hit.”

Continue reading for more on Dolly Parton…

I am serious, and it took years for a lot of people to realize that because my ‘Backwoods Barbie’ look has thrown a lot of people off, not knowing if I take myself seriously or not. Through the years, people who’ve really watched it know I’m dead serious about my work. I don’t take myself that serious but I take my work dead serious. This is what I do. This is my art, my gift. I’ll never give it up. –Dolly Parton

Image of Dolly Parton by Kii Arens

Her affinity for Marie Antoinette worthy wigs, loud clothes and thick make-up is part of why her work sometimes gets less credit than it merits. Parton doesn’t take herself too seriously – always an admirable trait – but an honest listen to her music will tell you where her priorities truly lie.

“I can look artificial as long as I’m being real [laughs]. That’s why it’s hard for me to be in the movies and be taken seriously. No matter what I do it’s still Dolly. Even if it’s goofy it’s still Dolly,” says Parton about her trademark glitzy persona. “That’s me. It’s a country girl’s idea of glam. This is how I think I look good. I know it’s trashy and I joke about how much it costs to look this cheap. I’m not a natural beauty, and it’s how I think I look my best. I’m not held to being fashionable because people know I haven’t got a lick of taste. If I don’t look like the Dolly people have come to know – and I’ve come to know – I’m uncomfortable. It’s like I’m naked if I’m not dolled up. It’s a comfort zone for me. Everyday I wake up and put on my make-up and high heels because I never know who’s going to come by my house. I put on make-up for my husband! Maybe sometimes when I’m sick or on one of my writing binges I won’t put on new make-up, but I don’t take off all the make-up I had on before so there’s leftover [laughs].”

Parton wrote nine of the twelve cuts on Backwoods Barbie and many measure up with her best work, especially “The Lonesomes,” “Only Dreamin'” and the title track, which puts her back on that dust road farm where she grew up. However, this purebred country gal still has her sights set on the bright lights of the Great White Way.

“I’ve written all the music for a Broadway musical for 9 to 5. We’re gonna be at the Ahmanson Theatre [in Los Angeles] in September and part of October with a full cast and everything [for more details pop over here], and then it opens on Broadway in 2009. ‘Backwoods Barbie’ is the song I wrote for the lil’ Doralee character I played in the movie. It’s so my story that I thought I’d still do it for my album. Hopefully one will boost the other.”

Her fine business instincts have earned her the nickname “The Iron Butterfly.” From the start, she’s held a tight rein on her affairs. “I’ve been doing my own records for years – paying for my own sessions and then leasing them for a period of time to different companies. My masters go back to me after a certain time,” explains Parton. “When I started Dolly Records it was a chance to start fresh with a focus on me and an outlet for my records. So, if [Barbie] does good then I’ll get all the money [laughs].”

Parton is one busy lady. Besides a new album, a theme park, a dinner theatre and a musical she’s also got a children’s book coming out in June called I Am A Rainbow. “It’s about all the colors and the moods of different people, that it’s okay to feel them all but in balance. You can’t be happy all the time or you can’t be jealous all the time like when you’re green,” chuckles Parton.

The 23rd season of Dollywood begins April 11 and 12, and Parton is doing a tribute to her old duet partner and early professional cheerleader, Porter Wagoner, who passed away last October.

“We’re doing all Porter songs and Porter-Dolly duets. I’m dressing my band in Wagonmaster suits. I’m having Don Warden, the little steel player that sang with and managed Porter for years, in the show. He’s almost 80 now, and it’s so precious! I’m doing a little tribute to him as well. And there was a comedian on Porter’s show named Speck Rhodes, who passed away, and we’ve got one of our guys from the Imagination Library, my children’s literacy program, who’s gonna play Speck’s part. It’s gonna be a fun weekend for those of us who remember the old Porter-Dolly days,” says Parton.

Parton’s initial rise into mainstream consciousness coincided with the heyday of television variety shows in the ’60s and ’70s where musical performances freely mingled with sketch comedy, interview segments and anything else they threw into the hopper. She took a crack at the genre first in 1976-77 with Dolly! and then again in 1987-88 with the exclamation point free Dolly.

“I was really hopeful my variety show would do well years ago but they wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. It got to be so Hollywood. They tried to keep me in that Hollywood feel so it got lost in the shuffle. They tried to make me into that and it just didn’t work. You have to let me be myself or I’m no good,” observes Parton. “I come across as phony if I try to live in that make believe world and be made to do things that aren’t true to me. I can pull it off if I’m doing stuff that’s coming from my gut and my heart.”

Given a strict 15-minute time limit with Parton, we cut our conversation short. There are folks to see and an entertainment empire to run, but not before she offers up one last glimpse of her impish spirit.

“They’re standing in the doorway waiting for me. They’re either telling me one minute or giving me the finger. And I think they’re giving me the finger,” giggles Parton before disappearing in a cloud of blond voluptuousness.

I’m just a Backwoods Barbie
In a push-up bra and heels
I might look artificial but where it counts I’m real
And I’m all dolled up
And hopin’ for a chance to prove my worth

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