The Rockstar reinvention of Dolly Parton is released worldwide this week. The album features 30 tracks and some of the world's most famous rock musicians singing their originals with the country music legend. Photo / Butterfly Records/Vijat Mohindra
Are Dolly Parton’s shoes ready for their close-up?
The 77-year-old laughs a laugh that sits somewhere between a hiccup and a squeaky door. And then she ducks forward. Is she really about to oblige a reporter’s request to prove she’s not wearing sneakers below the zoom screen of this interview?
“They used to tell that Mae West, even when she was old and in her wheelchair, she sat with her high heels on,” says Parton. “I’m sure I will too. I hope I never have to be there, but if I am, I’ll do it!”
Half a world away, a shoe comes into focus. Parton holds it in front of the camera. Perspex and sparkle, silver and black — and a heel drop that would send any regular ankle running for the hills.
Dolly Parton does not do regular.
The clue is in the title of her new album. On Thursday, the world’s most famous country singer-songwriter releases Rockstar — nine originals and 21 covers of songs that have become international stadium anthems. Everything from Purple Rain to Free Bird to (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction and a guest musician list that runs to Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sting, Pat Benatar, Lizzo, Stevie Nicks, Kid Rock, Elton John, Simon Le Bon, Debbie Harry, Joan Jett and many more.
Two Beatles?
“I had met Paul at different times, and I’d met Ringo. I did not know them as a group, but I always loved them. I remember I Want to Hold Your Hand. I think I was in high school? Anyway, I just thought that was the greatest sound I’d ever heard.”
Go to Parton’s album, pick a song (seriously, any song) and find a famous name. Consider track 29. Bygones is written by Parton and features Rob Halford, Nikki Sixx and John 5. Fans more accustomed to the twanging Jolene tone of Parton’s oeuvre (read: this reporter) may have to consult Google.
Oh.
That would be, respectively, the lead vocalist of Judas Priest, the co-founder and bassist of Motley Crue and the lead guitarist of the same (who also did a stint with Marilyn Manson). We’re a long way from Nashville now.
Is this an evolution? A revolution? Or just a living legend having some fun?
“Well, it’s maybe a little bit of all of that,” Parton tells the NZ Herald over a tightly managed video call. “But, actually, it came from a very honest place. When I got put in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I thought, well, I need to have something to stand for that.
“I mean, I’ve never done a rock album, but my husband always loved rock music. I used to think that I might some day do it and then the years went by. I thought it’s probably too late now to even think about it ...”
But then the Hall of Fame came knocking. “I thought man, if I ever was gonna do anything, I should do this rock album now. And so I thought: why not?”
Parton rejected that first invite, saying “I don’t feel I’ve earned that right.” Later, she reconsidered. Her name went on the ballot, fans voted in droves and, last November, she was officially inducted by P!nk (who is also on the new album, singing Satisfaction alongside Parton and Brandi Carlile).
It’s a matter of public record that Parton wanted Mick Jagger to join her on the Rolling Stones classic. Sadly, according to an interview back in April, “he wanted something new and different, which I don’t blame him for”. The latest take on this rejection comes with a clickbait headline — “Dolly Parton snubbed by Mick Jagger due to her ‘unreciprocated’ crush” — but ask the superstar about her rock‘n’roll lust list and she doesn’t discriminate.
“Actually, I love them all! They all have something that intrigues me. You know, it’s like, I love men. I’m like Will Rogers — I never met a man I didn’t like — I’ve just seen some of them I thought looked better!”
(And then: “Yeah, I have my little crushes on people. I used to love Johnny Depp. I loved him in the movies. Johnny Cash was my first crush in music.” Off camera, an instruction to move on: “They’re telling me we gotta hurry ...“).
Every track on Rockstar has a backstory. While many of the guest artists recorded their parts in separate studios, among those who physically joined Parton in Nashville was Stevie Nicks, offering an original she wrote for Fleetwood Mac that never made it to an album. Peter Frampton had his people speak to Parton’s people as soon as he heard about the project — he pitched a guitar solo and wound up dueting on Baby, I Love Your Way. Meanwhile, top of Parton’s own wish was Heart’s Magic Man. Original lead vocalist Ann Wilson came on board and, when the subsequent single was released, Parton said “nobody can out-sing Ann. But I gave it my darndest ...”
Rockstar has a high quotient of female musicians — including Lizzo who plays the flute on Stairway to Heaven and Parton’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus who gives Wrecking Ball another spin.
“I really got to know a lot of these people personally and I really loved getting to know, especially, a lot of the girls that I had on ... I was really happy to have some great, strong women on this.”
Has the path for women in rock music been harder than the one for women in country? Parton gently rebukes the cliche of this question.
“Well, it’s been hard for women ... We don’t think about whether we’re boys or girls. We just think we got talent. We ought to be heard. We ought to be appreciated. We need to have a record out.”
Her own backstory is, by now, well-worn territory. Her father was an illiterate sharecropper, her mother had 12 children by age 35. Parton grew up poor on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and in 1964, the day after her high school graduation, she took a Greyhound bus to Nashville with the self-professed intent of becoming a star. She met Carl Dean outside a laundromat and married him in 1966. A year later, she debuted as the “girl singer” on The Porter Wagoner Show. This year, Forbes put her net worth at just under NZ$750m.
Twenty-six of Parton’s songs have hit No 1 on the Billboard country charts. She has 27 certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. Her Imagination Library charity has gifted more than 205 million books to children around the world. In 2020, she donated US$1m toward coronavirus vaccine research.
And now, Parton can add a Billboard rock digital song sales chart topper to her resume. World on Fire (the first song from the new album) went to No 1 in its second week of release.
Is Dolly Parton a bona fide rock star? Ask Joan Jett who, in an interview with Rolling Stone, said this about the Hall of Fame nomination: “Dolly has influenced rock and rollers. So on that level, she absolutely deserves to be there.”
Parton is, initially, unsure about the “influencer” tag.
“Well, I guess I don’t see it as much as they do ... but if I think back on it, you know, I’ve been at this a long time. I’m a songwriter first and foremost in my mind. So I have had a lot of my songs recorded by other people. People love the songs like Jolene, or I Will Always Love You. And even 9 to 5 has become kind of an anthem, with other people singing that. I just never really thought in terms of ‘rock’ — but I know I’ve had an influence on a lot of artists coming up, and not just as a songwriter.”
Singer. Songwriter. Movie star. Philanthropist. Hotelier. Author. Theme park owner. Television show host. Author. And, by absolutely any metric, a wildly successful businesswoman.
“Hopefully, I’m a good example. That was a nice thing for Joan to say because I admire her too. She’s on my record by the way. I called her and said ‘would you sing with me on I Love Rock and Roll’?”
Jett turned her down. “She said ‘you’re too good for that song. Everybody sings on that one. You need one with a little more meat, a little more story’.
“And I thought ‘good on you girl’. I thought that was great. She felt real comfortable with me, she felt like she could give me some good rock and roll advice.” (That advice culminated in track 12: I Hate Myself for Loving You, featuring Joan Jett & The Blackhearts).
Parton’s worldwide Rockstar release was still a week away when she zoomed into Auckland. She had a full day of Australasian media calls scheduled, and a weekend changeover to daylight savings in Tennessee was adding to her scheduler’s stress.
“Please note Dolly is not late,” read the initial advice. And then, closer to the interview, in bright red, and all caps: “PLEASE BE READY AT LEAST 10/15 MINUTES BEFORE THE CHAT AS WE COULD RUN EARLY AND WE WOULDN’T WANT DOLLY TO WAIT WOULD WE.”
We would not. I am headphoned, spectacled and a full quarter of an hour early, marvelling at the computer technology that is able to simultaneously overexpose a forehead while enlarging every nose pore when I suddenly realise: DOLLY PARTON HAS JOINED THE AUDIO.
She lands mid-shot, sitting in front of a backdrop of instruments, amplifiers and a giant silver star. Country Dolly made her name in pink rhinestones; the rock star reincarnation wears shiny white with black lace accents. There is more spike than curl in the famous blonde wig and if you think this is too much focus on the aesthetic, then to quote a younger Dolly: “People always ask me, ‘what do you want people to say about you a hundred years from now’? I want them to say, ‘Dang, don’t she look good for her age’?”
The new album comes hard on the (very high) heels of another new Parton project. Behind the Scenes: My Life in Rhinestones is a 300-plus-page coffee table biography ($95, Ebury Press). It details decades of frocks, wigs, shoes and Parton’s absolute adherence to the look she fell in love with as a child — the high heels and red lipstick of Sevierville’s “town tramp”.
Teen Dolly wanted her clothes low cut and tight. She couldn’t afford a push-up bra, so she’d “borrow” the shoulder pads from her grandmother’s coat. There was no money for cosmetics, so she used the burnt tips of her mama’s kitchen matches to draw a beauty spot. And when record label executives asked her to tone it all down, she simply went bigger.
Parton’s body has become as famous as her voice. Ann Roth, costume designer on the 9 to 5 movie that Parton starred in with Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda, once said the singer-songwriter had a figure “that cannot be ignored”. Parton has, over the years, perfected a series of zingers about her surgical enhancements. When media asked if she’d insured her bust, she reportedly replied: “No ... I just paid a million dollars for them, and I hope they look like a million dollars, too!” Her response to an “are they real” question from a morning television show host was equally deflective: “They’re real expensive! They’re real big!”
She claims to wear make-up (minus mascara) to bed, admits to having tattoos to cover some scars and, at any given public appearance, is definitely sporting a wig. Some days, she has to compromise between the weight of all those rhinestones and the need to lift a guitar. She loves a frock, but says jumpsuits prevent people in the front row from getting an accidental peep show. And when people ask (and they frequently do) how she walks in those high heels, she’ll tell them “very often and very carefully”. And when they ask how many songs she’s written?
“I always make a joke. I say I’ve written 3000 songs and three good ones!”
More seriously: “I write something all the time and I have many, many, many published songs, many hundreds of registered songs and many hundreds more in drawers and trunks and notebooks here and there.”
Statistically, her output equates to roughly a song a week for her entire life. Has she written one this week?
“No, but I’ve written down ideas when I do my make-up. I’m always thinking. Sometimes I’ll write three or four songs a day ... so that kind of catches me up!”
Rockstar was finished, she says, when the muse struck again. The result was World on Fire, the song that has critics wondering if the famously non-partisan Parton has finally become political (sample lyrics: “Now how are we to live in a world like this / Greedy politicians, present and past / They wouldn’t know the truth if it bit ‘em in the a**”).
“I’m a passionate person,” Parton tells the Herald. “And I’m a passionate writer and I’m just so thankful that I’m able to put my thoughts and feelings down ... I believe I can express what other people feel.
“I think music is a voice. You know, it’s the voice of the soul. And I really think that when I feel led to write something, I just feel like I’m called to do it ... I feel drawn to do certain things, like that song.
“I just wanted to say, you know, what are we doing? The world’s on fire. Let’s get this together. Let’s pull together and let’s try to rise above, try to show some love and try to make a change.”
A song won’t stop a bomb, says Parton.
“But it can make people living in fear of it feel a little better ... ‘I feel better, now that somebody has said what I was thinking’.
“So I think music is healing and uplifting. And I think it can lift burdens.”
Dolly Parton’s Rockstar (Butterfly Records) releases worldwide on November 17. Dolly Parton: Behind the Seams — My Life in Rhinestones ($95, Ebury Press) is available now.
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