Latest / DISGRACELAND / Dolly Parton: How the Country Icon Nearly Became the Subject of Her Own Murder Ballad

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Dolly Parton: How the Country Icon Nearly Became the Subject of Her Own Murder Ballad · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, guys, here we are. We've got another rewind
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: for you this week. We are rewinding our Dolly Parton episode.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton just passed away. And back on July 21st, 2026,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we just released an episode on Dolly Parton. It tackles
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: her fame. It tackles the death threats against her life.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It tackles the way in which she navigated her career
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: through a male-dominated music industry. It looks at how murder
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: ballads informed not only her songwriting but her life. And
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: there's so much to say about Dolly Parton, not only
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: as an artist, as one of the greatest American songwriters
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of all time, but also as a human being. It's
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: too much to get into right here in the pre.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: You can hear our thoughts on her and more on
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: her career in this episode, obviously. But if you want
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: more on just her as a person and how she
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: has impacted me and the way that I live my life.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: You can listen to the last after party bonus episode
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: where we pay tribute to Dolly as well. Anyways, here's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the Dolly Parton episode. Rest in peace, Dolly.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: You will never, ever be forgotten and you will never
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: be replaced. This episode contains content that may be disturbing
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to some listeners. Please check the show notes for more information.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: story of a murder ballad. A song about a girl
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: from Knoxville. A girl led down to the river by
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a man who claimed to love her. A man who
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: could not possess her, so he bludgeoned her. It's also
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the story of Dolly Parton, a songwriter raised on songs
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: like the one about the Knoxville girl. Murder ballads, songs
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of jealousy, heartbreak. These are the songs that Dolly Parton
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: was raised on. A country star whose music was darker, stranger,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and more dangerous than her pop culture image would lead
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: us to believe. Dolly Parton was coveted by powerful men
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and she was threatened by violent men. But Dolly Parton
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: refused to become the possession of any man. And she
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: did so all while making truly great music. Some of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the greatest country music to ever cross over onto the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: pop charts. It was unlike that clip that I played
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show. That wasn't
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: called Dollywoodland MK2. I played you that loop because I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: can't afford the rights to Down Under by Men at Work.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Vegemite sandwich cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the number one song in America on January 15th, 1983.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And that was the day that Dolly Parton received the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: second in a string of death threats that forced her
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: to cancel shows and hire a private detective. It nearly
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: derailed what was to become an unprecedented career. On this episode,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: death threats, murder ballots, powerful and violent men, the Knoxville girl,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. What
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: did I know about Dolly.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Parton as a.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Little hardcore kid growing up in the 1980s and the 1990s. Well,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: here are a few things. One, I knew she sang
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that duet with Kenny Rogers, Islands in the Stream. You
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: could not escape that song. It was everywhere. And it
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: was also very cheesy. Two, I knew that Dolly Parton
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: was in that movie 9 to 5. Secretaries retaliating against
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: their sexist boss, all that stuff. And from what I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: could tell, that movie was set in an office with
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: adults making copies and answering telephones. And to me at
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: that age was pretty boring and also pretty cheesy. Three,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I knew that Dolly Parton, well, she was kind of
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a goofball. She may have been a goodwill ambassador for
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: country music, but I had no idea about any of that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: She just looked boring. manufactured, put together, big star, big hair,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: gravity-defying figure, you know what I'm talking about, the aw
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: shucks southern drawl. She was a caricature. And she always
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: seemed happy, like too happy. To me, at that age,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton did not seem authentic at all. Which, that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: time of my life, was something that I was very
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: concerned about. That's what I wanted from my music. That's
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: what I wanted from the movies that I watched. That's
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: what I wanted from my icons. I didn't have the
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: cultural perspective that I have now. What I'm trying to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: say is I wasn't sophisticated enough to appreciate Dolly Parton
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: then as a young 14-year-old or whatever. I wanted authenticity.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I wanted danger. I wanted punk rock. I wanted loud guitars.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So I ignored Dolly Parton. I had no idea that
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: she was an accomplished songwriter, prolific even. Now, I don't
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: know what the count was back then, but recently Dolly
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: has estimated that the total number of songs... that she's
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: written is in the range of 3,000 songs. That's incredible.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: And one of those songs just so happens to be
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You, which Whitney Houston turned into
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest hits of all time, quite literally,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: when she covered that Dolly Parton song for the soundtrack
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to the 1993 film The Bodyguard. And just like Islands
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: in the Stream, this song was everywhere. But this song
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: was the first single to ever stay at the number
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: one spot for 14 straight weeks. Now, I had no
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: idea at the time that Dolly Parton wrote that song.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I had no idea that she wrote it way back
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: in 1973 when she was just 27 years old or
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: that she wrote it on the same day that she
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: wrote her other greatest song, Jolene. And yeah, I too
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: have heard this supposed fact has been debunked, but Dolly
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Parton herself told a friend of mine, Bobby Bones, back
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in 2019, that yes, she did write both of those
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: songs at the same time. That was a good writing day,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: she said. Are you kidding me? A good writing day.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: That's like if Paul McCartney wrote Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: on the same day. That day, the day that Dolly
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Parton wrote I Will Always Love You and Jolene. Well,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it's got to be in the running. for the greatest
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: day in the history of songwriting. It was 1974 when
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton's original version of I Will Always Love You
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: first hit number one on the country chart. The song
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: made her a lot of new fans. Fans like Elvis Presley.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: The king himself decided that he wanted to cover that song.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: His manager, the notorious Colonel Tom Parker, gave Dolly Parton
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the good news. And Dolly was beside herself. She was
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: just a kid when Elvis thrust himself onto the scene.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: And like millions of other Americans, she idolized Elvis Presley.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But there was a caveat. As Colonel Parker explained, for
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Elvis to cover the tune, Dolly Parton would have to
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: sign over all publishing rights. Which may not have been
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the norm, but it was the Colonel's norm. And which
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: would mean that Elvis and the Colonel, not Dolly Parton,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: would make money off of future royalties of the song
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: that she wrote. Now again, Dolly Parton was just 27
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: years old at the time, and Elvis Presley was 39.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Colonel Parker was a 300-year-old vampire with a nose for
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: fresh blood. Right, not exactly, but you get my point.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: The guy was manipulative. And although Dolly Parton was the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: youngest participant in this particular scenario, Dolly nonetheless had the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: wisdom to know that no one, Not even Elvis Presley
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: should possess her music. So with a heavy heart, she
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: told the Colonel Tom Parker that she was out. Elvis
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: could not have her song. She turned down the king.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: That difficult decision, though, it paid dividends. Two decades later,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Whitney Houston sings I Will Always Love You, and Dolly
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Parton makes $ 10 million in royalties. That figure, $ 10 million,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: That's just what she made in the 1990s alone from
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: that song. Her refusal to give in to Elvis Presley
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and Colonel Tom Parker, it continues to put millions of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: dollars into Dolly Parton's bank account to this day. But
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You wasn't just a moneymaker for
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton, nor was it simply one of the most
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: bittersweet breakup ballads of all time. It was a song
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton wrote to save herself from becoming the possession
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of a powerful man. And to understand all that, first
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: you have to understand what I didn't understand about Dolly
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Parton when I was younger. You must understand that authenticity
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and danger were there all along. Authenticity and danger are
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: where Dolly Parton comes from. It was 1964 when Dolly
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Parton arrived in Nashville, Tennessee. She was 18 years old.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Back home in Sevier County and in nearby Knoxville, she
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: was already making waves. She wrote songs with her Uncle Bill,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and she performed on radio and TV shows. But Nashville
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was no Knoxville, and it certainly wasn't Sevier County. She
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was turned down by just about every record label in town.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Every label, except for one. Monument Records. which had some
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: recent success with Roy Orbison and Willie Nelson, signed Dolly
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Parton to a record team. But the label's owner, Fred Foster,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: seemed to fundamentally miscalculate Dolly Parton from the jump, as
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: many others, myself included, would continue to do for years.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Fred Foster had her perform material written by other songwriters,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: marketing her not as a country singer, but as a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: young pop ingenue. It would be three years until Dolly
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: would finally get the chance to prove herself as a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: country singer on her 1967 debut album, Hello, I'm Dolly.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: This all strikes me as very strange because Fred Foster
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: had also signed Dolly to a publishing deal. Publishing is
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a business instrument designed to make songwriters money. Dolly Parton
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: clearly wrote songs. She clearly wrote very dark songs that
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: were in conversation with the dark Appalachian folk songs that
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: she'd heard as a child. It was almost like there
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: was a refusal on the record executive's part to confront
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the darkness that was at Dolly's core, likely because it
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: did not compute that this happy, energetic, well-adjusted, driven young
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: woman was capable of such darkness. But Dolly Parton, was
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: raised on this darkness. She was raised on dark songs.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Songs from England and Wales brought over to America to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: where Dolly spent her childhood in eastern Tennessee. These songs
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: were intimate with the more evil aspects of human nature.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: And perhaps paradoxically, these songs made the hard times easier
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to endure. Hard times which befell a family of 14
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: living in a two-room cabin with no electricity or running water.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Dahlia has spoken about something that she calls the sorrow
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: chord being in her blood. A chord upon which these
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: songs of jealousy, heartbreak, pain, and death are built. These
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: are more than songs. These are murder ballads. Ballads in
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: which a woman is lured by a man, lured into
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the woods, lured down by the water, lured upon false pretenses,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: only to be brutally killed in cold blood. And why
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: does the man do this? Why does this always happen
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: in these songs? Well, sometimes the killer is looking to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: escape responsibility, say marriage or fatherhood. So he kills his
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: would-be wife or his would-be mother of his child. Other times,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: as the astute professor of murder ballads Nick Cave once
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: put it, the killing is a desire born out of
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: nothing else but, quote, murderous male attention. and nefarious transferred
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: erotic desire, unquote. That's a fancy way of saying that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the only way that this man feels he can truly
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: possess the woman is to take her life. These were
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the songs of Dolly Parton's childhood. There was Pretty Polly,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Barbara Allen, Down in the Willow Garden. And there was
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that one song, a song Dolly first heard when she
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: was sitting on the front steps of her modest family
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: home there at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Everyone within a hundred mile radius of Knoxville had heard
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that song. The song about the Knoxville girl. Willie Miller
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was wearing his Sunday best on a Saturday night. Nice shirt,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: nice slacks, his one decent pair of shoes. He knew
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: he looked good, and so he walked like it. Back straight,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: head held high, one foot confidently striding after the other.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: A warm breeze blew in from the east, and with it,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Willie could hear the call of the Bobwhites from out
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in the fields. Three short cries in quick succession. Lonesome,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: yet hopeful. Just like Willie here. These days, however, the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: scales favored hope. Because tonight, Willie was on his way
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to the house of one Louisa May Brown, the prettiest
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: girl in all of Knoxville. Or so Willie liked to think.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Each week, Willie would walk over to her place, and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: each week they would talk, and sometimes they would sit
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in awkward silence. But tonight, upon Willie's arrival, Louisa May
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: announced that she would like to go on a walk.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: So Willie took the prettiest girl in all of Knoxville
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: by the hand, and they walked through town and into
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the tall grass, down by the Tennessee River. The sound
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of the bobwhites had been overtaken now by the sound
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of rushing water. by the belching of frogs, or maybe
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: it was toads along the riverbed. Willie didn't know which
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: it was, a frog or a toad, and they were
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: all the same to him, slimy amphibious blobs with bulging
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: little eyes. But Willie wasn't thinking about frogs or toads
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: at the moment. He was thinking about Louisa May. He
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: stared into her eyes, deep blue. He stared so hard,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: he thought he'd get lost. He wanted her. The desire
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was unlike anything he'd ever felt before. It was more
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: than lust and much more than love. Love was a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: puppy dog's game. This was a feeling rumbling there in
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: his gut, eating at him from the inside out. He
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't handle it much longer. He needed her. So he
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: took her. It all happened so fast that Louisa May
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: could hardly process it. First, Willie was bending down to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the ground, Next, he was standing up straight with a
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: large stick gripped tightly in his hand, and then he
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: swung the stick like that stiff Knoxville breeze and hit
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Louisa May in the side of the head, dropping the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: prettiest girl in town down to her knees, where she
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: begged Willie Miller to spare her life. Porter Wagoner wasn't
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the most powerful man in Nashville. But if we're talking
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: about country music on TV in the late 1960s, in
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: that case, he was practically untouchable. The lanky frame and
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the blonde pompadour, the eye-catching nudie suits, Porter Wagoner was
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: country music's on-screen gatekeeper. His syndicated TV program, which ran
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: on close to 100 stations in the United States and Canada,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: could make a singer. It could sell a record, and
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: it did so with Porter's tastemaking stamp of approval. But
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: one thing was clear. That was Porter Wagoner's name up
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: there on the title card. Porter Wagoner was the main attraction.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Not his band, not the guests who appeared each week,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and not the so-called girl singer who shared the spotlight
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: as his duet partner in a Beauty and the Beast
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: kind of way. Norma Jean was that girl singer. but
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Norma Jean wanted to take her secret affair with Porter
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Wagoner to the next level. And Porter Wagoner did not.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: So Norma Jean was out. You could call it a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: lucky break for Dolly Parton to step into Norma Jean's
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: shoes in 1967, the same year Monument released her debut album.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: If so, you'd be half right. Dolly Parton wasn't the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: type to wait around for luck to give her a boost.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: She did the boosting. She'd been sending Porter demos for months,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And like Fred Foster at Monument before him, Porter was impressed.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Not only with Dolly's voice, but with her original songs.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Dolly was hired to appear on the show and on tour,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and in return, she was compensated $ 60, 000 a year. $ 60, 000
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in 1967. That's equivalent to well over half a million
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: dollars today. It was the kind of money that no
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: one in Dolly's family had ever seen before. And perhaps
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the only thing more shocking than her salary... was the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: backlash she got from Porter's audience. They wanted Norma Jean.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: They wanted Norma Jean the way the kids at the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Cavern Club wanted Pete Best when he first got the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: sack from the Beatles. But just like it didn't take
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: long for the Beatlemaniacs to warm up to Ringo Starr,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it didn't take long for anyone watching Porter's show to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: realize that Dolly Parton was the real deal. Realer even
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: than Norma Jean ever was. Darker, too. Her own songs,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: sung with Porter, plucked the sorrow chord that was part
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: of her DNA. Songs like Jeannie's Afraid of the Dark,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: written after the daughter of Dolly's cousin, was killed in
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: a hit-and-run. Jeannie, the only child, up late at night,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: her heart pounding. Something is lurking there in the shadows.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: She runs to her parents' room and crawls into their bed.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: She feels safe at last. And her heart slows. Then, sleep.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: At daybreak, the three of them take flowers to the
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: family graveyard. Jeannie's gaze falls to the headstones and to
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the grass growing over the dearly departed. She imagines what
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it's like to be buried underground. She tells her parents
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: this because somewhere deep inside, Jeannie knows that death will
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: come for her soon. She doesn't know how she knows this,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: but she knows it'll happen while she is still far
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: too young. It'll leave her parents shattered and directionless. And
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: when Jeannie's premonition does come true, when death's black cloak
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: snuffs out the sun, Jeannie's fear of the dark weighs
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: heavy on the minds of those who loved her. So
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on top of Jeannie's grave, they place an eternal flame,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and it burns hot and bright. So bright, it's said,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that even on the darkest night, there's always light. Even
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: on the darkest night, there's always a light. That line
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: from Dolly Parton's song, Genie's Afraid of the Dark, was
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: relevant now more than ever. It was 1973, and the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: light was moving Dolly forward. The light was the muse.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: The light was the songs that came to her so
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: often that she had to write them down on napkins, envelopes, matchbooks,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: whatever she could get her hands on. She wrote one
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of her signature songs, Coat of Many Colors, in ten
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: minutes flat while riding the tour bus. She wrote Jolene
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: after a fan with that name asked her for an autograph.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: And as she ran to find something to write with,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Dolly kept repeating the name over and over and over
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: in her head so that she wouldn't forget it. Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: And in doing so, unexpectedly wrote that iconic refrain. But
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: though her light was burning bright, The proverbial dark nights
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: were growing darker. Yes, Dolly and Porter were wildly successful together. Success, however,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: was not enough for Dolly. She didn't want to be
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: the girl singer forever. Nor did she want Porter romantically
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: like Norma Jean had before her. She had a husband
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: at home, Carl Dean. A man she'd married when she
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: was 21 and Carl was 23. A man who gladly
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: stepped aside and let Dolly and her career take precedence
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: over everything else. Carl Dean set a high bar. Dolly
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: expected Porter to meet her at that high bar. What
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Dolly wanted from Porter was to be involved in the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: creative direction of both the television show and the tour.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: What Dolly wanted was a seat at the table. But
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Dolly refused to let Porter possess her. And it drove
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Porter crazy. It drove him to violence. He tore framed
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: photos from the wall. He kicked over tables and chairs.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: He reminded her. with all the subtlety of a firearm
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: brimstone Pentecostal preacher, that she belonged to him, not the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: other way around. But Dolly Parton belonged to no one,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: not even to the man waiting for her at home.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to I Will Always Love You,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: which Dolly wrote at this exact moment of crisis. It
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was always more than just another Dolly Parton song. It
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was a breakup song, yes, but just not the kind
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: of breakup song you're thinking of. It was Dolly breaking
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: up with her mentor and musical partner, Porter Wagoner. Because
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Dolly had ambitions that went far beyond the roost that
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Porter ruled and far beyond capital C country. These ambitions
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: were nearly thwarted as she became coveted by increasingly controlling
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and deluded men. And I'm not talking about Porter Wagoner
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: or Colonel Tom Parker. I'm talking about the murderous and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: nefarious desire which our murder ballad loving guy Nick Cave
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: once spoke of. The very same one which overtook Willie
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Miller when he killed that Knoxville girl. Louisa May felt
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a trickle of blood run down the side of her
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: face as her knees sank into the mud. The earth
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: was soft and pungent here next to the Tennessee River.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Her body was shaking. She tilted her head skyward. She
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: wanted to look directly into the eyes of the man
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: who just struck her. She wanted to know why. Why
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: did he pick up that stick? Why did he bludgeon
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: her with it? She blinked and tried to focus. Please, Willie,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: she sobbed, her tears tasting bitter and salty on her
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: trembling lips. Please, Willie, please don't hit me again. Willie
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Miller seemed taller to her now, more imposing. He was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a shadow, a blackened silhouette upon which the sun refused
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: to cast even a sliver of light. Louisa May began
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to plead again. Willie, I beg you.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: When?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: That moment, Willie brought the stick down on Louisa May's
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: head once more. And the stick cracked this time, breaking
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: in two. And the blood gushed, a thick stream of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it rushing like the Tennessee River. Louisa May's body went
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: face down into the mud, dead. Willie watched the blood
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: ooze from the girl's body. It painted the earth a deep,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: thick crimson red. He grabbed Louisa May by her hair.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: He dragged her to the edge of the river, pushing
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: her body into the water and It was a small splash,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and then her body began to slowly drift away. It
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: was a while until she receded from the view, and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: it would be a while longer still before Willie Miller
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: began to truly understand what he had just done. We'll
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: be right back after this word, word, word. Saturday night
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: on the Jamboree, I'm gonna kill Dolly Parton. This is
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: what a caller who identified himself only as the Man
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: in Black told Buddy Ray, the DJ, at WWVA in Wheeling,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: West Virginia. It was on or around March 25th, 1976.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: The call came in late, during Buddy's overnight shift, just
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: days before Dolly Parton's two sold-out shows at WWVA's Jamboree,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Wheeling's version of the Grand Ole Op. No sooner had
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the caller hung up than the station's phone rang a
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: second time. Buddy picked up the receiver. The man in
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: black spoke once more. To show you that I'm not kidding,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it'll be at the second show, from the left side.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Wheeling PD was out in full force on the evening
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of Saturday, March 27th, 1976, the date of Dolly's Jamboree performance.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Uniformed and plainclothes cops surveyed the scene in and around
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: the theater where thousands awaited the 1975 Country Music Association's
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Female Vocalist of the Year. But there would be no
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: show that night. Dolly's management didn't want to risk that
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the self-professed men in black would publicly murder her as promised.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And it was more than just the two Jamboree shows
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: that were canceled. 65 additional shows were canceled throughout the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: summer of 1976. Dolly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: She was even forced to lay off the musicians in
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: her band. Here's the thing, though. I don't think that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Dolly shut down her summer that year because of a
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: death threat. Dolly did not scare easily. Her skin was
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: made thick by the kerosene, cornmeal, and quilting needles used
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to patch up major injuries she sustained as a child.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: By this point, she was carrying a. 38 caliber pistol
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: in her purse at all times. And just a few
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: days later, when police arrested the man in black, a.k.a.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: 30-year-old Robert Elliott of Wheeling, and charged him with making
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: threatening phone calls, Dolly told a local paper, quote, I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't all that shook up about it, unquote. I wasn't
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: all that shook up about it is not the statement
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of a woman petrified by a phone call to a
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: radio station, right? Okay, so this is what I think happened.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I think that Dolly was preparing to implement a hard
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: reset in her career so that she could cross over
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: from country to pop. But a hard reset requires a disruption.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And I think that the incident in Wheeling gave her
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: something to blame said disruption on. Because this is the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: moment when Dolly sought out new representation, not in Nashville,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: but in L.A. This is the moment that she hired
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a new group of musicians, the Gypsy Band, who were
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: more West Coast rock and roll than country. This is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the moment when she started partying at Studio 54 with
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: John Belushi, Jack Nicholson, Calvin Klein, Mick Jagger, and Andy Warhol.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: This is when she appeared in Playboy magazine. Though, no,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: she didn't pose nude, you pervert, so quit thinking that.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: And this is when, one year later in 1977, she
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: released the country pop crossover album, Here You Come Again.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Its title track hit number one on the country chart
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and number three on the Billboard Hot 100. And although
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: she did it as, to paraphrase the LA Times, as
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Robert Hilburn, the most important ambassador for country music since
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton's ambition and solo success continued to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: piss off the old guard back in Tennessee. Her one-time
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: duet partner and mentor, Porter Wagoner, degraded her in the press.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: He shamed her for her Playboy photo shoot. He used
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a racist analogy to condemn her combination of country and
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: pop music. And then he sued her for breach of contract.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: He wanted a portion of the money she'd made since
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: she left him all those years ago. Over $ 3 million
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: in total. And when the case settled out of court
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: right before it was set to go to trial, Dolly
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: was on the hook for not three, but still she
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: was on the hook for $ 1 million. $ 1 million. which
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: she then began to pay off using money she earned
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: for her part in a project that you could say
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: was the greatest fuck you since Marvin Gaye released his
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: divorce album, Here My Dear, to pay his alimony debts.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Nine to five. to 5 was a smash hit. Released
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: in 1980, the movie starred Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Lily Tomlin as disgruntled office workers who get revenge on
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: their chauvinistic boss, played by Dabney Coleman, who, if you
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: squint hard enough, kind of sort of reminds one of
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Porter Wagoner. And you can easily make the connection between
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Dolly and Dabney Coleman's secretary on screen and Dolly as
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Porter Wagoner's girl singer in real life. The revenge was sweet,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: both on and off screen for Dolly Parton. 9 to
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: 5 was the second highest grossing movie of the year,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: right behind The Empire Strikes Back. Even better, its theme song,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: written and performed by Dolly Parton, became Dolly Parton's first
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: number one hit on the pop chart. take that, Porter Wagoner.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: But despite crossing over, despite all of her successes, Dolly
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Parton continued to fight off the so-called nefarious transferred erotic
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: desire of men. She was forced to endure boob jokes
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: from George Hamilton at the Golden Globes, and she waited
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: until a commercial break while taping an episode of the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Merv Griffin show to tell the host to go fuck
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: off with all of his childish innuendos. And the stress
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of it all, the number one movie, the number one song,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the gigs, the interviews, the tight schedules, more albums to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: make and more movies to star in, it led to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: a gradual physical breakdown of her 36-year-old body. Bleeding internally,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: she nearly collapsed on the stage at the Indiana State Fair.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And she was flown to New York City, to St.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Luke's Hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery. What exactly was
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: done in that operating room has been speculated on at length,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: and I don't need to further speculate here. But what
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: matters is that when Dolly returned to her home in
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Nashville with her husband Carl at her side, she was,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: perhaps for the first time in her life, creatively paralyzed.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: All she could think about were the inevitable lawsuits, this
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: time not from Porter Wagoner, but from venues and from
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the promoters of the shows that she'd been forced to cancel.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Unlike the last time she canceled a slate of performances...
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: This wasn't part of a master plan. This was where
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the plan unraveled and fell apart for good. Dolly Parton
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: became depressed and withdrawn. She found herself opening a small
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: case that was stashed in her bedroom. Inside the case
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: was a gun that she kept for security and peace
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: of mind. Perhaps put there in the wake of that
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: man in black business. She picked up the gun. She
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: turned it over in her hand. She thought about pressing
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: it against her temple and pulling the trigger. This part
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of Dolly's story reminds me of a song called The Bridge.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Dolly wrote it for her second album, Just Because I'm
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: a Woman, back in 1968. In the song, a woman
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: goes to a bridge where she kissed her lover for
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the first time. Only now she is pregnant with this
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: man's child, and the man has since abandoned her. And
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: as the song progresses, the woman... racked with heartache and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: pain and shame, inches closer to the edge of the bridge.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And the song ends with the line, Here is where
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it started, and here is where I'll end it. And then,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that's it. The song is over. And we don't know
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: for sure if the woman jumped or not, although it's
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: definitely implied. And I wonder if Dolly Parton thought of
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: her own song as she was sitting on her bed
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: with a loaded pistol in her hand. She, like the
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: narrator of the bridge, was facing another moment of crisis.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: A moment in which one sudden, hopeless impulse was the
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: difference between life and death. Willie Miller didn't notice all
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the blood on his shirt. When he arrived back at
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the small house he shared with his family, his mother
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: was the first to say something. And Willie looked down,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: slightly dazed, only now seeing the deep red stain. It
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: was still wet to the touch. He shook his head
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and told his mother to calm down. It was simply
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: a nosebleed, he reassured her. He went to his bedroom
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: and shut the door behind him. He climbed into the
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: bed and pulled the sheets up tight. Sleep came fast.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: So did the dreams. And Willie tossed and turned as
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the flames built up all around him. They were lapping
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: at the window and sprinting up the curtains. And they
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: burned all around his bed and licked at his bare feet.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: He awoke in a cold sweat, sitting up straight. swatting
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: at the imaginary fire that had just fueled his nightmare.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: There was a knock at his door. He opened it,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: expecting to see his mother. Instead, he was greeted by
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: an officer from the Knoxville Police Department who placed Willie
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: under arrest and charged him with the murder of Louisa
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: May Brown. The trial was swift, as swift as the
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: justice that came crashing down with the judge's gavel. Some
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: said Willie deserved to die, Instead, he was sentenced to
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: live out the rest of his days behind bars. The
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Tennessee State Prison was bleak, brutal, and overcrowded. Willie kept
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: to himself. He didn't talk to the other inmates and
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: didn't make eye contact. But if you walked by his
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: cell at night, once the lights in the wing were
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: shut off, the roaches and rats came scurrying from their holes,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: you could hear Willie Miller. First, there was the violent awakening.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: That was Willie regaining consciousness with a shriek, resting himself
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: from the nightmare of hellfire that awaited him every evening.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Sweating and panting, he could gradually calm down. And then
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: he would speak, and the sound of his voice was low,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: hidden deep under his own breath so as not to
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: draw attention. It was always the same thing. He repeated
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it over and over again, like a mantra or a prayer,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: or maybe just a compulsion that he could not. or
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: would not explain. Farewell, Knoxville girl, he would say. Farewell
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: to the girl I loved so well. The End The
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: classic version of Knoxville Girl was recorded by the Leuven Brothers,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Charlie and Ira, for their 1959 album, Tragic Songs of Life.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Their close harmonies are tight, mournful, and dare I say, beautiful.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: And therein lies the chilling nature of the song. It's
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: delivered so matter-of-factly, like the narrator is telling you how
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: they made a sandwich for lunch that day or something,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: but what is being described is a brutal murder. A
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: murder committed without warning. a murder committed in cold blood.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Five years before the Leuven brothers recorded their immortal take
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: on Knoxville Girl, in 1954, four teenagers in Brooklyn, known
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: in the press as the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, drowned one
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: victim and beat another to death. The Kings County DA
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: said of the murderous quartet, they apparently had no reason
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: except the thrill that they got. 30 years before that,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: in 1924, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped a 14-year-old
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: boy in Chicago, hit him in the head repeatedly with
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the handle of a chisel, gagged him, and watched as
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the life drained from his body. Their motive? The simple
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: desire to commit what they called the perfect crime, and
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: thus demonstrate their superiority over the rest of the human race.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: In these crimes, as in the later-day crimes of serial
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Richard Ramirez... There
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: is an inexplicable compulsion at the root to carry out
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the act. There is also the need to exert power,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the need to control, and the need to possess. Colonel
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Tom Parker wanted to possess Dolly Parton's song. Porter Wagoner
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: wanted to possess Dolly Parton as his girl singer. Robert
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Elliott of Wheeling, a.k.a. the Man in Black, wanted to
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: possess Dolly Parton with, to once again quote our guide
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Nick Cave, murderous male attention and nefarious transferred erotic desire.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: But Dolly Parton would not be possessed. Dolly Parton was
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: not a tragic female figure from an anonymous murder ballad.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: She was far too much of a badass, not to
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: mention she wasn't going to be in somebody else's song.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Get out of here with that. By 1983, Dolly Parton
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: had rebounded from her emotional rock bottom of the year prior.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: The gun she kept in her house had gone back
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: into its bedroom case, and she was once again proving
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: herself to be an unstoppable crossover force. Her duet with
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers, Islands in the Stream, topped the pop, country,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and contemporary charts that fall. This was 1983, the year
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of Michael Jackson's Beat It, Lionel Richie's All Night Long,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Every Breath You Take by The Police. But 1983 was
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: also only a few years removed from the assassination of
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: John Lennon outside the Dakota in New York. Beetlejohn's murder
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: was no doubt on Dolly Parton's mind when she read
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: the news today, oh boy, news about a recent poll
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of psychologists to determine which celebrities were most likely to
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: be assassinated. And why were psychologists being asked about hypothetical
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: celebrity assassinations? It didn't matter. All that mattered to Dolly
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Parton was that her name was at the top of
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: their list. Imagine that. Imagine you're Dolly Parton. You've had
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: unprecedented success as a country artist crossing over into the mainstream,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: but the journey has not been easy. There have been
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: death threats and you've suffered internal bleeding, and major surgeries,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a period of extreme depression, thoughts of suicide, and then,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: just as you get it all back together, you read
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: about how you are the most likely target of the
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: next crazed assassin on the mean streets of America, something
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that is printed in the mainstream press, so that the
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: next crazed assassin can read it and go from what
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: if to not if, but when. On January 15th, 1983,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: a death threat was called into Owensboro, Kentucky police shortly
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: before Dolly's two sold-out shows there at the Executive Inn
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: showroom lounge. The shows were quickly canceled, as were additional
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: dates in Texas and Louisiana. Two months later, in March,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: a bomb threat cleared out the Old Dominion Theater in London,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: where Dolly Parton was taping a special for HBO. And
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: as recently as 2022, a Pennsylvania man threatened to detonate
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: bombs he'd allegedly planted in Pittsburgh, Greensburg, and Mount Pleasant
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: unless he was allowed to speak to Dolly Parton. The
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: threats are constant. The danger is constant. It's passed down
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: from generation to generation like a murder ballad. The sorrow
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: chord echoes in the darkness and it bids farewell to
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: the girl they loved so well. But Dolly was no
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Knoxville girl. She was not one to be led down
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: through the tall grass to the riverbed. Instead, she was
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the one who rang out the sorrow chord. Dolly Parton
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: bid her own farewell to disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, The Exactly Right Network,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting
• 41:52
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• 41:55
  Speaker 1: can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com
• 41:58
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• 42:04
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• 42:07
  Speaker 1: and Facebook at DisgracelandPod. And on YouTube at youtube.com slash
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: at DisgracelandPod. Rock and roll up. He's a bad, bad man.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: All right, guys. Thanks for checking out this episode of Disgraceland,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the special Rewind episode on Dolly Parton. 617-906-6638. If you
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: find yourself in our archive and you're looking to find
• 42:33
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• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.