Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #16 "Thank You Dolly"

Transcript

Episode #16 "Thank You Dolly" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Kevin Stone Podcast. I'm Kevin Stone, and
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: somewhere behind the imaginary glass is Charlie, my podcast chief
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of staff, who has informed me that we are approximately
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: two days late with today's story. Thank you, Charlie. Very helpful. Yes,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton died on Tuesday, and today is Thursday. Before
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: anybody sends me a message saying, Kevin, this happened two
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: days ago, I know. We're not exactly a breaking news
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: organization here. We don't have helicopters. We don't have reporters
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: standing outside people's houses. We don't have a giant television
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: screen with the words breaking news flashing over it every
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: 14 seconds. We've got me, a microphone, and Charlie. And
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Charlie isn't even technically employed. Actually, I'm not sure Charlie
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: technically exists, but that's a discussion for a different episode. Today,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I don't really want to report the news that Dolly
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Parton died. You already know that. Instead, I want to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: talk about Dolly Parton. Because when somebody like Dolly dies,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: eventually the breaking news banners disappear, the headlines move on,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and you're left with a much more interesting question. What
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: did this person leave behind? And in Dolly Parton's case,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: that's quite a bit. Dolly Rebecca Pardon was born January 19, 1946,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee. She was one of 12 children. And this
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't one of those celebrity stories where somebody says, we
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: didn't have much growing up, and then you discover their
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: parents only owned one vacation home. No. Dolly Pardon actually
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: came from poverty. Her upbringing in the mountains of East
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Tennessee would eventually become part of her identity and her music.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And here's something I really respect. She didn't spend the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: rest of her life pretending she came from somewhere else.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: She didn't become famous and suddenly decide, I have no
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: idea what you're talking about. Appalachia? Never heard of it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: She embraced it. The accent stayed. The story stayed. The
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: sense of humor stayed. And apparently the hair got bigger.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Much bigger. Charlie, do we have an official measurement on
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton's hair? No, Kevin. We do not. Good. I'm
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: pretty sure OSHA would have gotten involved anyway. But underneath
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: all the rhinestones and jokes was somebody who was remarkably talented.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Dolly was performing on local radio as a child. By 13,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: she had appeared at the Grand Ole Opry. After high school,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: she headed to Nashville. And eventually, America discovered something. That
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: little girl from the Tennessee mountains could write a song. Now,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I think this sometimes gets lost because Dolly Parton became
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: such a gigantic personality. The hair, the clothes, the jokes,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: the movies, Dollywood, all of it. But Dolly Parton was
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: a serious songwriter. We're talking about somebody who wrote thousands
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: of songs over her lifetime. Think about some of those titles. Jolene,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Code of Many Colors, 9 to 5. And of course,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You. And yes, younger people may
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: immediately think of Whitney Houston when they hear that title.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And Whitney Houston's recording was incredible. But Dolly Parton wrote it.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: And there's something fascinating about the story behind it. Dolly
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: originally wrote I Will Always Love You when she was
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: leaving her professional partnership with Porter Wagner. Think about that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Most of us quit a job and say, well, see ya.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton quits and writes one of the most famous
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: songs in music history. That's showing off. But that ability
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to take an ordinary human emotion and turn it into
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: something millions of people could understand, that was Dolly's gift.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And one of the songs that says the most about
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton isn't really about being famous at all. It's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Coat of Many Colors. I'm not going to recite the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: lyrics because that's not what we're doing here. But the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: story behind the song matters. Dolly remembered her mother making
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: her a coat from scraps of fabric because the family
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: didn't have much money. Young Dolly was proud of that coat.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And other children weren't quite as impressed. And there's something
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: almost painfully human about that story. A child can understand
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: that your family doesn't have much. But poverty becomes different
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: when somebody else makes you ashamed of it. And Dolly
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: took that childhood experience and eventually turned it into art.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: She didn't erase where she came from. She used it.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And decades later, millions of people who never lived in
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: those Tennessee mountains understood exactly what that little girl felt.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: That's songwriting. Eventually, Dolly Parton became bigger than country music. Movies, television, business,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: theme parks. She appeared in 9 to 5 with Jane
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Fonda and Lily Tomlin. She appeared in Steel Magnolias. And
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: then there's Dollywood. Only Dolly Parton could name an amusement
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: park after herself and somehow make it seem humble. If
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I opened an amusement park called Kevin Land, people would
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: immediately say that man needs to be stopped. I already
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: filled the paperwork. Thank you, Charlie. Dollywood became a major
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: attraction in East Tennessee and an important economic engine for
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the region. And that's another part of Dolly's story that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I find interesting. She wasn't simply talented. She was a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: very smart businesswoman. She understood ownership. She understood branding before
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: everybody on the internet started calling themselves a brand. And
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: she understood something else. You don't have to abandon where
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: you came from in order to become successful. Sometimes where
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: you came from can become part of what makes you successful.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Now here's something that's almost impossible today. Everybody seemed to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: like Dolly Parton. Not literally everybody. Somebody somewhere probably didn't.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: There's always that one guy. You could hand out free
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: $ 20 bills and somebody on Facebook would comment, well aren't
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: they hundreds? That's humanity. But Dolly managed something unusual. People
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: from very different backgrounds liked her. Country people liked her.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: City people liked her. Conservatives liked her. Liberals liked her.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Old people knew her. Young people knew her. Country musicians
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: respected her. Rock musicians respected her. And Dolly generally avoided
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: turning herself into a political spokesperson. She had opinions. Of
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: course she did. But she didn't seem to believe that
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: being famous automatically meant everybody needed to hear her opinion
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: about every political controversy in America. Charlie, are the celebrities
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: actually allowed to do that? Apparently they used to be. Interesting.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I wish a few more of them would do that.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Different time. And maybe there's something worth learning from that.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: You can have beliefs. You can have convictions. You can
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: disagree with somebody. And you can still treat them like
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a human being. That shouldn't be revolutionary. But apparently, we've
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: reached a point where it is. Now we get to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the part of Dolly Parton's story that may actually matter
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: even more than the rhinestones and records. because Dolly Parton
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: made a lot of money. She became extremely successful, and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: then she did something interesting with some of that success.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: She gave it back. One of the best examples is
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. It began in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: and the reason behind it was personal. Dolly's father couldn't
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: read or write, so Dolly wanted to help children develop
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a love for reading. The concept was beautifully simple. Send
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: books to children. for free, starting when they're babies and
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: continuing until they age five. What began locally became enormous,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: reaching children far beyond Tennessee and eventually outside the United States.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Think about that legacy. Records eventually stop selling, concerts end,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: movies get old, but somewhere there's a kid whose parents
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: read them a book tonight because Dolly Parton helped put
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that book in their house. That's a legacy. And she
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: didn't forget East Tennessee. In 2016, devastating wildfires hit the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Great Smoky Mountains. Homes were destroyed. Families lost everything. Dolly
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: helped establish a fund providing financial assistance directly to families
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: affected by those fires. Again, she could have released a statement,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: thoughts and prayers, and moved along. Instead, she helped. There's
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a difference between caring about people and actually doing something.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Then came 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dolly donated $ 1
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: million to research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. That money
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: helped support work connected to the development of the Moderna vaccine. Now,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not turning this into a vaccine debate. Everybody relax. Charlie,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: stand down. The point is simpler than that. There was
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a crisis. Researchers were working on it. Dolly had resources,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so she helped. That's the pattern I see when I
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: look at her life. She made money. She enjoyed her success.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: She didn't apologize for being successful, but she also seemed
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: to understand. If you've been blessed with something, you can
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: use some of it to help somebody else. And that's
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: probably what I want to take from this today. You
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: don't have to be a Dolly Parton. You don't need
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars. You don't need a theme park. You
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: don't need millions of records sold. You definitely don't need
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the hair. Although if that's your thing, go for it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: The principle works at every level. Maybe you've got money.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've got time. Maybe you've got knowledge. Maybe you've
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: got a skill. Maybe you've simply got the ability to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: encourage somebody who's having a terrible day. Use what you got.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Because someday, everybody leaves. Famous or unknown. Rich or poor.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Podcast host or imaginary podcast chief of staff. And when
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: that happens, nobody's going to care very much about how
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: many things we owned. They're going to remember how we
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: treated people. They're going to remember whether we helped. They're
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: going to remember whether we made their life a little
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: better or a little worse. I also love that Dolly
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: never seemed embarrassed by where she came from. She grew
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: up poor. She became wealthy. She grew up in the mountains.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: She became internationally famous. But Tennessee remained part of her identity.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: There's something awesome about that. Sometimes people spend their entire
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: lives trying to prove they're better than where they came from.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the wrong goal. Maybe the goal should be
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: become better because of where you came from. Remember the
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: people who helped you. Remember the hard times. Remember what
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it felt like when you didn't have much. And if
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: you eventually find yourself in a position to help somebody
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: who's standing where you used to stand, help them. And
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that's why I keep coming back to that coat. A
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: little girl in Tennessee wearing a coat her mother made
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: from scraps. A little girl who would eventually become one
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: of the most recognizable entertainers in the world. She would
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: sell millions upon millions of records, become a movie star,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: build a business, build Dollywood, win awards, make millions of dollars,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: and give millions of books to children. But underneath all
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: of it was still that little girl from Tennessee. Maybe
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that's why people connected with her. Dolly Parton became larger
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: than life. Without convincing us that she thought she was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: better than life, there's a difference. So yes, it's been
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: two days. The television networks have already covered it. The
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: newspapers have already written the obituaries. There have been tributes
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: from celebrities, politicians, musicians, and fans. And by tomorrow morning,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: there will probably be another giant story dominating the news.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: That's how the news cycle works. But some people deserve
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: more than a breaking news banner. They deserve a moment.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And I think Dolly Parton earned one. Not because she
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was perfect. Nobody is. Not because she was famous. Fame
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't automatically make somebody admirable. But because she appears to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: have understood something very important. Success means more when somebody
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: besides you benefits from it. That's worth remembering. Dolly once
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: said she hoped she'd ultimately be remembered as a good songwriter.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I think she got her wish, but I suspect she'll
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: be remembered for considerably more than that. The music, the laughter,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the movies, the businesses, the books given to children, the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: families helped after disasters, the opportunities created back home in Tennessee,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and an unmistakable personality that somehow survived decades of fame. Charlie,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting this whole episode for you to say
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: something sarcastic. Not this time, Kevin. Yeah, me neither. Rest easy, Dolly,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and thank you for the music. I'm Kevin Stone. That's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Charlie behind the imaginary glass. And this has been the
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Kevin Stone Podcast. We'll talk again next time.