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SYSK Tribute: Why does everyone love Dolly Parton? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Chuck here on a Wednesday for an intro
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: for a very special release because yesterday we learned that
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: music icon and country music legend and philanthropist and just
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: all-around amazing person Dolly Parton passed away after a short
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: battle with cancer. And a few years ago in April
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: of 2023 we recorded this episode, Why Does Everyone Love
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton? And, you know, I think that title, Josh
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: came up with that title, and it really hits it
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: on the head. She was a beloved person that seems
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to have crossed different musical genres, of course, and, you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: political boundaries. And she was just one of those people
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: that kind of everyone seemed to be united in agreement
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that Dolly Parton is and was an amazing human being.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing we detail in this episode.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And We try to get to the heart of why
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: she's so beloved. And I think for me, Dolly was
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: just someone who seemed like her guiding principles were kindness
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and love and joy. And that seems to be what
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: led her to do just about everything in her career
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and every decision she made and people who she worked
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: with and, you know, nonprofits she decided to get involved
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: with and certainly her philanthropic efforts and everything that she
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: gave to the world, it seems like she led with
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: her heart first. And that's just kind of a rare
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: trait these days. So Dolly is certainly a rare breed
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and just an amazing woman. Somebody who I think we
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: can all agree should be revered and looked up to.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And the world is a little dimmer today without her
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: light shining. So Here we are today, the day after
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: she passed, releasing this special episode, hoping everyone can give
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: it a listen as we pay tribute to the great
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton with our episode from 2023, Why Does Everyone
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Love Dolly Parton? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And today we're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: make some joyful noise together here on Stuff You Should Know.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I just poured myself a cup of ambition. Uh-huh.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: I had a few of those this morning.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Uh, Livia helped us with this one. And, you know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we've remarked about how Livia is getting great at titling
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the articles, even though she doesn't even have to.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: She does it because she's creative and talented. And her
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: title for this is Why Does Everyone Love Dolly Parton?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And we're going to explain that. But I think the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: easiest thing to say is since the 1970s, this is
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a woman who has basically just put goodness into the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: world at every turn.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I was reading an interview with her
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: in Rolling Stone from 1980, like 9 to 5 had
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: just come out. And you might as well have told
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: me it was from 2023. Yeah. She's been the same
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: way this whole time. That's great. She doesn't get into
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: any political stuff. She said, I'm not political. I won't
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: talk about politics. She leaves hot button issues alone. But
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: if it means something to her, it's really meaningful, she'll
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: come out in favor of it, endorsing it. But she
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't put anything down. She might support something, but she's
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: not going to put anything down publicly.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the other kind of funny thing about this
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: one from Livia is she always includes her sources, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: she may have broken her own source record. Yeah, there's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, boy.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: There were probably 100 sources, but we did want to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: mention one in particular because I listened to this from
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Jad Abumrad, the great Jad Abumrad of Radiolab fame, like
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: four years ago put out the wonderful series Dolly Parton's America. Yeah.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And Livia binged it, and I listened to it back then,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and Back then I was like, oh, man, I want
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to do an episode on Dolly Parton. But it's like
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Jad did it, like he covered it so well, like
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: what's the point kind of thing.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: But now four years on, I was like, well, we
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: can give it the stuff you should know treatment, which
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: is to say not as deep a dive. But it's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a great series. If you want to learn more about
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton, then check out Dolly Parton's America.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Very nice. And then just to button up, Chuck, we
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: were trying to answer that question, why does everybody love Dolly? Mm-hmm.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I came up with another hypothesis too. Okay. And it's that,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: you know, when, when somebody is like, they can be
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: anything anybody wants them to be like, they're interpretable from
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: all different angles. So everybody just assumes they're like them.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Dolly is not like that. She is her own person
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: who can't be pigeonholed into one box or another. Right.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: But she's, Likeable from all sides.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like find someone that's going to talk smack about
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Dolly Parton. And then you and I are going to
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: have a discussion in the parking lot with that guy.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: It's a sad state of affairs, though, dude, because there's
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: think pieces all over the Internet about how it's just
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: amazing that everybody doesn't hate Dolly Parton. And it's like,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: good God, like this is what we've come to. Like,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: everybody hates everybody casually. So, I mean, how has she
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: escaped it so long? And it's just like such a
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: sad state of affairs that that's normalized by even writing
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: pieces like that. But they're out there for sure. But
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the upshot of it is people are amazed that people
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: don't hate Dolly Parton. And it's true. People don't hate
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Dolly Parton.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And she's someone that is so, I think, kind
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of universally beloved and internationally beloved that, as you'll see
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: later in this episode, she's been studied. by anthropologists and sociologists,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: which is pretty amazing. And so let's start at the beginning,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: shall we?
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: Wait, hold on, one more thing.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more praise.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: The other thing about her I think that's so amazing
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: and so remarkable is that she, this is the reason
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: why everybody's just so fascinated with her right now. She's
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: maybe the one person who is straddling both sides of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the political and social divide as wide as it is
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: in the United States today, and is not like hanging
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: on by her fingernails. She's like, I got a foot
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: here and I'm not lying about it. Got a foot here,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I'm not lying about that either. I'm not trying to
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: fool either side. This is what I'm into. And I
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: like both of you, basically.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: It's almost like being a genuine human who 100% stays
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: true to who they are is something we should all
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: aspire to.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Sure. But it also shows, she shows that That's such
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: a rarity in this world that you can be globally
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: beloved by just doing that and also making like a
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: ton of really great music, too.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah. I mean, come on. We're going to talk
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: about all this stuff. But can we go back to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the beginning now?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: OK. Hey, never apologize about singing the praises of Dolly Parton.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: That's a great rule of stuff.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: You should know motto. And I just can't wait till
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: we get to the Dollywood stuff because you you've been
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and I have not. All right, so she was born,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Dolly Rebecca Parton, in 1946, in January 19th of 1946,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in rural Tennessee. How do you pronounce that? Is it
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Sevier County?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's Sevier.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's just Sevier.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I'm almost positive it's Sevier.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, S-E-V-I-E-R. And see, immediately, this is, I'm sure, Jad's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: episode pronounced it perfectly right off the bat. I don't remember.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: He just threw his face into his palm like, these guys....
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Uh, but she was born to a big family of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: 12 kids and it's kind of fun to look up
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: photos of, uh, Dolly and all her siblings because, you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: a few of her sisters look a lot like her. Um,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: all her brothers look like, you know, they should be
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: like shooting pool down at the pool hall, you know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: all very just sort of genuine article, smoky mountain, Tennessee
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: foothills people.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And there were 12 of them, did
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: you say?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: 12 sibs, including her. She was the fourth.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the fourth of 12. And all 14 people in
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: her family lived in a two-room cabin. And I've seen
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: a replica of this cabin. And it is no joke,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: a two-room cabin and 14 people lived in it in
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: the Smoky Mountains.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: You mean two bedrooms with an office, right? Right.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I mean two rooms, my friend, with the outhouse, no
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: running water, no electricity. Like she grew up as Smokey Mountain,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: as a Smokey Mountain person can grow up. Like even
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: people in other parts of Tennessee are like, wow.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: But she said she had a great childhood running around,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: just being outside. And because she was the fourth of 12,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: she wasn't particularly like, paid attention to, so she could
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: just kind of go off and do her own thing.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I get the idea that they were semi-feral sort
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of mountain kids. Her granddad was a Pentecostal minister, very
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: fiery and brimstone-y, and she still mentions God a lot.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I get the sense that she's a little less overtly religious,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: but spirituality is still very much a mainstay in her life.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's more of a personal relationship between
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: her and God.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is how it's supposed to be.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: So she really lucked out because she had an uncle
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: named Bill Owens, who was a musician, a songwriter who noticed.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: that she wanted to get into music from a very
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: young age and was maybe the only person in her
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: entire life or her early life that noticed and then
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: nurtured it. And she later said when he died a
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: few years back at his funeral, like she wouldn't be
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: here today if it wasn't him. Like she owed him everything.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Because he nurtured it in her. He encouraged her. He
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: supported her when she got rejected. And he helped her
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: break into the business. So Bill Owens was a huge
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: influence in her life. But he noticed, like I said,
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: from a very early age, I think she wrote her
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: first song when she was five.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Little Tiny Tassel Top about her homemade corn husk doll.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: And she would pretend... You know, she would get a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: tobacco stick and a tin can and act like it
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: was her microphone and mic stand. And she would sing
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: for the chickens in her yard and had obviously a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: real talent from the beginning. If you listen to her
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: very first recording, Puppy Love from 1959, it sounds like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you know, 13 year old Dolly Parton. You know, you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: can hear Dolly in that young voice. And like I said,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: she was 13. And that was the same year that
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: she made her very first appearance in At the Grand
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Ole Opry, introduced by none other than Johnny Cash.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, who was her first big crush. So it was
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: even more amazing for her.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Her family didn't get to see it, though, because Dolly
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Parton was on TV before her family had a TV
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: at home. Yeah. Which is pretty cool.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Was it on TV back then?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I believe there was a TV appearance, yes.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And if that one wasn't, whenever it was, she was
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: on TV first. Her family still didn't have a TV
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: back then.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: So thanks to Uncle Billy taking her around and banging
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: on doors, she ended up making her debut on Mercury
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Records in 1962, which is nothing to sneeze at. But
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I get the impression that it wasn't like her– it
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: wasn't like, okay, this is a serious recording contract. It's like, okay,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: let's test this girl out. Back then they called any
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: woman in country music a girl singer. Right. Right. So
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: she was a bit of a novelty, not just because
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: of her age, but because she was a woman as well.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: But she had her sights set on becoming a country
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: music star. And so the day after she graduated high school,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the day after she graduated high school, she got on
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: a bus for Nashville and moved there.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Amazing. 1964. And very soon after she moved there,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: she met a man that would become her husband and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a mainstay in her life to this day, who is
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: remarkably hard to find stuff about. His name is Carl Dean.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: They met very famously at a laundromat when she was
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: 18 and he was 21. Married a couple of years later.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people that don't know
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a lot about Dolly Parton think she might be single
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: or something because she never had kids. But she's been
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: married to Carl Dean since 1966. And he just, he
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to be in the limelight. He never did.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: He's her biggest fan. fan and supporter, she's always said,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, off the stage, but he just doesn't want
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: any part of the limelight. And it's hard to even
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: find a lot of pictures of this guy. There's a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: handful out there, but he started an asphalt laying business
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: in the late seventies, still runs that business today, which
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: is just amazing. And yeah, I read an article from
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. She was like, you know,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Carl and I, we like to run errands. She said,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: we go to the 24 hour stores, you know, in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the middle of the night, like Walmart and places. And
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: she said, and there are fewer people there to come
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: up to me. And she said, I don't mind it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I love people. She said, I just don't want it
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: to get in the way of our shopping.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: And, you know, Carl's not wild about it. So they
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: just live a very simple kind of pure life together,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I think, outside the limelight.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've read an interview with her somewhere, and she
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: said that in her opinion, if she's out in public,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: that time belongs to her fans. So she doesn't have
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: a problem with people coming up to her, asking for autographs.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: She knows that she's out in public, and that's a
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: risk that she runs, right? Sure. But her leisure time,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: her time away is like secluded off with Carl, just
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the two of them usually. Maybe she has a very
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: close best friend. I can't remember her name. They go
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: everywhere together. So she's almost like a stand in for
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Carl when Dolly's traveling around. Yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: And she's always been very her persona is very flirty
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and she's always sort of flirted around with. In fact,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: no friends that have worked on like commercial shoots with her.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And they were like, man, she's the biggest flirt you
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: would ever know. And that's just her personality. And she
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: said that Carl understands that. And that's just how she
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: sort of has fun and relates to people. And it's
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: always very innocent. And I just think it's kind of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: kind of cute and fun.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I want her to flirt with me, you know, I
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: think is what I'm saying.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: This, this episode might be your big break, Chuck.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So, um, would you just like turn bright red and
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: like dig your, the toe of your foot.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Into the, I kind of am a little bright red.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I thought it was the stuff you should know sign
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: in here, casting a red beam on my face.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: No, it's you thinking about being flirted with by Dolly Parton.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I know. Well, dude, I grew up as you did,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: but I'm, you know, a little bit older. Like The
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: heyday of early Dolly was when I was a kid. And,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of course, my dad was in love with her. And,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know, it was just she was one of the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: biggest stars in the world. And my parents were kind
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of into country music. So she was just sort of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: prevalent in our household somehow.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my introduction to her was through 9 to 5.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: And my mom, that whole message and the idea behind
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: it was right up my mom's alley. So she would
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: watch it. With her hands clasped together at the side
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: of her face.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Just an adoration of everybody, including Dolly Parton, too. I
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: think my family was never really into country music, so
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: I think that that was like a big introduction and
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: probably a win over for my family was 9 to 5.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, we'll talk about 9 to 5 and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: crossover success more. It's a good setup. But how about
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: we take a break?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And we'll be right back with more Dolly Parton.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Music Music OK, so we're talking about Dolly becoming a star.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Like she's had a couple of record contracts, nothing serious, though.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: But then in 1965, she signed with Monument Records. That
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: was her big her first big record contract I read.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: But they wanted her to be a pop singer, which
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: is kind of ironic because she actually would kind of
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: become a pop singer later on in her career. But
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: at first she was like, no way. Like, have you
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: seen my house? And do you know how many people
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: are in my family? I'm not a pop singer. I'm
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: a country singer. Right. So she persisted and hung in
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: there and they ended up like folding and giving in.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And she went on to become a full fledged country singer.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in 1967, her first record, Hello, I'm Dolly, which
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: is just great how they used to do records like
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: that and title them like that when you introduce her
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to the world. But as would become a thing in
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: her career, most of the songs that she's well known for,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: most of the songs she's recorded, she's done plenty of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: covers because everyone does that, especially in country music. But
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: she is... most well known as a songwriter. And we'll
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: get into that more in a little bit. But she
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: wrote two. Now, Libby has a number 24, but I
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: saw that they were both top 20 on the country charts.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Dumb Blonde, which is written by a guy named Curly Putman.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Great name. And Something Fishy written by Dolly. And I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: think the album itself was a top 20 hit. Her
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: debut right off, you know, on the country charts, right
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: off out of the gate.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. I was looking up something fishy, and it's about
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: a woman who's become convinced that her husband's fishing trips
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: aren't actually fishing trips and that he's running around on her.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: So one of the lines is, I guess some largemouth
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: bass left that lipstick on your shirt. I don't think
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: you're a fisherman, honey. I think you're a flirt. That's
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: like perfect debut dolly. Age 19, I think, is how
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: old she is. Yeah, that's pretty great.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And Porter Wagoner is someone that we talked about on
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: our Grand Ole Opry show. And he had the Porter
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Wagoner show. He hires Young Dolly to replace his other
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: young woman sidekick singer. And basically, she elevated the show
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to the point where it was the number one syndicated
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: show in the country, radio show.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And they started doing duets together and albums together, including
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: their first one, Just Between You and Me, in 1968. Yeah.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And they started touring a lot, too. And she learned
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: a tremendous amount about touring, performing live, the music business.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Everything she needed to learn early on came from touring
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: with Porter Wagner. But he was also really well aware
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: that he had like a real cash register on his hands.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: And he kept her under his thumb as much as
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: he could, both emotionally blackmailing her, I get the impression,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: but also locking her into just really exploitive contracts because
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: she might not have known what she was signing. She
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: probably did and just figured like, OK, at least it's
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: going to help me get to where I'm going. That's
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the likelier explanation, if you ask me. But he was
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: definitely in charge for the first many years of her
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: serious career.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But because she's Dolly Parton and so beloved, when
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: they eventually broke up their relationship, I think it was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: kind of rough. And she ended up writing a song,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You, about that relationship. And ultimately
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: they worked it out and she reconciled and was at
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: his deathbed with his family. And it was kind of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: one of those no hard feelings kind of situations.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Oh, really? I read that his last dying words were,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I'll never forgive you. That's what I'm going to say
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: on my deathbed.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: No.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to wave my finger around the room
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to everybody standing there.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And we're all going to be like, is he talking
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: about me?
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You guys can spend the rest of your lives
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: figuring it out.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: And Yumi will just look at me and say, he's
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: talking about you.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Uh, so they, uh, while they were a duet, wait, wait,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: hold on.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: One more thing you brought up. I will always love you,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: which everybody knows. One of probably your most, one of
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: our most famous songs, arguably her other most famous song, Jolene. Yeah.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Great song.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: She apparently wrote those songs on the same day, start
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to finish. Isn't that amazing? Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, she, she now says like, you know, if
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the same day, it was in the, Within
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a couple of days of each other. But like either way,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: it's remarkable.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's possible it was the same day. She
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: just doesn't remember. Yeah. That really like kind of goes
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: to show what kind of she she was drinking cups
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: of ambition left and right, apparently. Because not only is
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: that story potentially true, she also put out 25 albums. Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: both duets with Porter Wagner and then some solo albums
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: in the five year period between 1968 and 1973. Yeah.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's remarkable. She started, um, and that's kind
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of where I was headed anyway. She kind of started
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: recording her own solo stuff as she was, you know,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: it was kind of obvious. She just had, she was
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: too prolific of a songwriter. I mean, she supposedly, her
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: quote is that she's written more than 3000 songs and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: three of them are good. Uh, She's also humble, another
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: reason people love Dolly Parton. But she had too much
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to say early on, and so started making solo records
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: while she was still with Wagner. And it was in
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: that time period, I think in the early 70s, is
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: when those iconic songs, Jolene and I Will Always Love You,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: came out.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Right, but still under the tutelage of Porter Wagner, right?
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, those are solo albums. And I think
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I Will Always Love You was about them splitting apart,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: so it was... Sort of right there at the end,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: It definitely was. And I heard a story years back
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: that he said, OK, I'll let you out of your
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: contract if you let me produce this amazing song. Oh,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: that song?
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I will always love you. Right. And then apparently he
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: turned around and sued her anyway for breach of contract.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: But she she got out of it. She got out
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: of this this this terrible contract, this exploitive contract. She
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: got out from under a very domineering mentor. And this
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: is a really big time of transition for her because
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: not only did she get away from Porter Wagner, which
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: was enormous because in a sense, she was like a
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: pinball that had just been plunged when she was released
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: from Porter Wagner, just looking for like the next bumper
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: to just shoot her off in another direction. That's my analogy, buddy. Yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened. But she also had to
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: break up with her family band. Like they were her
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: original backing band. She had to be like, I got
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: to get better musicians, you guys. And she made some
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: really hard decisions, but they ended up paying off. And
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: from what I understand, there were no lasting hard feelings
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: from it.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty great. She hosted a TV show for
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: one season, just like us. It was called Dolly. You know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: back then they had all this great variety shows. This
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: was 76 into 77. And then a very important man
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: comes into her life by the name of Sandy Gallen,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who was a Uber manager, got the Beatles on Ed Sullivan,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: would later manage Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand and Cher.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And Sandy Gallen was a pretty instrumental person for a
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One is kind of. encouraging the crossover success.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Like he booked her at the bottom line in the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Greenwich village who, you know, everyone from Springsteen to Lou
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Reed were playing there.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Like Andy Warhol came and watched her show. There's an
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: awesome picture of them sitting together.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Talk about crossover.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And she was nervous. I saw that she
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: was nervous on the, on the way to being scared.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah. Uh, he had her tour Europe, exposed
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: her internationally. Um, uh, he, uh, took her to Studio 54,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: which is probably where she also hung out with Andy Warhol.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: But the other big reason is that Sandy Gallen was gay.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: He died like five years ago. And this was a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: very instrumental relationship. And I get the impression, you know,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Dolly is very famous for being sort of an icon
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: in the LGTBQ community.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from very early on.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it seems like this is kind of where
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: it all started was having this relationship with Sandy and
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you know, just the gay community wrapping their arms around
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: her early on, not necessarily because, you know, she had
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: a gay manager, but, you know, I don't think it hurt.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Right. And the New York Times wrote that she got
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: a warm welcome in San Francisco from transgender fans and, quote,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: other exotic urban cult audiences.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Well, Dolly's always said, you know, she's one of those
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: love is love types. And, you know, It's just like,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: it's the way to live life. Like she doesn't judge
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: people and she never has. And she's always just embraced
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: like whatever community wants to love her music. Like, why
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: would she, I never get it when people like intentionally
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: sort of turn audiences off.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. But also like it's,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: that's so true. And it's so prevalent when, when you
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: read about her, watch interviews with her. just listen to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: her talk, you're almost like, what's your angle, Dolly? Right.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: What are you really up to here?
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Her big crossover hit was Here You Come Again, which
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was considered a pop song. I mean, I've always kind
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: of thought it was a country song, I guess, because
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: her voice is in it, and she insisted on steel guitar,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: so it still had a little country tinge to it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: But it's like a perfect.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: It was a huge song.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: It's a perfect crossover.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Like, it's exactly.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: perfectly balanced. Like there couldn't have been a better song
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: to transition from full on country singer to country pop singer.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it went number one on the country chart,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: number three on the pop charts. Album went platinum. And
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: this is, you know, the late 70s when she really, really,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: really blew up.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that. She just took off like a
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: rocket from there. One of the things that she did
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: very wisely in the late 70s, early 80s, right around
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: this time, was just hop on the TV circuit. She's
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: been on at least a few hundred TV appearances, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of them took place in the 70s and
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: 80s when she was just making herself known, making herself
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a household name. And none of this was by accident.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: She's wanted to be a megastar since she was a kid,
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: and this was part of... She apparently makes a lot
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: of lists, and they turn out to kind of be
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: five-year plans, and I'm sure... Getting on the talk show
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: circuit was part of one of those lists.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: And that explains why, as a kid growing up in
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the 70s, I saw a lot of Dolly Parton.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: She was everywhere.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Dolly wanted you to see a lot of Dolly Parton.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: In the 80s is when she continued some of her
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: collaborations with other artists, very famously with Kenny Rogers with
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Islands in the Stream. Huge, massive hit.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Haven't heard it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And then 1987, my favorite... Collaboration at least came out
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and maybe my favorite dolly stuff period. Oh, yeah was
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: the album trio Yeah that she recorded with Linda Ronstadt
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and Emily Harris. Mm-hmm Just three of the best voices
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in the history of music coming together to sing together
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: They ended up making three albums over the years together
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: So if you haven't listened to any of this stuff
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: highly recommend trio from 1987 She.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Also released some bluegrass albums in the late 90s the
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: grass is blue little sparrow halos and horns and And
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: then she released her first Christmas album in 30 years
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: back in 2020, A Holly Dolly Christmas, which is pretty good.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It's cute. But I think the best Christmas album she
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: released was Once Upon a Christmas in 1984. There's a
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: lot of Kenny Rogers on it.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I made a joke this last Christmas on Instagram. I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: think that like probably 50% of Dolly Parton's Christmas songs
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: are about sex.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Or there's like sexual overtones.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. Yeah, it's good stuff. But that 1984 album
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: has Hard Candy Christmas on it, which is, I mean,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: maybe her best one, if you ask me.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Great song. All right, so now let's talk a little
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: bit more about her songwriting. I think that's the thing
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that she's sort of most proud of. She said in
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a 2020 book, if I had to choose just one
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: thing to be, I would choose to be a songwriter.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: She's always said that she loves writing from the male
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: point of view. She loves writing songs for men because
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of her songs are sort of narrative stories.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: type songs. And she's written a lot of big, huge
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: hits for people like Merle Haggard and Kenny Rogers and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Hank Williams Jr. and all kinds of dudes. Right.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: She also plays a bunch of instruments. The guitar, she says,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: is her strongest. And there's a lot of other string
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: instruments that she can play. I saw a video recently.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: One of her concerts, she's got a banjo slung around her.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: She's got a strap hanging from a strap while she's
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: playing a fiddle really fast. It's pretty amazing. But if
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: you really want to be amazed by Dolly, you should
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: watch her play the saxophone. And in particular, at the
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Glastonbury Music Festival in 2014 in the UK, in front
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: of a crowd of 100,000, she busted out Yakety Sax.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: The Benny Hill theme song. And it just killed. Yeah.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: It did. That whole show is a fun watch because it's,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's in, it's at the Glastonbury Festival and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know. I think her legendary status
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: just like grew with that appearance.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Like she was, you know, kind of a
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: cult favorite in the UK and then she became like a,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: like a pop culture favorite after that show.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Nine to five, the movie that you mentioned before
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in 1980 is when she got into movie making and
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it is a movie, boy, not only does it hold
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: up today, but, It was ahead of its time and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: even more relevant today than it probably was then.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Which is sad, if you stop and think about it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: No, no, totally sad.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: But it was based on an actual movement called 9
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: to 5, the 9 to 5 movement from the early
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: 70s that I guess Jane Fonda was aware of, because
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: she was one of the creators behind the movie 9
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: to 5. And that was an actual movement led by
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: secretaries starting in Boston, and it spread around the country.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: And they were... protesting sexual harassment, low pay, getting passed
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: over for promotions. And they had a great slogan that
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I saw. Raises not roses.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Raises not roses. Yeah. I love that.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I love it too.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't need your flowers.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: About some money.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I'll buy my own flowers.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Right. I can buy my own flowers. Yeah.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: That's what the back of the t-shirt said. And then
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: parentheses quit pinching my butt.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Plus also that's a Miley Cyrus song. Who is Dolly
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Parton's goddaughter?
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And Dolly credits that relationship with the fact that millennials
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: love Dolly.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wasn't aware of this. So everybody knows, even
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: I know, that Miley Cyrus was Hannah Montana on Nickelodeon from,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I think, 2006 to 2011, right? And she would have
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: Dolly on forever. Here there is Aunt Dolly, like her aunt,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Hannah Montana's aunt. And I guess like millennials just grew
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: up watching that. And that she just exposed herself, not literally,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: but figuratively to an entirely new generation. And it stuck
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: like that's that's how they that's how they met Dolly.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: And they just kept following her and loving her from
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: that point on.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I love it. She was in a bunch of movies
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: over the years. Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Burt Reynolds,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: of course, part of the ensemble and Steel Magnolias. Very disappointingly,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Livia doesn't mention my second favorite Dolly Parton movie, which
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: was Rhinestone with Sylvester Stallone. One of my big HBO
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: movies early on. I watched that thing over and over again.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Stallone sings. Have you ever seen it? No, I never have.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: I turned the TV off after Life Force.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: You should check out Rhinestone because the premise is she's
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to make a country star out of Sylvester Stallone. And
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: he has a song in there called Drinkenstein instead of Frankenstein.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: And the chorus is, Budweiser, you've created a monster, and
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: they call him Drinkenstein.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: But Stallone really sings, and it's just, I think it's
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: known probably as a bad movie, but it has a
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: very special place in my heart.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It sounds like the prequel to Tulsa King.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: So she also, did you mention Sand Dollar yet? No.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: She founded a production company with Sandy Gallen, her longtime
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: manager and friend. And they went on to produce movies
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: like Father of the Bride.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the movie.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: She also did Straight Talk, which she was in, where
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: she plays a woman who accidentally becomes a radio host and,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: of course, just shoots into the stratosphere and popularity.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I never saw that.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it was okay.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Not her best work, but still. She was amazing in
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Steel Magnolias. I mean, like, if you go back and, yeah,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: if you go back and watch some of those scenes
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: between her and her husband in particular, she's a really
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: good actress. No, she's good.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: In fact, but the Shelby I just did was more
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Sally Field. Now that I think about it.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: I detected a hint of Sally Field in there. All right.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I think let's take another break and then we'll this
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: is going to go a little long, but that's OK,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: because we're about to dive into Dollywood right after this. Shelby.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Shelby.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: All right, my friend, here we are. I'll set it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: up with how it starts and then you can just
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: take over because you've actually been there. But in an
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: interview in 1982 with Barbara Walters, Dolly Parton said something
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: about being interested in opening up a theme park back home.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And there was a theme park, Silver Dollar City in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. And the owners, Jack and Pete Herschend,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: heard this interview and gave her a call and was like,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: let's get together on this. And they did to great success. Yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Four years later, Dollywood opened. It reopened as Dollywood, I
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: should say. Just that first year, they doubled their entries
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: to 1.3 million people coming. And that's not just a
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: full year. It snows and everything kind of shuts down
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: in the wintertime in Pigeon Forge or in the Smokies.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: So I'm guessing they crammed a lot of those people
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: in in a very short amount of time, probably summer.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm going off on this tangent,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: but it just seemed important when I started.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: It's called how theme parks work. They close in the winter.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Be quiet, you. So it was a success right out
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: of the gate, I should say. And little known fact,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: or it's a rumor that a lot of people don't
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: realize is actual fact. They buried a time capsule there
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: on opening day. And it contains an unreleased Dolly song.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: No way.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: That is not to be opened until I think she's
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: 99 years old.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Wow. Mm-hmm. Which is, what is she now, 76?
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: 78, I think. Okay.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: So it's close.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We can wait.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: She sees it, yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, we'll wait.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: So tell me about Dollywood. I want to know more.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: So it is a, you can definitely believe that it
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: used to be a silver dollar city. They preserved a
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff. There's a coal-fired... train that kind of
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: takes you around on some neat vistas and everything. We
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: went around Christmas time, which kind of undermines my argument
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: about things shutting down in the winter. We went for
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Yumi's birthday, actually, like one year. And.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: There was like a Christmas show where there's like singing
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: and dancing, but it was so corny that I was
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: waiting for everybody to be like, oh, you know, we're
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: just joking. Here's the real show. It never happened. It
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: was just that like kitschy and American and earnest. Yeah.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: And just corny. But it was very sweet in retrospect,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: especially hard to sit through, but very sweet. And then
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: there's just a lot of like people dipping candles. There's
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: tons of food to eat. There's a roller coaster that
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: neither you me nor I went on. But there's a
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: museum there that's closed temporarily because apparently they're reimagining it.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: But it was originally called the Chasing Rainbows Museum. And
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Dolly Parton is a just self-professed pack rat. She saved.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: everything chuck everything the coat of many colors that she
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: sings about it's there you can see it in real
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: life right there and it's the tiniest cutest little thing
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: you've ever seen in your entire life it's so tiny
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: and this is a coat.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Her mom made for her when she was a kid
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: right out of old rags that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: She sang about in that coat of many colors yeah
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: and it's what a great song but then just to
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: just to love that song and then see the actual
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: coat and then just see how dinky it is It
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: was just amazing. Those lists I told you she used
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: to keep, she kept those. Those are on display. Wigs,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: rhinestones everywhere. But it's not just like this ode or
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: tribute to Dolly. It's a genuine, like, curated look into
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: her whole career. And it was one of the best
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: museums I've ever been to in my life of any kind.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Why didn't you guys ride the roller coaster?
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: We're both scared of roller coasters.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think I... remember that.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, I've been scared of roller coasters for decades, but
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm starting to come out of it. OK.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: And I might go challenge myself and ride a few
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: roller coasters this summer and see if I'm correct or
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: if I'm really, really wrong.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Well, you should go to Six Flags with Ruby and I,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: because there's nothing like getting your courage worked up than
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a seven year old who will ride anything. Staring you
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: in the face.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: Okay. All right. I may use that. That's just the
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: elixir I'm looking for.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. She'll go on whatever. She wouldn't understand. She'd
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: be like, why don't you want to go on it?
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: What do you mean you're scared?
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I don't. You're kind of ruining things for me.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to go to Dollywood, so maybe we
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: can go to Six Flags and then Dollywood and just
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: do a theme park roundup.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: I strongly recommend it because there's like all sorts of
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: stuff in nearby Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Yeah, of course.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I've been to Gatlinburg.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Ripley's Museums and just all sorts of just cool, super
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: kitschy touristy stuff.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, what's his name?
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: The guy who sings Proud to be an American?
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: Lee Greenwood.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: There's the Lee Greenwood Cafe where they no joke play
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that song on a loop over and over again the
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: whole time. You're like, where's the next song? They don't
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: play the next song.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: I heard that song every night of the summer for
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: like five summers when I worked at the Stone Mountain
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Laser Show.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I'll bet.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I got my fill of it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: So we can talk a little bit more about her politics.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: She's and this is where the sociologists and anthropologists come in.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: There's a sociologist named Tressie McMillan Cottom that has written
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: about how black women have always looked up to Dolly
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Parton as a role model, even though she is like
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: it's a very specific sort of white southern thing that
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: she embodies. Again, just, you know, testifies to her crossover
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: appeal that she is to be admired by anybody. Her
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Q score, if you don't know what a Q score is,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: it's a marketing tool that basically there's a bunch of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: things that go into your Q score, but it's basically
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: how How much people like you, how much they recognize
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: your name. And her Q score is like legendarily one
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: of the top Q scores of all time, celebrity wise.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: She has a high positive Q score. They also do
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: a negative Q score. And she has a very low
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: negative Q score. So she's among the most beloved and
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: among the least disliked people in the entire world.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to know my Q score.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: I looked it up. We don't have one yet.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: OK, good.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: But I was reading this article on the conversation and
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: these two Australian marketing people were trying to figure out
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: who would have been Australia's Dolly. And they landed on
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Hugh Jackman. And I'm like, I can't disagree with that.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: He's pretty likable.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Sure. Everybody likes Hugh Jackman.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Even though he did The Greatest Showman.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: People still like Hugh Jackman.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: The anthropologist comes in, a man named Jonathan Zilberg in 1995.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: talked about how she was loved in Zimbabwe of all places.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: And again, it's just like, you know, pick a country
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and chances are people there love Dolly Parton.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: And in Dolly Parton's America, then they talk about how
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela, while he was in prison in South Africa,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: got his jailers to play Jolene for the whole jail.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: Basically all Shawshank Redemption. Pretty cool.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool. And like you said earlier, she basically just
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: avoids politics. She doesn't let any politician on either side
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: use her music. If a Democrat uses it, she shuts
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: them down. If a Republican uses it, she shuts them down.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: She just sort of sidesteps all that stuff. She's always been,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: you know, growing up, of course, in the 70s, there
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: were a lot of playground jokes about Dolly Parton's breast size.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: She was very well known for it. And she's always
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: been the first one to jump in and joke about
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: it herself instead of being like the butt of the joke.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: She can just go along with it. And that's just
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: that's another really likable quality is someone who can and
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: can laugh at themselves and not take things too seriously.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I also saw it put that she she knows that
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: these jokes are going to be made anyway, so she
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: can diffuse them by getting out in front of them
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: and topping, you know, the lame jokes that like old
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: talk show hosts would make.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: I saw once she said that she burned her bra
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: and it took the fire department three days to put
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: it out. Like that kind of stuff. That's hilarious. That
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: was her joke? Yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's good. That's very funny.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: So I think we mentioned this before. Do you know
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: that Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal on the planet,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: was named Dolly because she was grown from a mammary
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: gland cell?
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: I can't remember where we talked about that. But it
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: really just goes to show, like, that's how ubiquitous Dolly
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: Parton's boobs were in the 20th century.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Like, they were as big as she was, basically.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No pun intended.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: They were definitely part of her brand, for sure.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, she was smart enough to lean into it.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Another thing that she had done over the years is
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of really dark songs that she's
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: written about, even though she's never kind of outright considered
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: herself a feminist. She very much is. And a lot
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: of the songs she's written over the years have been
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: very dark songs about women who are either abandoned or
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: suffering from sexual double standards. Or there's one brutal song
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: from 1970 called Daddy Come and Get Me about a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: true story of a relative in her family that was
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: basically institutionalized by her husband. So she's never been afraid
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to go down sort of in the tradition of the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: old sort of dark country murder ballad thing, go down
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: these darker roads with some of the songs she's written.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that she considers herself not a feminist,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: but in favor of all women. She's for all women.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: So it's like she doesn't subscribe to the movement part,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: but what the movement's ultimately about, she's totally in favor with.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: And that's super her. She made a very rare, overt
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: statement when she came out in support of Black Lives Matter.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: And I really like. At a time where it was
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: like you're casting your lot one way or another. And
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: she stood up for it, which is pretty cool.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: She did. She also, in 2018, there was at Dollywood,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the Dixie Stampede. She changed the name to Dolly Parton
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Stampede after people complained about the whole Dixie connotation and
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: Civil War theme. She changed that up and she was
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: just like, you know, I never really thought about, you know,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the Confederate imagery, meaning what it meant to, And so
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: she was happily changed it. And that's just the kind
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of person she is, I think.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: And she got guff for that. And she got guff
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: for supporting Black Lives Matter from some of her her
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: right leaning fans. But she she can always explain herself,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: you know, and she does so in such a great
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: way that you're just kind of like, well, fine. It's
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: hard to be you can't keep a grudge against her
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: even if she goes against you politically. But she just
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: so rarely does it. Yeah.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Agreed. Uh, she is, uh, we're going to wind it
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: down with her business and philanthropy. Um, very savvy business
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: person from the very beginning. Uh, she was smart enough
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: to hang on to her, um, the rights to her
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: own music and never give them up. Even when Elvis
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Presley came calling and wanted to cover, I will always
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: love you. He wanted half the publishing rights. And she
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: was like, no way. He'd take a walk. Elvis Presley.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: He didn't. Apparently Colonel Tom called her up on the
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: morning of the scheduled recording session. And sprung that on her,
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: and she turned him down. And she said she was
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: hoping that Elvis was as disappointed as she was. But
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: that took a lot of gumption, especially to have it
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: sprung on you like that. And she said, nope, not
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: doing it. But that's one of the things that made
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: her so incredibly wealthy. Like, apparently her music catalog has
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: a net worth of about $ 150 million and brings in
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: about $ 6 to $ 8 million a year for her, according to,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I think, Forbes. And then her stake in Dollywood is her...
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: her most valuable asset. I think it's like $ 165 million.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Pretty neat.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: She has done quite well for herself.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Uh, she, I mean, these days she's, she's not stopping either. She's, um,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: she's on Duncan Hines, buttermilk biscuit mix with her little
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: cartoon face. They have fragrances branded by Dolly. Uh, they
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: have pet clothes that she's branded with. Um, Like, just
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things. She's not afraid to license her image.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: No.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: We've got the Duncan Hines frosting in our pantry.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Do you?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: The chocolate cream frosting. And then one other thing I saw, Chuck,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: she wrote a book, co-wrote a book with James Patterson,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: one of the best, most favorite novelists in the entire world.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: It's called Run, Rose, Run. And it's a thriller based
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: kind of loosely on Dolly's story of making it in
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: the music biz.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it just came out. Okay.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I might have to check that out. Yeah. Uh, she
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: is very charitable as well. She started the Dollywood foundation
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: in 1988, uh, just to get literacy going in her
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: home County. And it grew and grew and grew to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: the point where it is now in the U S Canada, Australia,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the UK and Ireland. And to date, uh, the program
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: has given out more than 204 million books across these countries. And, um,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: you know, she'll build a hospital in her County, um,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Anytime there's like wildfires nearby, she's chipping in. She very
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: famously donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University Medical Center
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: for COVID-19 vaccine research. And, you know, people don't credit
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: her with the Moderna vaccine, but they're like that million
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: dollars was instrumental in getting that vaccine to trial.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, she also was like, everybody go get jabbed.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: She yeah, there was a video at one around of
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: her getting her own vaccine, the first one, I think.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: And she was singing Vaccine to the tune of Jolene.
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty nice tie-in.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It was great. So one other thing, though,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: about her foundation, one reason she got into literacy programs
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: was because her father never learned to read. And apparently
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: he told her just before he died that he was
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: most proud of her for that work that she'd done.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: with promoting literacy around the world. It's pretty cool. It
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: makes it even neater.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: And in addition to the vaccine Jolene song, she also
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: did a version of I Will Always Jab You.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: That was less popular.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Less popular.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Sounds a little aggressive.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: She's been nominated for 53 Grammys. 53. Uh, she's won 10,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: which I think that number should be higher. Uh, but
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: you know, they have given her like lifetime achievement awards and, uh,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Jolene and I will always love you were inducted into
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: the Grammy hall of fame. So they have like heaped
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: awards on her, even when she has not won the
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: actual Grammy. Uh, and she's also won an Emmy, right?
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She was also up for two Oscars for best
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: song for, um, Oh, Traveling Through for Transamerica in, I think, 2006.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: And then 9 to 5, the song.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Did 9 to 5 not win?
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: No, it was beaten by Fame.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, boy, that's a tough year.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: Traveling Through was beaten by Hard Out There for a
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: Pimp from Hustle and Flow.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: That's a good song, too.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: How are you going to top that?
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: It's really hard. I was getting ready to trash whatever
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: beat out 9 to 5, but Fame is a great song.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: That's a tough year.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: That was a very tough year. But she also has
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: two Guinness World Records to her name, one of which
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: is most decades with a top 20 hit, which really
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: just goes to show how long she's been around and
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: how long she's been huge.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: You know what else she has two of?
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: What?
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Two.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Is there anybody else who has that?
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: I think so. People in different media, although probably not
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. I bet it's a pretty short list.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: One in 1984. And then one in 2018 when, I guess,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the final trio of trio albums came out.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: So if you think Dolly's slowing down, friend, you are
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: dead wrong. Yep. She's got a new album coming out.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: So she was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: of Fame despite her protests. She's like, I'm not a rocker. Apparently,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: she's like, all right, well, I better go be a
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: rocker and earn that honor. So her next studio album,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: her 49th, is coming out, I think, this fall. And
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: it's called Rockstar. And she's going to be singing with
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: some other rock stars, too.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Cher. I love it.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Yep. Vince Neal?
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: No, not Vince Neal.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: That's correct, not Vince Neal. Oh, okay.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: That'd be pretty amazing, actually.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: You got anything else about Dolly Parton? Oh, I've got
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: one other thing.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: Let's hear it.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: Before you answer. She wakes up at 3 a.m. every day. Oh.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Daughter of a sharecropper.
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, you got anything else?
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else.
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't either. I don't think. But I'm going
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: to think of 10 things after we're done recording.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I know. I've been listening to Dolly Parton all day,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: so it's going to continue on.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not hard to do. If you want to
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: know more about Dolly Parton, friend, go listen to Dolly Parton.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Go watch videos of Dolly Parton. Go read interviews with
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Dolly Parton. She was once described as a black belt interviewee.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: So you'll never be disappointed with a Dolly Parton interview.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: And since I said you'll never be disappointed by a
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: Dolly Parton interview, that has opened up listener mail.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this great email. Follow up from arcades. Hey, guys,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: want to tell you a story of my very traditional grandmother.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: She was very traditional in the Midwestern sense, and she
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: was a homemaker.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: Books for my grandfather's iron working concern. She didn't tolerate
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: cussing or fussing and was a conservative dresser.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: She liked the calico.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: She didn't have any obvious vices, save one. Pac-Man.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: To hear her tell it, there was a time where
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: she would wake up before her husband and five children,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: power up the Atari, and start a Pac-Man game. After
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: 30 minutes or so, she would get breakfast on the table,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: get her family out the door, and do the books,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: clean the house, and then finally get back to her
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: paused Pac-Man game, which she would play until it was
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: time to start dinner when her family came back home.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. She had Pac-Man fever.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: That's good. Wouldn't be much of a story, guys, except
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. She was really, really good at Pac-Man.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah?
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: She once told me she had the first 40-something levels
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: memorized and could use them to rack up points and
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: then thus extra lives. She got to a point where
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: she could play the same game all day long. Eventually,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: she would describe getting to a high enough level where
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the game would freeze.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: And what she was describing was level 256, the kill screen.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: But since she was home alone every time she reached
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it and the internet wasn't a household thing, no one
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: ever knew what she was talking about.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: She just ran out the door and was like, somebody, anybody,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: come look.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: It was until many years later that I saw King
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of Kong and saw the footage of the kill screen
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: my grandmother had described. Couldn't believe my eyes or the
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: fact that my conservative grandmother was such an early skilled gamer.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: That's neat.
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: She's since passed away, but every time the subject of
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: Pac-Man comes up, brings a smile to my face and
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I remember her and her high scores. That is from
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Aaron Miller of Kansas City, the Kansas side.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's rare. You don't usually hear from those people.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Kansas side.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. Well, thanks a lot, Aaron. That's a fantastic story.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you could smuggle that message out of the
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Kansas side of Kansas City to us. And if you
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: want to be like Aaron and get in touch however
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: way you can, try putting it in an email. Sending
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: it off to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.