STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80. She was a singer, a celebrity, a sex symbol. But above all, Dolly Parton was a songwriter, a storyteller, and reporter Jewly Hight has her story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY TENNESSEE MOUNTAIN HOME")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) In my Tennessee mountain home...
JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE: In Parton's songs, stage banter and interviews, she always presented herself as a humble, yet audacious mountain dreamer made good. She built her identity on proudly claiming the Appalachian poverty and ingenuity she came from.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PARTON: 'Cause I remember a time we didn't have electricity in the early days.
HIGHT: Here's Parton on NPR in 2002.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PARTON: And I was thinking how far I've come from no electricity to now, to living in this high-tech world and selling my records as they are.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY TENNESSEE MOUNTAIN HOME")
PARTON: (Singing) In my Tennessee mountain home, life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh.
HIGHT: Long after Parton's successes helped her escape, she continually returned to her stories of what it was like growing up as one of 12 kids in a rural hamlet nestled in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PARTON: We barely made it, but we did make it. And, you know, we had a lot of stuff that money can't buy anyhow - things like love and kindness. And we had music. My mother's people were very musical. So that really got us through a lot of hard times, and the fact that on both sides of my family, the Partons and the Owens family, had a great sense of humor.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOLLY PARTON AND FAMILY'S "GROOMS TUNE/BONAPARTE'S RETREAT (INSTRUMENTAL)")
HIGHT: Parton began writing ballads and ditties and singing on local radio when she was just a kid and couldn't wait to get to Nashville as soon as she graduated high school in 1964. In those days, it was hard enough for women to make headway as singers in country music and even rarer for them to also establish themselves as songwriters. As Parton told NPR in 1989, she realized that accentuating her silhouette got a reaction, but she treated her songwriting as her greatest asset.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PARTON: That's what I take more serious than anything else that I do in the business. It was my songwriting that got me out of the Smoky Mountains and that I feel that has taken me into all the places. The fact that I've, you know, had this outrageous look, that's helped. And the fact that I've had a good, outgoing personality and a good, healthy attitude has helped, too. But to me, the guts and the root of the whole thing is the writing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
PARTON: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.
HIGHT: Parton was certainly not naive about operating in a male-dominated field. When veteran hitmaker Porter Wagoner asked her to join his TV show, she slipped into the role that was most readily available to women in Nashville - duet partner to a male star. But her wit and magnetism helped her transcend the limitations of being his girl singer and eventually move on to focusing on her solo career in 1974.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
PARTON: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I'm begging of you, please don't take my man.
HIGHT: Parton earned dozens of Top 10 country hits, and her professional ambitions grew along with her career. She insisted that she was not leaving her country-ness behind, but bringing it with her as she crossed over into pop stardom and moviemaking in the late 1970s and early '80s. She gave memorable performances in "9 To 5," "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" and "Steel Magnolias," alongside celebrated actors like Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Julia Roberts and Sally Field.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
PARTON: (Singing) Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living. Barely getting by. It's all taking and no giving. They just use your mind, and they never give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it.
HIGHT: Parton opened her own theme park, Dollywood, in the Smoky Mountains. And in actual Hollywood, she did not fade into the background - not with the over-the-top hyper-feminine look that she cultivated for years - those piled-high blond wigs and stiletto heels and tight-fitting costumes that she told NPR in 2014 she had modeled after a woman from back home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
PARTON: And it's true I look totally artificial, but I like to think I'm totally real where it really counts. But my look came from a very sincere place. It's just a country girl's idea of glamour, just like the song I wrote - "Backwoods Barbie."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BACKWOODS BARBIE")
PARTON: (Singing) I grew up poor and ragged, just a simple country girl.
HIGHT: In front of audiences, Parton made endless self-aware jokes about her exaggerated appearance. And as the years went on, that made her a role model for drag queens.
TRIXIE MATTEL: Like, Dolly put on a Dolly costume every day.
HIGHT: That's Parton admirer Trixie Mattel.
TRIXIE MATTEL: Dolly played Dolly onstage. Dolly played Dolly in the musical of "Dolly" in real life. When I think back now, watching Dolly, it's like, was I watching my first drag show?
HIGHT: Not only did Parton's performances help Trixie Mattel find her way to becoming a funny folk-singing drag queen herself; they made people of all sorts of cultures, identities and ideologies feel like Parton was theirs to claim.
TRIXIE MATTEL: It's the one thing maybe a hardcore conservative and a drag queen can have middle ground on.
HIGHT: WNYC devoted an entire podcast to exploring Parton's universal appeal in 2019. Once she reached middle age, Parton frequently returned to songs and sounds associated with the pleasures and hardships of her mountain youth.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THESE OLD BONES")
PARTON: (Singing) These old bones will tell your story. These old bones will never lie. These old bones will tell you surely what you can't see with your eye.
HIGHT: At the same time, new generations embraced her celebrity as a given, whether or not they paid attention to country music. Everything she did and said was news, even if she cannily avoided wading into issues that had the potential to be divisive. But in the end, of all that Dolly Parton created, her greatest work of art was the indelible image that she fashioned for herself over a lifetime of dressing up backwood brilliance in showbiz splash.
For NPR News, I'm Jewly Hight in Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COAT OF MANY COLORS")
PARTON: (Singing) Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be in my coat of many colors my mama made for me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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