MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There are so many aspects of Dolly Parton's life to celebrate and mourn today - her talents as a singer, songwriter and musician, her philanthropy, her career as a businesswoman - theme park owner. She died yesterday in Nashville at the age of 80. According to a statement from a representative, she had recently been diagnosed with cancer. She drew on her own life for some of her most popular songs, like "Jolene," which was inspired by a bank teller who seemed to have a crush on her husband.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
DOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I'm begging of you, please don't take my man.
MARTIN: Jewly Hight, who's been covering the music scene for decades from Nashville and with WPLN, is here to talk with us about Parton's contributions to country music and American culture. Good morning, Jewly.
JEWLY HIGHT, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: It's hard to sum up what she meant to people, but we're going to try (laughter). Have a go at it.
HIGHT: Yes. Well, you know, if she had spent her entire life strictly focusing on her career in country music, she would have still been one of the most important singer-songwriters in modern country history. I mean, she gave us "Jolene," as we just heard, "Coat Of Many Colors," "I Will Always Love You," so many other enduring songs, but she really fashioned a career that transcended country music without leaving her countryness behind and had huge mainstream pop hits. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and ventured into Hollywood stardom as a magnetic actor with great comedic instincts.
But ultimately, her fame was so expansive, you know, her appeal was so universal that she just became a ubiquitous American icon and an embodiment of both authenticity and the artifice of staying true to her roots and making good on her ambitions on this grand scale. So Dolly was really like a prism who reflected all of these different facets to what each and every person saw in her - all of these different qualities.
MARTIN: So where did the Dolly story begin?
HIGHT: Really in East Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains, well outside of Sevierville, kind of a remote spot. Picture 12 kids in a rustic cabin, a family that subsisted on what they could farm and their resourcefulness, and at the same time, she was there nurturing her dreams of performing and writing songs, appearing on local radio.
And as soon as she got out of high school, she headed to Nashville, tried to establish herself not just as a singer but as a songwriter too, which was hard for women to do in the '60s. And her songs really began to hit when she found a way to draw stories and lessons and characters and scenes from those humble Appalachian roots. And "Coat Of Many Colors" is a fantastic example.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COAT OF MANY COLORS")
PARTON: (Singing) My coat of many colors that my mama made for me, made only from rags but I wore it so proudly. Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be in my coat of many colors my mama made for me.
MARTIN: I take your point that Dolly's sort of - her fame and her - what she meant to people really transcended genre, but what did she mean to country music specifically over the course of her very long career?
HIGHT: Well, she fleshed out the template for not only country crossing over to pop without losing its identity but for a countryperson persona thriving in Hollywood. I mean, she kept her Appalachian roots so colorfully front and center and dressed them up with her love of glitz and glam and her clever self-awareness.
But beyond that, I mean, she really made country music feel expansive enough to have global appeal and all-encompassing enough so that it could connect with traditionalists as well as people who feel like they have been shut out and marginalized. You know, she made it feel like it excludes no one, like it makes room for people who love slick pop songs and people who love the most down-home, close-to-the-roots version of country music and that it tells stories of coming from humble rural origins and taking pride in that and dreaming big that really people all over the globe can see themselves in, in these songs that she wrote.
MARTIN: That is Jewly Hight of WPLN in Nashville. Jewly, thank you so much.
HIGHT: You are so welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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