From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries
https://www.commentary.org/articles/rob-long/the-beauty-parton/
Here's the one big rule of the music business: You can make a
pretty nice living writing love songs, but the way to get
seriously rich is to write breakup songs. Consider "I Will
Always Love You," which was written by Dolly Parton in 1973
and re-recorded many times since, most famously by Whitney
Houston in 1992. It's one of the most loved (and profitable)
songs ever, despite not being a traditional example of the
genre. There's no hit-the-road-Jack bitterness, no I-want-you-back
pleading. It's an elegy, really: one lover singing a sweet and
final goodbye to another, with grace and resignation.
At the time, Parton was the popular female singer on The Porter
Wagoner Show, a country-music program. She made her debut in
1967, but by the early 1970s she was an undeniable star on her
own and wanted to leave to see just how big she could be.
Wagoner, the host and impresario, resisted. His performers were
under pretty ironclad contracts, and he wasn't about to let
his star attraction walk out.
One day, Dolly put her thoughts and feelings about Porter into
words and music. She marched into his office, took out her
guitar, and sang "I Will Always Love You." Wagoner listened,
silently, and then said, "That's the best song you've ever
written," followed by, "I guess you have to go, then."
A powerful breakup song, without question--but what was being
broken was a contract.
Parton has told this story many times, most recently on Dolly
Parton's America, a podcast produced by WNYC and Radiolab. The
multipart series investigates the enduring and broad appeal
Dolly Parton has enjoyed for nearly her entire career. The
producers begin by describing the audience at a recent Dolly
concert in Brooklyn--an unlikely kaleidoscope of skinny hipsters
and MAGA hats and lesbians and families, multiethnic and
multi-everything. The sight of all of that diversity surprised
the producers from public radio, for whom the concept of
"diversity" often means its opposite. Here was a Barclay
Center-sized audience that voted differently, dressed differently,
ate differently, prayed differently, and loved differently from
one another, all cheering for the same five-foot-tall woman
from Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, with the big hair and the hillbilly
accent, who is now 74 years old.
How does she do it? they asked. For almost six decades, she's
been a star of television, movies, concerts, recordings, theme
parks. There isn't an entertainment medium Dolly hasn't dominated.
Her net worth is estimated to be $500 million, though when I
mentioned this figure to a producer she's worked closely with,
he rolled his eyes and silently pointed up. "Much more," he
mouthed to me.
How does she do it? It's a version of the question everyone in
show business is asking all the time: How do we stay popular
in a fractious country? How can you keep packing them in like
Dolly when the culture itself seems so bitter and divided?
For one thing, she resists labels. When the podcast producers
cheerfully suggest that she's a "feminist," Dolly hesitates.
She doesn't like that word and wouldn't use it to describe
herself. This reaction sends the producers into a deeply confused
state. They love Dolly and they love feminism, so by the
Transitive Property of Politically Aligned Entertainment, Dolly
must also love feminism. An entire episode ensues wherein the
producers--who are genial and thoughtful and utterly
ingenuous--interview as many women as they can who identify as
feminists and Dolly fans, and then they present this evidence
to Dolly as if to say, See? You're a feminist!
Dolly laughs and sighs. Okay, she says, I guess if it's that
important to you, maybe I am. But you can hear the half-hearted
tone in her voice. Dolly refuses to be claimed.
"I Will Always Love You" appears on Dolly Parton's 1973 album
Jolene, and it's an example of Parton's astonishing genius at
songwriting that she wrote "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene"
on the very same day. Dolly sings "Jolene" from the perspective
of a woman speaking directly to the Other Woman who is stealing
her man. And just as "I Will Always Love You" is graceful and
understanding, so too is "Jolene." It's not a song about anger
and threats. Rather, it's a plea from one woman to her more
alluring rival:
Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you
Jolene
For nearly 50 years, people listened to that song and thought,
Yeah, been there. When you're being tossed aside, it's easy to
feel less attractive.
Or, maybe it's a proto-lesbian anthem. Which is where the
producers go with it--hey, wouldn't it be amazing if the woman
singing the song and the Other Woman get together at the end?
They imagine that maybe Dolly meant it that way, meant to keep
that idea up in the air. Maybe Dolly is not only a secret
feminist but a lesbian activist, too. They go so far as to
commission a final verse to the song in which the Other Woman
takes the singer to a lesbian bar and the two of them end up
happily together.
"You're overthinking it!" Dolly says with a peal of laughter.
Sure, she says, maybe, okay, whatever! Dolly laughs. If that's
what some people imagine, fine with her. The producers are
vaguely dissatisfied with this response. They need Dolly
Parton--a person whose work they enjoy, a person they admire--to
proclaim her allegiance to contemporary progressive politics,
which she cheerfully and laughingly refuses to do. They keep
asking How does she do it? And she keeps answering them By
writing songs that are emotionally true and not being a political
activist...and they just don't hear it.
At the 2017 Emmy Awards, Dolly was reunited with her co-stars
from the 1980 hit comedy Nine to Five. It was nine months into
the Trump administration, and two of the presenters weren't
about to let you forget it. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda let
loose mini-screeds against Trump. Dolly looks uncomfortable,
then defuses the awkwardness by making a joke about the size
of her breasts. And the podcasters want to know--they need to
know--why Dolly didn't attack Trump along with her co-stars
and friends. Doesn't she hate the guy? (Translation: Please
tell us you hate the guy!) For the first time in the podcast,
Dolly seems confused. She doesn't hate Donald Trump. She prays
for Donald Trump.
And if the podcast producers thought they were frustrated by
her refusal to be a feminist or an LGBTQ activist, they're
stopped cold by this admission. Dolly prays for Trump, by which
she means, she's not praying that he wins reelection or lowers
his handicap. She prays that God will grant him wisdom and
foresight and guide him as he leads the nation. Praying for
the president--any president, every president--is actually part
of the official liturgy of the Episcopalian church. But this
is problematic for Dolly's interviewers, for whom basic religious
faith seems weird and baffling. They keep asking How does she
do it? And she keeps answering them By writing songs that are
emotionally true and not being a political activist and praying
for God's guidance. And they just don't hear it. Can't be that.
Gotta be something else.
Dolly Parton's singing "I Will Always Love You" to Porter
Wagoner is one of those moments you hear about and think, This
is going to be an Oscar-winning movie scene someday. But what
came after the song wasn't so nice. Porter Wagoner sued Dolly
Parton for $1 million and trash-talked her for years. And then,
a few years later, when she was a superstar and he had fallen
on hard times, she bought his music-publishing company from
his creditors and gave it back to him.
Weren't you furious with him? the podcast producers want to
know. He sued you. He took your money. Some have said he abused
you. Again Dolly demurs. See it from his side, she says. Wagoner
made her a star. He took a chance on her, introduced her to an
enormous audience, stood by her. She was grateful to him. And
she forgave him. She helped him financially and reconciled with
him and was there at his deathbed to remind him that the words
she sang to him years before were still true.
You forgave him? they ask, as if the word is strange and foreign
and written in a different alphabet. Forgiveness, she says.
"That's all there is."
Forgiveness. Fairness. Grace. Openness. Gratitude. Simplicity.
Prayer. The public-radio producers ask, How does she do it?
Hollywood asks, How does she do it?
That's how.
--
Mark Shaw moc TOD liamg TA wahsnm ========================================================================
"Anyway, we delivered the bomb."
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