Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - Second Helpings - Dolly Parton

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

This is a BIG one!!! Straight out of Nashville, the one and only Country ICON Dolly Parton joins us on Table Manners. We chatted to Dolly live from Nashville - dressed head to toe in festive gear - back in October 2020, before her beautiful book Storyteller had reached these shores and before we knew she had potentially helped cure covid with her generous donation to help fund a covid vaccine. As well as telling us all about cosying up with Michael Buble on her new christmas record ‘A Holly Dolly Christmas’ she talks to us about her upbringing in the mountains, being one of 12 children, her speciality of Chicken and Dumplings, that Glastonbury show and the very first time she heard Whitney Houston sing her song on the radio. This was a total pleasure and a real pinch yourself moment (hence my over talking). Hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed chatting to everyone's favourite storyteller! Dolly has now announced a brand new Broadway musical based on her life which launches in December.Listen & watch Table Manners here - https://tablemanners.komi.io/Follow Table Manners on:Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tablemannerspodcast/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tablemannerspodcastFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/tablemannerspodcastYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TableMannersPodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, Mum. Where are you? Darling, I'm on your favourite beach. Oh, lovely. You're in Greece. Mum, I have news for you. What, darling? We are down to the last 20 in the British Podcast Awards Listeners Choice Award. Wow.

If you want to vote for us to win Best Podcast for the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards this year, you vote on Spotify. Thank you so much to everyone that has voted already. You've got us very, very far and we're really thrilled. And I will let you get back to your holiday now, Mom. Thank you. having a lovely time just about to go in the sea, darling, with my rubber ring.

Amazing. Hi darling. Bye. See you soon. Hello and welcome to Second Helpings. This week we've got the formidable Dolly Parton, which was recorded during lockdown over Zoom. I was actually recording my album. Which one was I recording?

I think I was recording the deluxe for What's Your Pleasure? Because we recorded it in 2020 October. and it came out in December 2020. She came on to tell us about her Christmas album, Holly Dolly Christmas. And so I always found it quite funny that Dolly was in front of the big Christmas tree when we were chatting to her. And I was at James Ford's studio. And I said, listen, I'm just going to have to do this podcast because it's with Dolly at Parton.

He said, No Problem. We had an hour with the Queen. It's the one and only country icon, Dolly Parton. And she loved it, didn't she? Yeah, she was great fun. was very nervous. I think we were both nervous. We recorded this in a strange time of endless lockdown. And we was on Zoom, it'd be nice to meet her in person, Jess. And before we knew, she actually had potentially helped cure COVID with her generous donation to help fund a COVID vaccine from the Duna.

Dolly Parton coming up on Second Helpings. Hello. Dolly, can you hear us? She's not connected yet. Working on it. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yeah. Well, hi there. How are you? I am good. I understand we're going to be sitting around the table talking. Yeah, talking about food and Christmas. Okay. How are you? You're by a Christmas tree.

Well, of course I am because I'm doing a whole lot of promotion for my Christmas album and a whole bunch of other stuff I got going on. But you can't see that, right? You're a podcast, right? You're just on radio. But we can paint the picture, Dolly. You know, there's a Christmas tree. There's a wreath.

Dolly is in a beautiful red outfit. and I feel like it's Christmas Eve and I've got the best present of all. Well, thank you. I'm happy sitting here on Christmas Eve by my fireplace with my Christmas tree and my wreath and all that. So I am in the Christmas spirit. How about you? Well, you know what? For October the 2nd or 3rd, I'm feeling pretty jubilant.

I'm well up for it. I'm thankful that you have given Christmas to us so early. Thank you. We need some Christmas. I wish I had recorded that in my new album. We need a little Christmas. But I didn't, but we certainly do, and I've got it. I started it early on in the summer, so I've been doing Christmas since July.

Oh, wow. So you started recording the record in July? Yeah, you usually have to start early in order to get things done. And we also decorate, we decorate the studios and everything to where we feel like we're in the Christmas spirit. So where are you right now, Dolly? I am in Nashville. I'm at one of our studios that we do our work in, so we've done. kind of work in a small circle in our own little personal private areas.

And we try to do our social distancing and try to be smart and all that. So I'm sitting here right in the middle of Nashville. Did you actually get to get cozy with Michael? Or did it have to be kind of socially distanced cozying up with Michael Bubelle? Well, I wanted to cozy up and cuddle. I'm going to cuddle down and cozy up with him. But I couldn't very well do that. Not this year anyway.

So maybe next year I'll get to do a Christmas special of the same album. And then maybe I'll get to cuddle up with him then. But we actually, all the guests that we had on, we kind of had to do it where they were in their studios. And we had to kind of do it with all the social distancing and all the stuff that we had to do. But thank God, technology, we've pulled it off. Do you like Christmas, Dolly? Well, I love Christmas.

Don't everybody? I think that's probably my favorite time of the year. I mean, I enjoy all of it. But Christmas is just so much about the, like you're talking about, the trees, the glitter, the glamour, the presents, the streets being all decorated and getting the chance to party and to sing and to eat too much and not feel too bad about it until the first of the year. So who does the cooking, Dolly, in your house on Christmas? Well, everybody, in my house, I like to do a lot of my own cook. And my sisters and I love to cook, same things that we grew up serving, you know, at Christmas with a lot of mom's old recipes. But it's, you know, we do the traditional stuff, the turkey and where there's chicken or turkey and the hams and the stuffins and the mashed potatoes and the yams and the pumpkin pies, all the stuff that we eat at Thanksgiving and we eat again at Christmas.

So it's kind of like it's a whole continuous thing. but we all love to cook, and my sisters and I make our own special little things. Mine is chicken and dumplings that taste like mamas. So we try to keep Mommy and Christmas all the time. So was your mama good cook then? Oh, of course, she had to cook for that big house full of youngings. So mama, everything mama cooked, you know, you'd think there wouldn't be a thing to eat in the house. And mama would just start cooking, and before you didn't know it, there was always something that always was always good.

There's a lot of you. You've got a lot of brothers and sisters. There were, was there 12 of you? Yeah, there's 12 of us and all. There's six girls and six boys. I have a sister and two brothers older and they're very kids younger. But we had a lot of mouths to feed. My sister and I had to learn to cook early. So we cook a lot like mama and my aunts and my grandmas. Mama was always having a baby.

So when mom was out with the baby, my sister Willie and I had to do the cooking, you know, in those early days. So we know how to do it. You're one of the oldest in the family. Yes, I have a sister and two brothers older than me. And so you had to take a lot of responsibility for the little ones. Well, yeah, that was just the rule of the house. Every time Mama had a baby, we all had to help take care of it. So she had, I think that's why she kept having kids,

just so she'd have somebody help babysit. But we did it. It was just a natural way of life. We were always excited when we heard Mom was having it. a new baby, which was all the time. I always make a joke that mom had one honor on her hip or one inner at all times. Honor or inner. Yeah.

So, but we loved them all and that mom and daddy loved us all. So that was just the way it is. Just horny hillbillies up there in the mountains. At Christmas, will you all get together with your family? Is that how you normally spend Christmas? Well, we try to get as many of us together as we can at Christmas. a lot of my family still live in East Tennessee, and that's 200 miles east of Nashville. So it's a four or five-hour drive up there.

But the ones that live in Nashville, we try to get together as much as we can. And then sometime between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day, we make our trips back and forth to see the ones in East Tennessee. And the ones from East Tennessee that want to get out and drive, well, they usually come down, you know, to my house or whatever. So we just kind of do it, you know, different ways now. And we just love to have Christmas. We just get together as much as we can, as many of us as we can. But through the course of the holidays, we try to connect with everybody. And Dolly, am I right in thinking your brother is on this Holly Dolly Christmas album doing a duet with you?

Yeah. Talking about all those kids and us growing up in the mountains, we used to always want one of those walking. talking talking dogs that we used to see in the catalogs that used to come to our house. The wishbook, Daddy called it. We were just wishing for it. We weren't going to get it. But anyway, we used to see these walking, talking dolls that you put water in a bottle, and it would pee, and it would have real tears and all that.

And then sometimes they'd walk and talk. So we never could have that at that time. Some of our cousins living in the city, they did. So my brother Randy was born around Christmas. So mom said, come over here. You got to see your own walking, talking doll. He really pees, real pee and cries real cheers and all that. So he was our Christmas baby.

So I wrote a song in this album called You Are My Christmas. And I wrote it from my brother Randy. So he's singing with me on it. And his daughter, my niece Heidi, singing that third part harmony. And so it's real, real special, you know, to me. That's that particular song with them. Oh, that's so lovely.

Dolly, I'm a singer when I'm not talking to you on Zoom and doing a podcast. I'm actually a singer. And so I love to know how you tour and whether you have anything particular on your rider that I should be putting on my rider because mine is very boring. Well, actually, I love to travel. I really kind of miss touring during this time because we all kind of took off. But I spend a lot of time on my bus and I take a lot of the things I like with me, the things I like to eat.

But in the dressing room, I usually just, they usually just put fruits and crackers and cheeses and, like water. I don't drink the sparkling water if I'm singing. I like the flat water. And I have tea and we have coffees and, you know, I like potato chips. So I always ask for those kind of junky things mostly. But when we do tour, we have a caterer that usually prepares a dinner for us after our rehearsal. So anyway, we have everything we need. You know, what we don't get there I have on my books.

I wanted to know, because I watched the documentary on Netflix, and I saw that you did, you did 50, it was your 50th anniversary at the grand old Opry, at which, you know, I've heard about I haven't ever been to, but this is a huge, huge deal in country music, and you were doing. And I wanted to know whether there was a particular, like, culinary celebration after that gig when you did it. Was there somewhere that you'd go? Is there anywhere that you recommend in Nashville that you're like, you can get the best, I know that you like pork.

You love a pork chop, is it? I do. Well, I like pork is my favorite meat, of course. One of the places we go all the time, and they love that I'm giving them an advertisement. It's called Arnold's. And they make the best stuff. So we love their food,

and they do the best food of anything. Of course, everybody loves Cracker Barrel. You know, everybody goes to that. They have country food. But they're just always, you can always find good food in Tennessee for good barbecue and for all meat and threes. And so I still cook a lot of that kind of stuff myself.

So, but at least I know where to go. So if you come to Nashville, you won't have any trouble finding a good place to eat. God, I love that place. It's so brilliant. I watched a chef's table on this very famous chef called Sean. I can't remember his surname. But he has this very famous restaurant called Husk, where he's kind of brought southern food back and he's really celebrating the foraging,

kind of real authentic southern cuisine. And kind of it looks fantastic. And I wanted to know whether you, did you used to forage in the mountains? Like, would you go and pick in the mountains and go and find things to eat in the mountains? Well, when you grow up in the mountains like we did, we lived on a farm. So we grew, you know, a lot of our own vegetables. And we raised our own, you know, our own pigs. And we, you know, we did all that in those days.

So Mama just knew how to put anything together. But we also did a lot of wild foods like rabbit hunting. and squirrels and all the things, a lot of people, oh, you eat squirrel, you eat rabbit. Some of the best eating in the world, if you know how to fix it. And when you live in the mountains, you learn to eat and fix everything that's edible.

And even the greens, you know, the grow in the field, you know, the wild stuff that makes really tasty things, like whether it's like watercress or whether it's something we call poke salad. It's like the poke bush, P-O-L-K, I guess we call it poke. Polat.

But anyway, it's a wild green that's, grow. So there's a lot of wonderful things that you, you know, can cook from from the mountains and that grow, you know, that run wild in the woods and the stuff you grow domestic, you know, on your farm, around your barn in your, in your barnyard. I wanted to know, watching that documentary and Jane Fonda talking about how you all got to know each other on nine to five when you were kind of, you were making this film together. And you do these sleepovers, she said. And you do these sleepovers and you talk and you'd talk and you'd get to know each other.

And I wanted to know, what were you ordering on room service? I need to know these things. Well, I would imagine whatever was good. I guess we ordered a lot of, I guess, club sandwiches and soups, that sort of thing. But if you, you know, I stayed at a really nice hotel there, the Belage Hotel when I was living there. And they had the best things on the menu, whether it be like, like I love liver and onions, if that seems to be a delicacy too, in the same.

city. And so I would order that kind of stuff. Anything that I could order, it was close to country. They had also like great steaks and great fish. And Jane, you know, she used to eat a little better than I did because she was working out at the time. So I'm sure she and Lily were eating better and more like baked fish and baked chicken. I was getting chicken with gravy or whatever I could get that, you know, had something something on it that was a little more tasty to me. But anyhow, we would just order whatever we felt like when we would chat and talk. And pizza is always great, you know, to order that in. I can't believe that you eat junk food.

You're wearing leather trousers. Well, I'm glad I wouldn't be sitting like this if I was on camera. Oh, no, but they're gorgeous. I'm so jealous. Oh, well, thank you. I really have to watch what I eat because I have that country girl's appetite. I can't eat everything I'd like to all the time, nor in the amount that I'd like to. I had to learn pretty early on.

I had to pull back from some of that. But that doesn't mean that I don't still like that and that I don't still eat it. I do try to eat as much good food as I can. And then when I have a big project coming up, I just have to go on a diet because I love carbs. And then I have to go on a low carb diet to kind of get where I'm where I need to go. Because I have a tendency to gain weight, and I'm a very small person. I wondered how small you are. How tall?

I'm only 5'1 without my shoes and my hair, but I'm 6, 7 with all that. But anyhow, I just kind of have to watch it to not let it get too out of hand because I've been fat and I've been skinny and I may be that again. So I just have to keep an eye on it because I do love to eat. I love to cook. I love restaurants. Everything about food I love. And don't we all love our kitchen like you?

Don't we just live in it? But Dolly, you have one of the best quotes about food. I mean, it's like an iconic quote. It was like my true loves. You say it because you're going to say it better than me. I guess I guess I'm amazing. My weaknesses have always been men, sex and food, and not necessarily in that order.

Oh, stop in that order. You've got one of the longest marriages. in history. I do. My husband and I have been together for 57 years, been married 54. Congratulations. And I'm sick of him and I'm sure he's sick of me. Oh no, he's not. Does he come from a big family too? No, he has one brother and one sister. So he's had to kind of get used to my big family because I've always had my family around me. The partons are overwhelming. Yeah, he loves them all and they love him. So, but no, he's from a very small family.

Dolly, what would be you're about to go, you're about to go to a desert island and your final meal before you're about to go, and you're not going to eat this food for a very long time. You've got a starter, a main, and a dessert, and a drink of choice. What would it be? I would probably have a big carb dinner for sure. I'd probably have some of my own chicken and dumplings, which I love. I'd probably have a side order of ma'am.

potatoes, which I love. I'd probably have a big old bowl of coleslaw and a big old piece of either cornbread or a big old biscuit with that. And then for dessert, I would probably have something either like a pumpkin pie or some homemade something I love. There's a rhubarb pie. Are you familiar with that? And you never can find it anywhere, but mama used to make it. And there's a pie place here called Marie Callender's that has it. And so anyway, if I had my choice and I had to get my hands on a piece of rhubarb or the whole pie, before I went to that island, I guess that's probably what I'd have. We used to grow rhubarb, and that's why we always had it.

So we don't grow that anymore. We don't use that much of a garden, you know, around anymore. It's just usually like your herbs and tomatoes and cucumbers and, you know, a few little, you know, things, salad garden. But anyhow, but anything, I would eat pork. You're talking about me eating pork. I love the chicken and dumplings. But I might want a big slab of pork roast too before I headed out for the aisle. And then what's the drink of choice?

I hear you like red wine. I don't drink much. I only drink wine if I'm out to dinner. I never drink at home. I don't even drink wine at home, you know, with dinner because I don't usually have guests over. I usually do any drink that I do if I'm going out to some special thing, because I'm not much of a drinker. But I do love red wine if I go out at my choice between red or white.

I choose the red. But I really would rather have a big old jug or a glass of sweet tea. That's a very southern thing. That's not good for you either. But anyway, that's probably what I'd have with that meal before I went to that island. I have to say, Dolly, I watched you at Glastonbury when you performed on the pyramid stage. and it was the most beautiful concert. I loved it so much.

And I think you filled everyone with joy. And I feel like everyone was just hugging each other throughout the concert. It was so gorgeous. And I wondered, like, do you have an affinity with the UK? I mean, did you like the food? I don't know. You were talking about gravies and chickens and stuff. So I'm wondering, like, is there anywhere that you love to go in London or the UK?

Oh, I love the UK. And when we did the Glastonbury show, I felt so love too. I felt back from them what I was trying to give out and it worked, didn't it? So it was really a special show. I was kind of nervous about doing the show. I was kind of apprehensive because I didn't know.

I knew it was a festival that was very famous and I knew everybody loved to party and liked the drinks, smoke their weed, whatever. And so I thought, well, they're not going to, you know, pay attention because my stuff is so many stories. I didn't know if I would fit in that. And then when I went out there and I'd live, it just made me feel so happy and good.

And so I gave it everything I had. I think that was one of the reasons I was just so grateful that they were, you know, really appreciative of me. And so that was great. But anyway, getting back to the food, the thing I love the most about the UK, I ordered always in room service is the cream, the scones and jellies and jams. Oh, and I have the tea, the afternoon tea. Oh, yeah.

And I have it all broad to my room. And Lord, I can just die over all of the scones and that heavy cream or the cream that you have there that you spread all over that. And I use again, and I try to stay in my show clothes because I don't have, you know, time to change them. So it's really hard when I come there not to really put on the pounds just eating all that great butter and that cream and milk. It's just so good. The cream is different, isn't it, to the states? Yes, it is. Because we can't get it here.

Nothing. The scones are not the same. We can't get it like that. I want to try to make them, but it's not the same. We cannot get that kind of cream. We cannot get that kind of. It's just something about the soil, I guess, about the taste of the butter of the cream.

Whatever, it's good and it's fattening. Dolly, are you a great reader? Oh, I love to read. I've been reading since I was a little kid. that's always taken me anywhere I wanted to go. And I love books. I just order anything off of the New York Times bestseller list and, you know, just anything from Oprah's and Reese Witherspoon's book club.

But mostly I just swap books with friends. What inspired you to start the imagination library besides wanting to promote literacy? Well, I've always loved books, as I said. But the reason I started that little program was because of my own father. My dad couldn't read and write, and he was from a very big poor family because a lot of mountain people don't get a chance to go to school. Because usually their schools are so far away or there's a one-room school and you can't get there because of the weather if the roads are washed out or snowed out. But most of them just have to go to work to help support a poor family. And my dad couldn't read and write and that just always bothered him and it always bothered me that that bothered him.

And so I wanted to start something for, you know, for the little kids to learn to read and read. read early in their most impressionable years. So I started that little imagination library just for home county and for my dad, got daddy involved to help me with it. And then it started taking on. And the governor at that time, Governor Phil Bredesen, he got a hold of that little program. He thought it was great. So we went statewide with it in Tennessee. Next thing you know, it's in Canada. Next thing you know, it's in places all over the world. And by the end of the Okay. I know. By the end of this year, we're hoping to have given out 150 million books. 150 million. Yeah, that's a lot of books. It's incredible.

Yeah. Well, we've been going at it for 25 years, and my daddy got to live long enough to see it doing really well. And he took such pride in it, and I tried to keep him as involved in it as I could to make it feel like that. I could not have done it without him. And I never would have thought to do it without him. So he'd be right about that. there was this one that I came across the imagination library because a friend of mine uses it and I borrowed a book and it was the train that can I think it's called or the train that could. Oh, the little engine that could, yeah. Yeah, and it's like the train that goes up and I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. And it was so brilliant.

There's such brilliant stories. So yeah, thank you. But that's actually, that's the first book that the kids get from the imagination library from the start. And that's probably the one they'll always get because to me, that little. little book, it just builds your confidence. And I remember reading that myself as a child. And I remember thinking that too. And I will often say that I am a little engine that did. So I thought I could. I thought I could. And danged if I didn't. What are you reading at the moment? I'm reading a book called The Keeper of Lost Things. It's just a sweet little book about an old man that

found things and he would write on it where he found it and how he found it. And he had this great house. and then he left all his house to this girl that came to help him keep his things together. But part of her deal was she had to find all those people, you know, to return their lost things. And it's a real interesting little book. My favorite writer of all time is a southern writer named Lee Smith. And she writes a lot of southern stories.

And I really relate to that. And she just has such a beautiful way of saying it. When we initially had to lock down, I found it really hard to read. And I don't know why. I just couldn't concentrate on anything. I don't know whether you found that as well. I did, but I read as much lately as I usually do.

Yeah. Because I needed to do different things. I needed to do more writing. I needed to do more self-analysis and then be able to put that down and to really realize that all the different feelings that other people were going through that weren't able to write those feelings down. And so I felt that it was my duty and my job to try to do things that I could get out there in the world to kind of help lift the mood and the spirit and the burdens of everybody else. So you're right.

I can't concentrate as much right now, even still. Normally, because if you know something's okay, you've got your relaxing time, then you can go into that book. But I've had this little book. I've been reading on this for weeks normally. I can read a book if it's good in a day and a half. Yeah. I wanted to note, because you were saying you were writing, were you writing a lot of the album during lockdown, this Christmas album? And was that quite a nice escapism from what was going on? It was. And I really felt like that it was just a perfect time because I've been wanting to do a Christmas album for a while.

But it just timing is everything. And I've always been lucky, you know, with timing. And so it's like it was a good time. But yes, I did write a lot of the new stuff while we were kind of when this old thing started. And so I wrote some of the original things that's on the album then. And I also have been writing a lot of other things. I just have to write what comes to me. I'm writing some things that don't have to do with anything other than just an idea will come to me if it's a love song or if it's a happy song, if it's a sad song.

I've just been, I think because I've been so emotional and being so in tune with people and their sorrows and just what's going on. And I'm a very emotional, sensitive person. So I just ride all the time. And it's been great therapy for me, though. It's been a great release for me feeling like that I'm also being productive. So it's worked really well for me to be able to just express myself and hopefully express feelings for other people. You are the most prolific songwriter.

I think I've read that you've written 3,000 songs. Well, I don't count them. I have at least that many. At least. But they're also so beautiful. I mean, one of my favorites is I will always love you. What prompted you to write that song? Was it about anything in particular?

Yes, thank you for asking. course that has become probably, well, two songs, Jolene and that one have become the biggest song. Well, nine to five, they're big. But I Will Always Love You is a very personal favorite of mine because it's a simple song that fits so many people about so many things. But for me, it was a song that I wrote that was born out of a heartache that I was going through of trying to separate myself from a man that had given me a great opportunity.

a man named Porter Waggner, he had the number one syndicated television show. And he gave me my first really big break. I was in Nashville, and I had a couple of chart records and was beginning to come in. And he had seen me, you know, around the new girl in town. And so he had a vacant spot to fill the girl that had been on the show. She was leaving. So he put me on. And so I said I had no intentions or hadn't planned to come to Nashville to be part of someone else's

group just to be the girl singer. So I said, I can stay for five years, and then I'm going to go out on my own. It was too big of a job not to take. So we had several big duets, and we really were so interwoven, and we didn't always get along. And so I was wanting to leave and go out on my own because I couldn't stay there forever when my five years came up. And so he just was not having it, and he was pitching a fit, and we were having a lot of trouble. And, So he wouldn't listen to any reasoning from me, why I needed to go and why now was the perfect time. It's to him. It was like, you're going to shatter the whole show and all.

So I went home and said, you're not going to communicate with him in any other way than what you do best, write a song. So I wrote the song. I will always love you. Took it back to his office and said, Porter, sit down. I need to sing your song. and so I started to sing the song and he started to cry and he said that's the best song you ever wrote and you can go so that was kind of a it was a sad thing but it you know we still had trouble after that

but it was still but years later we mended all that and you know we became best of friends and worked together again and in many different ways but that's that was born out of a very serious place something I had and needed to say and it did the And did Whitney ask you if she could sing that song directly? The way that that came about when Whitney got a hold of the song, they had done the movie The Bodyguard, and they had chosen a different song for that. And just before they were starting to get ready to put it out,

someone else covered that song that they were planning to use. So they didn't want to use that. So they were looking for another song. and Kevin Costner and his girl in his office, they knew about my song. And one of them said, well, what about Dolly Parton's song? I will always love you. I've always loved that song.

It's perfect. So then they asked me if they could use it. And I said, yes, but no matter what, make sure they use that last verse because I recited that verse and other people that had recorded it, left that out altogether. I said, it's in the same melody as the other verses. So make sure if you use it to, you know, to make that part of it. And so I never heard anything more about it.

They had my permission to do it. And then I was heading home from my office one day. And I had the radio on and I heard that sound, you know, if I should stay. And it rang a bell, but it didn't, you know, it wasn't. It's like she was kind of talking that. And then it went into like the, Anna, and I about died. I thought my heart was going to stop. about wrecked and I just got a board off to like to hear it and it was the most overwhelming over i mean

it was just uh just such an overwhelming feeling i've never had that before in her sense with a song when my first little record played on the radio about kill myself jumping off the cabinet to get to that but other than that this was like such a big thing to hear my little song done in such a big fashion like that it was just it just just really overwhelmed me and i cried and i cried and i I laughed and I thought, oh my. I mean, it's so great. She did such a great job on that. She did. Is it hard because you have, I mean, you're so successful and you are so loved and you have had so much success. I mean, do you still get the same buzz that you got when you were younger and you're starting out? Or is it kind of a different kind of feeling now? No, I love to write songs. I love to sing songs. I love the music business. I love doing the business end. of the music business. I love the creative part.

It's just who I am. This is a way of it with me. It's just, it's just who I am. It was what I feel I was born to do. And I still get as exciting now when things happen. If I start writing a good song, I'm as excited about that as when I started years ago. Even more excited now can I feel like I can get more done with it, you know, because I'm popular when you're younger, you're thinking, oh, I hope somebody likes it well enough to record it and all that.

No, I get excited about every single award. Anytime I'm recognized or acknowledged for something, it means a lot. I don't work for awards as much as I work for the rewards because it's very rewarding to me, you know, to just see things happen and to make things happen. Dolly, I mean, well, you're amazing, but I do need to know. Do you think you've got good table manners? I feel like you must.

I don't know that I have good table manners. And there's a lot of stuff I don't know about the table, you know, like how to, which dish to use, which forks and spoon. I still go through that because growing up like we did, you know, we'd never eaten out in a, in a restaurant. And I was sort of like my daddy, you get embarrassed to ask somebody after so, you know, because he couldn't read and write, he wasn't going to do it. So I kind of feel that way. So I just try to watch people if I'm out somewhere. But yeah, I'm certainly not, you know, I'm not a pig, you know, at the table. But I don't know what you girls do probably because you're not as proper as the English.

How did your parents keep track on 12 children and to make sure they all had their elbows off the table and were holding their knife and fork? The young kids had a fork and the little kids had a spoon. And, you know, we had, it was a whole different thing back then. I don't think anybody's thinking about who put elbows on the table. Could you all sit down at one table? Yeah, yeah, we did. Did you have a very big table? We did have a big table that my daddy built.

And we had a bench, we had like a church bench on the backside. And the little kids were standing up on that bench to eat. And the other, you know, the bigger ones had, you know, around the table. But seriously, we didn't have matching dishes. We didn't have, you know, silverware drawers. And they were, you're talking about country people here. So, but we were not, I mean, we were, we certainly, you know, we had to mind our manners as far as we're eating now. we're not going to be, you know, doing this or doing that.

But we didn't, you know, it's a whole different thing when you're, and how you grow up. But for now, you know, I still kind of watch people on each side of me, you know, what they're using, should I use this? I don't think you need to. But I don't worry about it anymore. I figure, you know, they don't like it. They can move to the next table.

Do you like getting glammed up to go up for dinner or to any of these ceremonies? You know, one of the most, my favorite things in the world to do is to dress up really fancy, really pretty and go out to the best restaurant in Nashville, in California, in New York, to where, and I love that. I love being in that surrounding. That's just one of my favorite things. And I've missed that lot during this lockdown that you can't go anywhere. You can't go anywhere. You know, and I've really missed that a lot, dressing up and going out to dinner and using bad table manners.

I wanted to know, like, because we're all having to cook so much, and you like cooking. Do you listen to music when you're cooking? Well, actually, when I'm always so involved in what I'm doing, I do some of my best writing and my best cooking at the same time. I always like, I get very creative. The more creative I am with my songs, a better my food's going to taste, and vice versa. So I usually, I don't listen to radio much because I'm so involved in either a project I need to do or I just like the peace and quiet or I just work on my own thing. But at Christmas though, I play everybody's Christmas albums that I like.

And hopefully this year I'll have one that other people will, you know, enjoy listening to while they cook. We ask everybody's question, but as a singer, I don't particularly enjoy doing karaoke. I just kind of find it a bit. I feel like it's for my friends. that aren't singers, but we have to ask you what your karaoke song is. If you do like karaoke, what is it? I don't necessarily get a chance to do that because I don't go out where they have that. But I can take great proud of the fact that I have several songs on the karaoke list.

Yeah, a 9-5, a big one, Jolene, a big one. I'll always love you as a real big one. So I have several songs that other people like to sing, and I hear more about how they make fools of themselves singing my songs. But I love that kind of stuff, though. My kids, my little nieces and nephews, they have their little karaoke machines. And we're together, we sing along with stuff, but I don't go out to do it. Have they ever tried your songs?

Oh, yeah, they love my songs anyway. They know all my songs by heart. When you go, do you do line dancing? No, I never did do that. I don't really go out to the clubs like that. I really take pride in other people doing line dancing, like my song. why did you come in here looking like that was a really big popular song with the line dancers. Oh, yes.

I love that song. So, no, I don't go out to clubs. I don't really. If I'm around home, I like to stay home. But I'm not much of dancer anyway. I just don't have that type of rhythm. We never did do much of that. Oh, there's always that stuff that you do when you're having your jamborees and your pie suppers and your little things.

Everybody dances, but there's no real particular type of dancing. We never did it. Like, it wasn't structured. Anybody just get up and just move and be happy doing it. Dolly, I was going to say, I really enjoyed Dolly Parton's America, which is this amazing podcast that you were involved in, and there was really candid interviews with you on it. And it was, I mean, it was very, it was incredibly interesting.

And was that kind of your first foray into podcasts and... Yes. Yes, it was. In fact, the guy that did that, Jada Bumeron, he's just wonderful. He has that a huge podcast. He goes out to millions of people, as you know, weekly. But his father is one of my doctors in Nashville at Vanderbilt.

And I came about through him. I didn't even know his son was even in the business. I've known him for years. He never mentioned it. And then one day he said, well, you know, my son, dad, you know, has a podcast. And he'd love to interview you. And I said, well, sure. So because of that, and that's how I got to know him

and then I got to know Chad and he was absolutely fantastic. He won several awards on that. It's a phenomenal podcast series. It's so substantial. I mean, I found the bit about listening about a Nelson Mandela and in Robin Island and Jolene coming over the tanoys and that kind of how Jolene's very, I mean, Jolene's huge everywhere, but that song became this kind of anthem

for the prisoners on Robin Island. I mean, all this stuff. I mean, you must have discovered things, too, through this podcast. I have to honestly tell you, I learned more about myself through that than I knew my whole career. Honestly, I didn't know. But, you know, Dad did not know me that well until he started working on this podcast. He's such a thorough person.

He did it, but he did all that research. And it was just amazing. I was just floored with all the stuff that he had gathered up. but he should have won an award just for his own hard work without me. But I was very, very proud for him and of myself and of that whole situation. So that was really well done. Dolly, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you. This is honestly a pinch yourself moment for us.

And I feel like Christmas has come early. And I'm so thankful for you doing this when you are probably very, very busy doing promotion for this record. and it's been so lovely to talk to you and thank you. And I just want to know what's next. You know, the Christmas record is out now. And then are you doing any more acting? I mean, I'm sure you're writing songs left right and center. You've got an autobiography.

Is it coming out soon? Am I right in thinking that? Oh, well, you're talking about the songteller book? Yes, songteller book. Yeah, actually that's out now. Okay. And that's, yeah, that's called songteller. And it's got 170-some songs I've written and stories about them.

But I'm going to be doing more things. It's so hard to know what's going to come next year. I've been working on my life story as a musical. And so that's going to be something that I'm hoping to get on his feet at some point in time. And I've just signed a new branding deal where I'm going to actually have my own cosmetics and my own perfume and that sort of stuff. So as I've often said, I wake up on new dreams every day. And hopefully I'll live long enough to see the rest of them come through. but I've been very blessed.

If I died tomorrow, I can honestly say that I've had a great life, a wonderful life, and I couldn't ask for more. But of course, knowing me, there's going to be more if I keep living. So there's going to be more. More is more with me. That was Dolly Parton on Second Helpings. I really, really want to do another episode with Dolly. In the flesh.

In the flesh. And I believe it will happen. and also really do go and listen to Dolly Parton's America podcast. It's so fantastic. At the end, she also talked about future projects, and one was about creating a musical of her life. And we are pleased to say she's finished it, and it will be on Broadway this winter.

It's called Dolly, a true original musical about the life and career of Dolly Parton, and it's scheduled to come to the St James' Theatre on Broadway, starting with previews in December, 26. It's opening in January, 27, and no doubt will be brilliant. Thank you, Dolly, for taking the time to come on the podcast. And we'll see you next week for more Second Helpings.