The New Yorker Radio Hour - Dolly Parton “Busted a Gut” Reaching for the High Notes on “Rockstar”

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

After six decades as an icon in country music, it’s hard to imagine Dolly Parton had anything to prove.  But when she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in 2022, she admitted to feeling uneasy.  A result of that feeling is “Rockstar,” the 77-year-old’s first foray into rock music.  “I wanted the rock people to be proud of me, let’s put it that way,” Parton tells the contributor Emily Lordi. “I wanted them to say, ‘Did you hear Dolly’s rock album? Man, she killed it.’ ” For this album, which is largely comprised of covers of classic rock songs like “Freebird” along with originals like the title track, Parton channelled the likes of Joan Jett and Melissa Etheridge (who also both appear on the album).  She didn’t want to make a countryfied rock album, but even at a full roar, her voice is unmistakable Dolly. “It’s a voice you know when you hear it, whether you like it or not,” Parton says. The artist is known for avoiding comment on political subjects, but she describes the volatile state of the culture in her song “World on Fire.” “The only way I know how to fight back is to write songs to say how I feel,” Parton says. “It’s just me trying to throw some light on some dark subjects these days.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Over the last six decades, Dolly Parton has become an icon in country music and one of the most beloved musicians anywhere in the world. She just released her 49th solo studio album, and it's the highest charting album of her career. And yet with all that behind her, when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2022, she did so with a certain sense of trepidation, even a little embarrassment. It was a very, very, very special night for me. I'm sure a lot of you knew that back when they said they were going to put me in the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I didn't really feel like I had done enough to deserve that. Flash forward one year in Dolly Parton, age 77, has just released her first rock album. The album mixes covers from the rock and roll canon, along with Parton's original songs like the title track, Rockstar. Emily Lorty is a music writer based in Nashville, who's written for The New Yorker about Gladys Knight and Mariah Carey and other greats, and she recently spoke with Dolly Parton. So to get started, I wanted to actually refer back to our last conversation in 2020, where you said something that has stayed with me ever since. And you said that it's not true that you have never been afraid. You said you are afraid. You do experience fear.

But your desire to do something has always been greater than your fear. And I'm wondering what, if anything, scared you about this project. Well, it really was, you've got to take on a thing like this and you've got to hopefully make sure that you're going to do it good. Just making the decision to do a rock album. it was made easier when they decided to go ahead and put me in the rock and roll hall of fame. And as you know, that little bit of controversy or whatever it was, I didn't feel like I had earned it. But they told me that I had. And then when I went in, I thought, well, I'm going to have to at least have something to say that I'm in the rock and roll hall of fame.

So I was a little bit, I guess, more apprehensive, I guess. I was just more afraid that I might not do it as good as, you know, as the, I wanted the rock people to be proud of me. Let's put it that way. I thought, well, I want this to be good. I don't want them to say, did all this rock album, it's okay. She did okay, but I wanted them to say, did you hear Dallas Rock album? Man, she killed it. And so I kind of went through those kind of emotions more than just a deep fear.

I was determined I was going to do it. And I thought, well, I'll cover up any fear I might have by bringing on some of these great people that I know will make it great. And one thing that's interesting to me is that the album includes nine of your original songs, including World on Fire, and I Want You Back. And there are 21 classic songs, monster anthems like Purple Rain, Stereway to Heaven, Free Bird. And it seems like an incredibly and beautifully audacious move for you to set some of your own original rock songs against some of these greatest rock songs ever made. And so I'm wondering if you felt that that was audacious or what gave you the courage and the confidence to do that. Well, one good, strong reason was Kent Wells, who he's the guy that produced the album. And he's been my musical director and guitar player for 30 years.

years. And I knew that he was a secret rocker, and I knew that I should, I could depend on him to kind of help us with the melodies on these original songs that would fit in with what we were doing, where they really would be like rock songs, not just a country version of a rock song. So I depended on him a lot. Now, I really felt the songs held up, and I thought they really went well with the other songs. It's like you'd think, well, if you're going to be a lot, you're going to put something in it. You don't want to just do it to say, oh, I wrote some of the songs and I can publish them. I can make the money from the publishing. Of course, I did think that. But I wasn't just thinking that. I thought, well, you know, I really need to have something

really good so people know that I'm an artist too, that I'm a writer and that I can do this. So you and Kent Wells wrote a lot of the songs together. And I wrote some on my own. I wrote the title song, Rock Star. I thought, well, I've got to have a have a little story to tell. And I thought, what am I going to write the title song about? And then I thought, well, I'll write it about a girl rocker. So I kind of channeled Joan Jett and Melissa Etheridge, who both play great guitar and they're really, really great rockers.

And they're both on the album, by the way, doing different songs. But anyway, I kind of channeled them and wrote a little story about a rock star having a fight with their parents and, you know, them thinking, well, what are you in the world you want to get in rock and roll? So I thought it turned out real cute. I'm wondering if you being sort of at the center of our collective affection, was there any tension for you between being such a beloved figure and playing the part of the rebel rock star? No, I figure people that know me and love me have to love me as I am, doing whatever it is I do. I think that's actually part of it.

They know that I'm going to take chances and that I feel like I have a right. Another thing, I've been in this music business for a long time. Six decades, as a matter of fact, and people feel like they know me. And they're willing to allow me to try things and to respect me for it. I think, that's what I hope. Yeah. I'm interested in the fact that so many of the songs on the album are covers, and yet, of course, you're renowned for writing your own songs, as we were talking about.

But, you know, since covering songs is its own creative process, I'm curious to know whether there were any patterns that you detected in your approaches to covering other people's songs. Like, were there certain things that you noticed you kept wanting to do in order to dollify some of these classic rock songs? Well, I tried hard not to dollify them too much. I have a certain way of singing. I have a certain sound in my voice. It's very identifiable. I guess they call it being. a stylist. I'm like Willie Nelson or Patsy Klein. It's a voice you know when you hear it, whether you like it or not. You don't always like that voice. But I know how I phrase and I know how things just come out of me. But I was trying hard to be careful not to really make these songs like country songs. I wanted the phrasing to be good, not in country music. I can sing any way, anywhere, however, if I want to sing on top of the beat or lag along or whatever.

But my voice is so identifiable. I just wanted to choose songs that would fit my voice, that I felt my range would cover, and that my style that I could sing with emotion without overseeing them or trying to sing gimmicky or any of that. But I wanted to not have people think, oh, she just sang all over that, She did too much on that. I tried to be respectful of the songs. There are some moments where I feel you are reaching,

and it's an glorious sound, for instance, on the outro to Stairway to Heaven. And I don't know that I have ever heard you felt quite so high. And I'm curious if you would speak to that and maybe more generally to how covering these songs, even as you said you wanted songs that would fit your range, how did they push you to explore new edges as an artist or as a vocalist?

That's a good question because I really had I had some fun and some decisions to make when I was in the studio singing, just like, for instance,

I was really singing that stairway to heaven. I was really into that song. And I had never crossed my mind that I would ever try to do that high part like that Robert Plant did. But as the song was going by,

I knew that was so so, so high that I was going to strain my milk doing it. But I was just going by there, and I thought, you know, I'm going to go for it. And so I just started singing that part because that was the kind of thing I would have thought that we would just do with music or maybe do with background. But when I led into it, I thought, I could hit it. I can do it.

But I busted a gut. That was as high as I could go. But I did it. I thought, well, can I get it? little emotion with this thing being this high. But it was a challenge of it. It was fun, and it just happened on the spur of the moment. I just went for it.

I would listen to the music, and I've never had this chance before. I've never had this freedom before to even, you know, to actually challenge myself, you know, with these great melodies because I write so much of my own stuff. And so I kind of live comfortably in that. But I thought, well, I'm just going to go. go for it. Worse can happen. We won't use it. Nobody will ever know if it don't sound good. So it really was a treat for me. I had a lot fun doing it. I also noticed that in your collaborations, you know, you do some incredible collaborations on this record. Interestingly, there's a lot of women collaborators, such as Miley Cyrus. You bring in Pink, Randy Carlyle, Stevie Nix, Lizzo, Linda Perry. And Anne Wilson, my God, you know, getting to sing with her.

That was another great challenge I had when we were singing in the studio. I thought, I can't let her get ahead of me. I mean, of course, she can sing, but buddy, I was right on her tail. I was just thinking, you hit that note, I'll hit this one, you hit that one, I'll hit that one. So we were just having fun. You know, we were really just kind of in a good singing musical competition, but it was fun. Do you feel like you can be a little freer to take those risks now at this stage in your career that you might not have gone for it in the studio however many years ago, but you're willing to do it now? Yeah, I think there's a whole lot of freedom that comes with getting older.

And when you've done everything, you don't have to answer to other people. You know, it's like, why wouldn't I be allowed to do this, you know, at my age. I'm 77 years old and I'm a rock store. You know, I get a kick out of it. And that's when I, the title of the album, it was kind of like a little tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. I thought, what am I going to call this album? Well, I'm going to call it rock star do. So I'm willing to take more chances now because I can afford to.

Afford to in my career and afford to, you know, with my, you know, financially used to, you know, back when I, and I love mountain music. I mean, I love mountain music and bluegrass music. But you never can't really make a lot of money with doing it. that. But when I've started making money, I said I had to get rich in order to sing like I was poor again because that's the music that I love, because I still feel that and I can

still sing it with feeling. So when I was doing the rock album, I thought, man, this is an opportunity for me as a singer and as an artist and as a person. I thought, well, why don't I have a right to try it? So I'll

take any chance if it feels right to me. There are, as we've said, so many women that you collaborate with on the record. I'm wondering, was it a conscious decision for you to change the story a little bit from the rock as a boys' club idea and show that women belong there just as much as men do? Well, I didn't think of it into that depth. I just knew I was a girl and I was going to do a rock and roll and I knew there were some great girl rock and roll, especially, you know, in the early days like Joan and and Melissa and some of the others. But I thought, well, I need to make this kind of about a girl locker.

I mean, I'm a girl, and I'm going to be singing these rock and roll songs. And then, of course, I love singing with all these women. And so I thought, well, I'm going to ask some of them if they'll join me. Like with Jones, she was the sweetest thing. Joan Jett, when I said I wanted to do I love rock and roll, she said, oh, Dolly, don't do that one. Everybody does that one. Won't we do?

I hate myself for loving you. It's got a little more meat. You're a little more, you know, she said, you've got a little more depth than just singing I a little rock or roll, which I thought was great because she's a writer. It was conscious in the respect that I thought I needed to have, you know, a lot of these girls on here. I wasn't trying to do any Me Too movement or, you know, to really make a big statement of any kind.

It just seemed to be the songs that I wanted to do, and these seemed to be the voices that I heard on them. And I love how you bring out the reference to I Will I. always love you on the collaboration with Miley Cyrus on Recking Ball and how you bring that lyric in and she sings it with you in the end of that song. It kind of sounds to me like you're singing with her on her song, but then ultimately she's also singing with you on your song. And there's just that sense of history, in other words, built into the record. Yeah, well, I love Miley. You know, I've known her since before she was born. She's kind of like my fair goddaughter. And we have a great

deal of love for each other. And we love to sing together. And I think her voices really, really work well together. And when I got ready to do the rock album, I felt, wow, I'm going to try to incorporate a little bit of I will always love you in this. And I'll, you know, do the record ball, which is one of my favorite songs ever. And certainly since it was Molly, made it twice as special. We know where we're going to go.

When we're singing, I can pretty much anticipate what notes she's going to go for. And so I know kind of how to do little things around her and vice versa. She knows how, you know, we're so familiar with our voices. Or we'll think her at the same second, wow, we can go here. Let's do this. I read somewhere that you had hoped to collaborate with Tina Turner on this album. Is that right? Yes. In fact, I had written a song that I thought would just be perfect for us.

And so I had sent it over for her to hear. And so then I got word back that she was in very bad health that was really toward the end of her life. But they said she liked it and said she was so sorry she didn't get an opportunity to do it with me. But I would have loved for that to have happened because I love Tina Turner always have. Dolly Parton speaking with contributor Emily Lorty. More in a moment. I wanted to switch gears just a little bit and talk about one of your videos for one of the tracks on the record, which is the video you do for What's Up with Linda Perry.

I understand that you filmed it at Aiken Elementary School here in Nashville. I don't know what your intention was with the song and pairing it with that visual. However, I found the shot of the kids running down the hallway. There's a black and white shot of them running down the hallway that I personally found rather chilling in light of the recent school shootings here in Nashville and elsewhere. But in the video, they run out onto the playground. Could you speak to some of that and what you were thinking with that choice? Well, first of all, I love that song.

And then Steve Summers, who also does all of my clothes. He's my creative director. He came up with the idea for us to do this, and we talked about it, doing it with kids, you know. And I changed a few lines in it to make it more kid-friendly, you know, that part where it says I step out and take a deep breath and get real high. I didn't want that to sound like somebody smoking dope. So I'd change it and, you know, like I take a deep breath and I wonder why. For the video, because if I was going to have children, I didn't want it to seem like I was trying to make some sort of a bad statement.

But I, in my mind, when Steve and I were talking, we were thinking that it was more about the future. Like, what's going on in this world, in this crazy world? Are we going to deprive our children of a future? You know, it's like you just want to think, get a grip, and let's change things, and let's do it right, if not for us, for the children. What you were saying about the meaning of what's up paired to the video made me wonder about World on Fire, of course, which is a similar kind of Jeremiah ad and asking people to think about what is happening. Now, I ain't one for speaking out much, but that don't mean about it. I'm wondering what we're going to do when we all fall from.

I'm wondering what your most immediate inspiration for that song was. Well, it was the inspiration of what's going on just right now, all over this world. And it's like, look around. Can't you see the world's on fire? Not just literally, but, you know, in every way. You know, that was back during the fires and everything too. But I was really just thinking about it. In that one verse that I had said, that was, everybody said I was being political, you know,

when I said, greedy politicians present and past wouldn't know the truth if it bit him in their astronomical egos, basically. But I was really saying, you know, in my heart and in my mind, leaders of the world, you know, you better think fast, you better, you know, you need to make it change. I just don't get it, that we're just willing to just hold on to some sort of a belief so strong that we can't see that we're allowing that to destroy us when we could just care a little more, try a little harder, do all that.

So the only way I know how to fight back is to write songs, to say how I feel. And that song I felt really led to write. And it's just me trying to throw some light on some dark subjects these days. I'm curious, though, about the line in World on Fire. You say, Billy got a gun, Joey got a knife, Janie got a sign to carry in the fight. Is there an equivalence there

between the armed violence and a kind of peaceful protest with the signs? Or is that not what you meant? It was just what you see in the streets every day. You know, it's like whatever. You know, it's just as I was trying to be as poetic as it could to try to get the point across. You know, people are marching in the streets.

People are killing one another. are, you know, destroying each other. And the ones that are not doing that are carrying a sign that's, you know, saying whatever. So it was just about the times. It's just about what's going on in the world. You know, they got their guns, they got their knives, they've got their signs, they've got their margins, they've got this and that. And I understand the frustration in everybody.

I understand the frustration in myself. But the only way I know how to deal with it is to be able to express it in music, because that's kind of how God has given me that voice. And so that's what I will continue to do. And any time I see that there's a need that I can feel or something that I can do personally to make life a little better, I will continue to do that. I'll leave my heart wide open, you know,

for any goodness that I can and try to be open to maybe a little more caring understanding. I'm really grateful for the time and energy you've given to us. And thanks again for the incredible work. Well, thank you so much. And I'm glad you love the record, so thank you. Dolly Parton's new album is called Rockstar, and you can read some of Emily Lorty's essays

on music and more at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbess of Tune Arts

with additional music. music by Alexis Quadrato and Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Bolton, Adam Howard, Kalalia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, and Louis Mitchell, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Mike Cutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandra Decker. And we had additional help this week from Jared Paul. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.