Dolly Parton Appalachian Memories by Kerry Dexter Dolly Parton has created an instantly recognizable, larger-than-life public image for herself. She has enjoyed a four-decade-plus career as a singer, also earning respect for her acting and producing talents. Add to that a film company, an autobiography, and a business empire that includes the theme park that bears her name and several charitable efforts that assist the people in her native Smoky Mountains. But she has no doubts about what she'd most like to be remembered as: a songwriter. "I write something almost every day," she said. "Whether it's just a line, or a thought, I'm always writing."

Parton the songwriter has tackled themes ranging from death, insanity, suicide, and unwed motherhood to first love, seeking faith, marriage, separation, divorce, country life, facing change, and all the varieties of love, sorrow, and laughter in between. She estimates she's written more than three thousand songs, crossing musical genres to create hits in mainstream country, Americana, pop, and bluegrass. These include the well known songs "I Will Always Love You," "Love is Like a Butterfly," "Jolene," and tunes that draw on her Smoky Mountain background, such as "Mountain Angel," "Appalachian Memories," and "Coat of Many Colors." For her recent recordings, Hungry Again, The Grass is Blue, and Little Sparrow, Parton has returned strongly to her folk and mountain music roots. "People ask me what my music is now, and I've kind of coined a term for it. I call it blue mountain music," she said. "It has bluegrass in it, but it's really mountain music. And sometimes they call the Smokies the Blue Mountains, too, you know. I've read and heard that."

Parton began composing and singing songs when she was just a small child, growing up the fourth oldest of 12, high in those blue mountains near the tiny town of Caton's Chapel, Tennessee. Accompanying herself on a makeshift mandolin with two strings, she'd sing to the farm animals and to her toddler brothers and sisters, in a family so poor "the ants brought food back because they felt sorry for us," she's been known to joke. Her uncle Bill Owens gave her a mini Martin guitar, and she quickly began teaching herself chords and writing more songs. By the time Parton was 10, she had a job singing on radio and TV with the Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour show in nearby Knoxville, a job she'd hold through her high school years. Her taste in music has always been wide ranging, Parton explained, and that came into play on the show.

"When I was kid, we'd listen to the radio. I grew up on people like Hank Williams, who is one of the greatest songwriters of all time. It's amazing how he's stood the test of time in that respect. I loved people like Lefty Frizzell, and I'd listen to Rose Maddox, The Maddox Brothers and Rose. They were one of the first groups that were really show people. It was a family, and they all wore these Nudie outfits, plus they'd just really do a show, you know. They were country artists who put together a real show," Parton recalled.

"Then, of course, Kitty Wells was always everybody's queen, and there was Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb, Jim and Jesse, all the people who were around at that time," she said. "I loved bluegrass, too. When I was 10 years old I used to sing on the radio and television. A lot of bluegrass acts came through there, and I used to work as a regular with them. I used to do a lot of bluegrass in my own shows when I started out as a kid, too," Parton remarked.

Grammy and IBMA award winner Del McCoury was one of those who got to know Parton at that time. "When I was with Bill Monroe I'd travel through Knoxville a lot," McCoury said, "and also just by myself, and stop in at the Cas Walker show. He'd put anybody on and just say now sing one, and she'd be there doing backup. She knew that stuff, she knew those songs and she was doing bluegrass way back then [in the early 60s]. She sure knows what it is."

In 1959, Parton made a brief appearance on the Grand Ole Opry, and through some family connections recorded the rockabilly-style song "Puppy Love" on Louisiana's
Goldband label. In 1962 she signed a contract with Mercury Records, but her record "It's Sure Gonna Hurt" didn't go anywhere, and she was dropped. Parton, still in high school in the Smoky Mountain town of Sevierville (and playing snare drum in the marching band), was not deterred from her dream of a musical career. Though other students in the school often ridiculed Parton both for her family's poverty and for her country music dreams, she traveled with Bill Owens to Nashville on the weekends to make the rounds of publishers with their songs and demos. At a gathering just before her 1964 high school graduation, students were invited to say what their future plans were, and Parton was direct: "I'm going to move to Nashville and become a country music star," she recalled telling the group.
This is an excerpt from issue #94.