In 1977 I was on tour with Parker McGee as his synth player.  Parker was a successful singer songwriter (Tanya Tucker, Seals and Crofts, England Dan and John Ford Coley, others) who decided to launch a solo performing career. We  played on American Bandstand and toured the US for 7 weeks as an opening act for various artists (Billy Joel, Steve Martin, Ambrosia, Michael Murphy…)

We had the pleasure of opening for Dolly Parton on March 19 at Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City, Tennessee. It was a magical performance. This was back in the days when it was customary for Country artists to hang out after the show, sit on the edge of the stage and sign autographs or album covers for fans.

So Dolly was hanging out, and this guy comes up and says, “Dolly, I am the fire chief for Johnson City, and I’d love to have a picture with you. She says, “Sure thing!”, and as he stood next to her she grabbed his head, pulled it down to her boobs and said, “Smile!”

That was pure Dolly.

-George Kahn
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speaking of being in on the joke, when Dolly was inducted into the songwriters Hall of Fame, she stood before that audience and said, “I appreciate you all for honoring my body of work.”.  The laugh lasted five minutes at least…

Tom Sturges
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On May 2, 1977, my girlfriend (now wife of 46 years), a buddy and I made the drive up to Atlanta from Macon to see Dolly play. She was performing a special show at the 500-capacity Great American Music Hall on Piedmont Avenue right in the heart of gay Atlanta. The buddy that we went with was a 10-year older gay hair stylist that worked in a salon with my mother. He had heard about the show from some Atlanta pals and insisted we go. I grew up watching the Porter Wagner show and of course knew Dolly and really respected what she was doing. During that decade I saw everyone from Elvis to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Every show was fair game. We could not get enough so of course we said yes. 

So, we got to this little venue knowing Dolly was already an arena act. What we did not know was that the show was going to be SOLO acoustic. We got inside and there was just a simple chair and microphone on the stage, and we just knew this was going to be special. Looking around Elaine and I realized we might be two of maybe a dozen straight people in the whole place. This was before the general public knew that Dolly was an icon in the gay community. 

Bob, believe me when I say that to this day that show is still in my Top 5 of all time. Not only was she a fantastic guitarist and vocalist, but she was also downright funny as hell. Between songs, it was one self-deprecating joke after another. Many of them raunchy in a way only Dolly could pull off.  The crowd could not have been more respectful either. Obviously, this was before cell phones and definitely before talking during songs became standard.  But they were insane between songs. I mean a party. It was such a blast that we floated back to Macon afterward.

Ever since that night I have held Dolly in the highest musical regard. We like to say when a legend dies that they don’t make them like that anymore. With Dolly, they only made one and I doubt there will ever be another. Here in Tennessee, she is a deity. When they announced her passing yesterday, our whole office basically went home.  May she rest in peace. 

Best,

Don VanCleave
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I was privileged and delighted to bring Dolly to Sony Masterworks for the Blue Smoke album project in 2014. She and her management team, led by the great Danny Nozell, couldn’t have been more wonderful to work with. Dolly promoted the heck out of the album prerelease, and we had both U.S. Top 10 Albums and Country Albums chart debuts. And rave reviews. But the real success of the project came in the UK and Europe, where that year she toured to crowds equally adoring to any in North America. In the UK, where her appearance at Glastonbury was overwhelmingly received, the CD business was in decline like everywhere else, but still robust enough for us to package Blue Smoke with a greatest hits disc. That combo spent all summer, 12 weeks, in the top 10 of the UK albums chart. It went platinum there at the end of 2014.??This is all to say that I was so very lucky on this tour to be able to witness the true universality of Dolly’s music, which was enhanced but miraculously never overwhelmed by her iconic stage presence. In this dire time for America’s standing in the world, I’m relishing the memory of watching her captivate an international audience with the best of what this country had to offer: a beautiful and singular musician who was, as Duke Ellington used to say, beyond category. Her legacy will indeed outlive us all.??Best wishes,?Chuck Mitchell
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Dolly was exactly who you want to believe she was.  In the mid-1980s I was an assistant working for her manager, Sandy Gallin, at his office next to Le Dome on Sunset Plaza. One afternoon I was tasked with driving Dolly back from the office to her rental house down Sunset Strip and up the Bird Streets.  No limo necessary for Dolly.  ??I drove Dolly Parton, in full hair and makeup, down Sunset Blvd in the passenger seat of my blue Nissan Sentra. People were stunned, stopped and stared.  Dolly just smiled and waved.??It was a f-ing remarkable ride.

Robin Barris
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Also : Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has gifted over 304.5 million free books to children worldwide since it started in 1995. Her money. No sponsors or subsidies. 
She was arguably the greatest combination of talent, humility and humanity ever. 

Joel Lowden
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Dolly Parton: A MusiCares Tribute (2019). I was her only red carpet interview that night. Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood stepped aside so I wouldn’t miss her. I only had a few minutes with her, but she was everything anyone would’ve wanted. Kind, cool, and made me feel like nobody else was around us. I lost my mom when I was young, and she ADORED Dolly. Godspeed, Ms. Parton. 

Ryan J. Downey
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She was amazing.  Oddly, one of my favorites hits, Here You Come Again, was not written by her but Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill.  I’ll give her a pass.

The coverage mentions her intelligence but when it came to financial decisions she killed it, especially when compared to other successful artists.  

At 20 she started her own publishing company to keep her eventual 3000 or titles as a steady income stream.  Who does this at that age. 

She also said no to Elvis.  Col. Parker offered to have Elvis do a duet on I’ll Always Love You, but she’d have to part with 50% of the royalties for the song.  The big cover by Whitney showed pretty shrewd judgment in her rejection of the offer.  She was more about long term equity over short term payouts.  She would never have sold her catalogue.  Not in her DNA.

John Brodey
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So grateful to have met her at an Instore while I was working at Tower Records
50 years ago. Just 2 minutes with her-she was as gracious and sparkly as it gets. Never forget that 2 minutes.

An angel on earth. Wow!

Randi Swindel
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I met her back when I worked in SF as manager of the Tower Records store. She was doing a retail tour and was so sweet to everybody in the store. She took time to speak to all the employees and was so gracious.
?She was a treasure.?
Stan Goman
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When my sisters and I were in our early teens in Iowa, we’d rush home after school to get the tube warmed up for Dark Shadows reruns in the early 70s, and every episode would break for the Porter Wagoner/Dolly commercial for Breeze detergent (it was a soap opera, after all). Never mind the free towel that came in every box, I became a breast aficionado at 14, so you can add that to the Dolly accolades. Putting her in the ranks with the Beatles is not only proper, but there is no other act worthy of it. A true loss, and I hope her suffering was brief.  T. Joseph Wilson 
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The Son of Jolene. Bob, we were part of perhaps the last song Dolly recorded and one of the last music videos she participated in. The story of the song and Dolly’s participation is described in Belles (Kelli) interview which ran on CNN yesterday. Belles was interviewed while at a truck stop in the middle of Montana, on the way to her show in Seattle tonight. 

At the video shoot, Dolly confided to Kelli that she missed being on Country radio and hoped she would hear Son of Jolene on the radio. We made a commitment to Dolly to do this. Released the song in the U.S., Canada, Uk and Australia. Interestingly, we quickly got to #7 in Australia and #18 in the UK. Dolly’s appreciation and love around the world is astounding. 

What’s also been interesting is the challenge in the U.S. to have a song played on Country radio. Despite the incredible outpouring of love that we are all witnessing, Belles and Dolly face the same challenges of many Country artists – new and old. Tight playlists dominated by Country stars, a rare breakout like Stella Lefty(let’s not go there!), corporate radio restructures every week, the politics dictated by the major record labels, …

What radio needs to hear and understand is the passion in Dolly’s voice on Son of Jolene, the joy on her face in the video she so graciously participated in, the words of wisdom she shared with Belles that day, including “Never sell your publishing!”

God bless Dolly Parton. Country’s greatest. 

Best,

David 

https://video.snapstream.net/Play/Qn4LoH8fsbbXDNEf8TeB4?accessToken=caifr71gi9yhr

david j. robkin
managing member
east music row records
deluge | music?nashville / los ángeles?www.delugemusic.com
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Around that time in ‘73 I was in my senior year in college. I was working the midnight to 6:00 graveyard at WVOJ in Jacksonville. VOJ was a 10kW AM station where the programming consisted entirely of mainstream country top 40 listed in Billboard. The PD had two stacks of 20 records set next to each turntable. The rotation was pretty obvious and there was a third pile of older hits that had to be played as well?
When Jolene came out he slipped a copy of the 45 into both piles ensuring extra rotation just for Dolly.

For the record I was never a listener to VOJ. It’s antennas were mostly lobed to cover the area west of downtown where the trailer parks and rednecks resided. Besides most on my record collection consisted of ThreeDogNight, Doobie Brothers, CSN, Allman Brothers, or Poco.?But the gig at VOJ paid $4.25 an hour and to be honest I kinda liked working there. I was the “token hippie” and at that time of day I was the only person at the station.

So between the Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, or Conway Twitty there would be Dolly. She had a top ten hit earlier that year with “Travelin’ Man” and when Jolene popped out late 73, the PD slid in Travelin Man to the extra older hits pile.??As luck would have it, somehow Jolene appeared at the top of each pile in rotation for both Cue A and Cue B. I’m thinking how the hell did that happen so I thought “why not flange them?” Most likely I mentally engineered this whole thing thinking who’s gonna hear this anyway. (would it sound anything as cool as Axis Bold as Love?)? I introduced the song and spun up both records at the same time with only Cue A going to air and Cue B into the cue channel so I could know when they were synced up. I figured the choruses and final fade would be the right place to pot up turntable B. Out of no disrespect to Dolly I thought the added dimension of the swirling resonances brought the song to life.

Besides who was gonna know?

After the  end of the song the station owner called (like 3am I guess) and wanted to know what the fyk was going on with the transmitter. I told him I didn’t hear a problem with the on air feed, but I would leave a note for the chief engineer.

Working in country radio at that level was pretty low key and only important to a few hundred each night. But the old ladies that would call in to hear “Satin Sheets” or “Why Me” because it reminded them of their boys or husbands fighting in Vietnam, help explain a slice of America not normally viewed by most.

Dolly was a powerful woman who gave more than she consumed. I was always fascinated by her poise and down to earth intelligence. The world has lost a truly great songwriter and human being.

Never forget Dolly!

Will Eggleston
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For me, the intro to Dolly was not The Trio album 1987, that was a culmination.

For me it was a trifecta of 1970’s female singers who covered her in a five year period: Maria Muldaur (“Tennessee Mountain Home”, 1973), Linda Ronstadt (“I Will Always Love You” on Prisoner in Disguise, 1975, Emmylou Harris (“Coat of Many Colors” on Pieces of the Sky, 1975, and “To Daddy” on Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town, 1978).

My LA country rocker crowd was going, “Who is Dolly and what is happening here?” We were country fans only as deep as the rockers who fed it to us — Byrds, Eagles, Ronstadt, Jackson, etc etc. But we had to know.

In 1975, I was working at the newly-opened Tower Records Westwood Village, running the country-folk-bluegrass section, so I went a-digging, and pulled up Dolly’s “Jolene” album, only a year out from its 1974 release, and “The Bargain Store”, brand new in 1975. 

That was all it took. Gobsmacked, smitten, knocked clean out.??Now, I was writing LA country songs then, actually got my first cut in 1976 by Rusty Wier, a Texas artist with Outlaw cred, while still working at Tower, so at that time, I ate up any and all I of the ethos I could absorb, from Waylon and Willie, to Merle and George and Hank Snow and the Seldom Scene and, well, all of it. I got free tickets to see Dolly at the Roxy in 1977 or so, and was transfixed from that point on especially by her version of “Me and Little Andy”, which she sang alone, just her and her guitar, sitting on a stool. Transfixed, I tell ya.

I was still working there when “Here You Come Again” came out, a Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil song. I hated it, truth told, but it was Dolly, she was indelibly great, and I was glad she was getting crossover success. So I accepted it. And “Islands In the Stream”, and “9 to 5”, none of which hit me like those “trifecta” songs from a few years before.

So, for me, “Trio” was a cherry on top, getting to hear those amazing voices in rich harmony.

Her 2001 bluegrass album “Little Sparrow” transfixed me, especially her astonishing cover of Collective Soul’s “Shine” and her version of the Iain Matthews version of “Seven Bridges Road” (giving credit where due, the Eagles did not create that arrangement, Iain did in 1973 on his Valley Hi album on Elektra).

We flip to 2010, I played at Wilbert’s Food and Music in Cleveland, and my DJ friend R. Todd Richards (WBWC-FM The Sting) came to the show, and invited me to the station for a post-show interview for later broadcast, right before a super late night drive to Pittsburgh for a festival.

He gave me a DJ promo of a 26 song Dolly collection to keep me company on the drive. And I listened to “Jolene” on constant repeat for the whole 2 hours. Over and over again. And again. It got better and better, until 4am when I pulled into the Pittsburgh hotel and caught a few hours. Todd and I reminisced about that today as we commiserated over Dolly’s passing.

I never met her, never worked with her, only saw hew live once, but there was something… familial about her — the sweet sincerity, humble forthrightness about who she was and what she valued, lack of pretense even as she glammed it up big time, and her profoundly deep gifts as a singer, songwriter and storyteller. I will remain transfixed always. I just plain loved her.

Now I gotta go hear “Jolene” a few dozen times.

Dan Navarro
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My favorite sign of Dolly’s passing was:  “The apocalypse is closer than ever—the last universally loved person in the world has passed.”  Not sure who wrote it but they nailed it—she was a gem

I remember seeing her on those old Porter Wagoner shows in the early 70s and it was immediately obvious she was truly a star in waiting.  The cameras shot her head on so her profile was not a distraction.  

Aside from her musicianship, she was a good person on so many levels—children’s literacy is miles ahead of the past due to Dolly—she also supplied a lot of $$ to fight Covid—I never met her but know several who did and they always said she was a real person

Sad news ruined my day—the joy of Dolly in reflection made it waaaaay better

Frank Brandon
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My only Dolly story that I recall is second-hand. I was backstage at the Grand Old Opry at the Gospel Music Association Dove Awards. Kerry Livgren of Kansas had just won a Dove for Instrumental Album of the Year (for a grand and criminally underrated instrumental called “One of Several Possible Musiks”). I was standing next to Kerry, congratulating him when he blushed, “Dolly Parton just kissed me!” It was funny to see a star star-struck by the Country legend and beauty queen, who had presented him the dove-shaped trophy and planted on on his cheek.
?Doug Van Pelt