- 6 weeks ago
Dolly Parton’s legacy stretches far beyond country music—through songwriting, crossover hits, cultural influence, and a lifetime of generosity. In this Billboard News Special, Billboard staff and guest Carly Pearce break down what made Dolly singular, and why her impact continues to grow.
From “Jolene” and “9 to 5” to “I Will Always Love You,” we revisit the songs and moments that defined Dolly’s career, her unmatched connection to fans, and the way artists across genres continue to reference, cover, sample, and celebrate her work—plus the philanthropy that remains central to her story.
From “Jolene” and “9 to 5” to “I Will Always Love You,” we revisit the songs and moments that defined Dolly’s career, her unmatched connection to fans, and the way artists across genres continue to reference, cover, sample, and celebrate her work—plus the philanthropy that remains central to her story.
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MusicTranscript
00:02You're talking about a woman that on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart has
00:06had more number ones than anybody. I believe that Dolly's lasting impact will
00:11obviously be her music. Who would want everybody to be the same? What a boring
00:15world that would be. And she said our little white asses aren't the only ones
00:20that matter.
00:28To me, I'm just a working girl. I never think of myself as a star. As somebody
00:33once said, a star is nothing but a big ball of gas. I don't want to be that.
00:37Oh gosh. Her big takeoff moment, that one I don't know. She was already such a big
00:43star. To me, it's like I entered, my brain formed and Dolly Parton was already a
00:49superstar. So my dad was an auctioneer and he had this Dodge pickup truck. I'm
00:54still such a country fan today, but you know, laying on the floorboard of that
00:58truck going between auctions, my sister and I would sleep on the floorboard, like
01:02right next to the gear shift. It was like a single cab pickup truck. And I
01:05distinctly remember him playing Dolly Parton a lot and talking about Dolly
01:10Parton a lot. I have no idea when I learned who Dolly Parton was. Dolly Parton
01:14was just always around. I do think a lot of the younger generations were
01:19introduced to Dolly through her appearances on late night or just her
01:23being around. You still always understood that there was something special about
01:27this woman. I think those are the earlier memories that a lot of a younger
01:32generation has of her. And then the older you get, the more you start to see her
01:35influence everywhere.
01:43But of course, I would say the other big part that maybe I didn't realize at the
01:46time, of course, was of course, that Whitney Houston covered her song. I will
01:51always love you was massive. It was huge and very big Whitney Houston family. My
01:56mother, my sister absolutely loved her. And that song was incredible. And then you
02:03start to hear the history of that song and it becomes even more impressive. I
02:07have never heard a performance better than that on anybody's song by any artist.
02:13And that song is the the length that put us together. So I just think it's
02:18wonderful. And I will always love Whitney Houston. People will be singing. I will
02:22always love you and playing it at weddings and all these things for a
02:27hundred years. I mean, it's a it's a it's a timeless song and she's got a ton of
02:32songs that are in that spirit and are just that good. When I personally became
02:36aware of Dolly Parton was around 1973 or 74 when Jolene came out.
02:47I mean, I was still a teenager at the time and I didn't listen to country music. I
02:52listened to my pop station and all of a sudden Jolene's on there and it was
02:55obviously a country song and it was kind of cool, though, had that little little
02:59guitar part and all that. But I just I became aware of her and she kind of just
03:02from my vantage point as a guy who only listened to pop is like she disappeared.
03:06She was there for about three weeks and then she was gone.
03:09My entry to Dolly was probably nine to five.
03:19But the movie came out and it just was everywhere and the song was everywhere.
03:24The songs are my children and I expect them to support me when I'm old. That's one of my favorite
03:28jokes. And then I don't know how close to that or even could have even been before that Here You
03:35Come
03:35Again was. But Here You Come Again, which she didn't write, was just how everyone felt like, you know,
03:41I was little. But like if a boy didn't like me, I was like, you know, I probably did not
03:53understand
03:53the line looking better than a body has a right to at that age, but I just loved her.
04:00One of the things that's interesting about Here You Come Again is that when it was done,
04:04because Dolly didn't write that song and she used a pop record producer to do it and she trusted him
04:10a
04:10lot and he got it done and he sent it to her and she's like, this sounds awesome. I'm really
04:14excited
04:15about it, but you know what? There's no steel guitar in it. Can you go back and put a steel
04:19guitar
04:20on this record? And he's like, Dolly, it doesn't need it. It sounds great. She says, I know it doesn't
04:24need it, but I need it because she had gone through so much trouble and criticism from Nashville when she
04:31took her business management to Los Angeles that she just wanted to have a steel guitar on the record
04:38so she could point and say, I'm still country. Look, I still did that.
04:42I first became acquainted with Dolly Parton through this joke in middle school about her figure.
04:49Like there was something that you could do on a calculator with numbers. Do you guys know what
04:54I'm talking about? Where it's like you subtract this and you add this and you multiply it by this and
04:58it's like woven into this story about Dolly. And then I remember it was like fourth grade and this guy
05:05in my
05:05class flipped his calculator over and it said like boobs, boobless, boobless. Thank you. It was like
05:13eight, zero, zero, eight, seven, three, five, five upside down. And it said boobless. And I was like,
05:22huh, who is Dolly Parton? Because she was part of this joke because she had, of course, a famous figure.
05:35I kind of heard her before I really clocked that I was hearing her because of Ghetto Superstar
05:42when Maya and Praz did the song and they basically interpolated islands in the stream. And so it was
05:50like years later where I was like, oh, it was a Dolly Parton song and it obviously Kenny Rogers song.
05:54And then the bodyguard. Dolly was such a big star, you know, when I was a kid already
06:00that I was kind of getting this like secondary. I wasn't getting her directly, but I was getting
06:06these like side effects of her fame.
06:13But before I got started, I wanted to say, I know lately everybody thinks that I am sicker than I
06:20am.
06:20Do I look sick to you? We knew that she was sick because even though she was saying till the
06:26very
06:26end, I'm getting better. I just, you know, my doctors are just saying, I can't come to this.
06:31That had been going on for more than a year. So as much as she seemed to be trying to
06:37show up for
06:37things and the last thing she did show up for was in June for, I think the opening of the
06:41truck stop,
06:42which is kind of amazing that she's got a truck stop named after her. Uh, we kind of knew that
06:47it was
06:47coming, but you didn't want to believe it was coming. The way she commuted, communicated some
06:52of that was so distinctly Dolly, all those statements. If you look back at them now from
06:57the point where apparently she first started to realize that she was, you know, had some serious
07:02things going on. It's all, I'm going to be okay. Don't worry about me. I'm going to be back. I
07:09can't
07:09wait to get back. I've got all these projects planned. Um, doctor just says I need some rest. I think
07:15it's so Dolly, it comes across as being way more worried about us, but it's also that line that she
07:20walked between her public and private personas. So I was here in the office and, uh, Rachel,
07:27our fantastic legal reporter kind of like said down the row, Dolly Parton died. And I honestly,
07:35immediately was like, that can't be true. Like I dismissed it. And then Rachel said, you know,
07:40like not confirmed yet. It's on, you know, whatever site, it's on social media. And then she pulled up
07:47the formal announcement from Dolly's brother. I have imagined the heaviness of this moment,
07:52but haven't truly felt it until now. It is an honor, an honor that is mixed with absolute pride
07:58and great sadness, but sadness lies with us, not with Dolly. It was one of those moments I'll never
08:04forget. And I don't really cry over celebrities. But by the time he got to the end of that announcement,
08:12and I think the sign off was she will always love you. We were all in tears when she passed.
08:18I don't know that I've ever had that much action on my phone. I'm not a big phone person anyway,
08:24but I had people reaching out to me from my childhood who had known maybe in some cases that
08:30I haven't spoken to in 15 years or more, who knew that I was living in Nashville and that I
08:34worked
08:35within the community or whatever. And, you know, they want to know what's going on. People that
08:40didn't necessarily even like country music, right? But they all love Dolly Parton. But, you know,
08:46it's those stories too, I think that probably grabbed me the most. A friend of mine being at the
08:51post office in line with, you know, nine, 10 people, the way she describes it. And somebody in the
08:57line looks at their phone or comes in and says, gosh, have you heard the news? And they say it.
09:01And within 30 seconds or a minute, people in the line are sobbing. We were just standing around
09:08the computer watching this. And I don't think there's a single other person who could pass away
09:16in the music industry and have the same effect. It was several of us just standing there crying or
09:22trying not to cry in the middle of our workday. And I can't think of another person who would have
09:28that same impact on an entire office, an entire country, an entire world, especially the music
09:36industry. I believe that Dolly's lasting impact will obviously be her music and her philanthropic
09:43work. But I think more than that, I think her legacy will be the giant heart that she had and
09:52the joy that she brought to every single person. If you met her, of course, but just to the world.
09:57Of course, there have been a ton of posts and people honoring her. And I think what stuck out
10:03to me the most is just the breadth of people saying something about it. It's not just the country artists.
10:09It's not just the pop stars. It's everybody. She was so beloved. The ones that really stuck out to me
10:16were, you know, immediately Jack White, who I actually helped introduce me to Dolly because
10:21the white stripes covered Jolene. And so his was just a photo of her looking like gorgeous,
10:26gorgeous and glowing. And the capture was instant sainthood. And then the one that I thought was like,
10:32this is amazing, was Eminem, who shared a letter that Dolly Parton had sent him after he was inducted
10:38into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And the gist of it was basically like his capture was like,
10:43I don't know her. I never met her. But I got this letter from her and she didn't have to
10:47do
10:47that. And she did. And the letter was essentially like, I don't really know rap that well, but I
10:54understand you're one of the best ever do it. And basically, I'm proud of you. And I feel a connection
10:59to you. And what has been really magical in the wake of this is seeing, you know, and I'm sure
11:06there's so many more we don't know about, but seeing all of the people being like, she touched
11:12me in this way and she touched me in this way. I also found so many people were singing,
11:21I will always love you. And I understand that. But I thought Randy Carlisle's version that she did,
11:27she was playing in Nashville. She was headlining Bridgestone. And she did a version on Saturday
11:33night that her voice is probably the closest to Dolly's or one of the closest to Dolly's that we've
11:39got in terms of the resonance and just beauty and just this angelic voice. And that really,
11:47really moved me. I mean, I'm all for all the girls. I've been doing this for a long time. I
11:51never even
11:52thought about it, but I couldn't do it. And I know that we all can and we should be appreciated.
11:56And respected and love for our talents and for ourselves. And we need to respect ourselves as well.
12:08I think people often forget how much Beyonce really likes country music and for her to go out
12:13of her way and ask Dolly Parton to make this beautiful song, this tribute to Jolene, but put her
12:20own touch on it, of making it a little bit spicier than maybe Jolene originally was. But it's such
12:26a tribute that that song was still important enough for her to remake it and put it on Calvin
12:32Carter, which is a beautiful tribute to country music. Somebody here who wants to see you.
12:35Yeah, I'm not in the mood to see anybody right now. Well, fine. I've never met anyone that doesn't
12:42like Dolly Parton. And it's safe to say if they don't like her, it's only because they love her.
12:48I will always love you.
12:55You're talking about a woman that on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart has had more number ones
12:59than anybody. 25. Still leads the pack, right? And then you start looking at the history over
13:05on the Hot 100 through those crossover days when she's still America's sweetheart, but even then,
13:10when movies are starting to happen. And you can see those audiences grow with these peaks. So when
13:16she passed, for example, on the day that she left, she was the second most streamed artist in the
13:23United States. And that's just half of the day that was measured, right? And then I get over into the
13:28radio numbers. I've not seen anything like it. I mean, there's been similar circumstances. You know,
13:33you might think about Michael Jackson, but I haven't seen anything like this. And it's lovely.
13:37And it speaks to who she is and the degree to which we miss her. And I think too,
13:41perhaps some younger people and other people who, oh my gosh, what's going on? I'm so curious.
13:46I've got to go find out who this is. And they've done it in droves.
13:55She did it all herself. So it wasn't like she was going in and without the wig on and without
14:01the
14:01makeup on and someone was seeing her that way. I'm sure she had makeup people,
14:06but the basics she always did herself. In fact, I just read a funny story about how
14:11she and her husband would go camping. And she even took all that with her when she went camping.
14:18And when she would leave the tent or whatever she was in, she would be Dolly. She said, I don't
14:23want
14:23someone to see me and go, I think I saw Dolly Parton, but she didn't have on any makeup. She
14:30didn't have on the wig. So she was what we saw anytime she went out of the house, anytime she
14:37was
14:37on camera. It really mattered to her to present that image for decades and decades. Kind of astonishing
14:46when you think about it. There's an interview that she did with Barbara Walters in 1978,
14:52and she's looking gorgeous. She has this blue dress on. She has a blue flower in her hair,
14:55a big blonde wig. And Barbara Walters essentially says, you know, like, you don't have to look like
15:01this. You don't have to do all this. And I thought, Dolly's reaction is all time,
15:06so I just want to read it. She said, I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That's
15:10the easiest
15:10thing in the world to do. I just decided that I would do something that would at least get the
15:15attention. Once they got past the shock of the ridiculous way I looked and all that,
15:20then they would see there was parts of me to be appreciated. I'm very real where it counts,
15:26and that's inside and as far as my outlook on life and the way I care about people and the
15:30way I care
15:31about myself and the things that I care about. But I just chose to do this, and show business is
15:37a
15:37money-making joke, and I've just always liked telling jokes. She was so smart. She knew exactly what she
15:44was doing. And she knew, like, if I come in here in these outfits and these wigs and the sequins
15:50and
15:50you know, like all of just the fabulousness and giving permission to people to be as fabulous,
15:56like she knew. And you can't mess with somebody like that. I interviewed her four times and the
16:03settings were all different. So the first time was literally she had me send her questions and she
16:08answered them on the back of the bus while she was touring in 1989. And this is a whole separate
16:14story to itself. It's so amazing because I did not really like that setup, but it was Dolly Parton.
16:18I would take what I could get. This is back in the day. She sends it back to me on
16:22a cassette,
16:24and I play this cassette. You can hear the sound, the hum of the road underneath of it,
16:28and she's telling these stories. It was for my number one hits book, and she's telling me the stories
16:34behind the songs as if I'm in the room with her. I know she's told these stories before and she's
16:39still laughing her way through it. It was just the most amazing thing to me that she could be in
16:43a
16:43room by herself after a show at night when she's trying to wind down. And she was hilarious. It was
16:48just great. It was like I was in the room with her. And then this last time was a total
16:52of seven or
16:53eight hours of her over a couple of days that was in person. That was amazing because they actually
16:59filmed it, and they were running audio, and the audio from those interviews ended up being the
17:04foundation for the audio book that goes with Dolly Parton's start of the show.
17:08I was really lucky that I got to interview Dolly a lot, and there was one time probably over 10
17:15years
17:15ago where I was interviewing her, and the interview was at 6 a.m. my time, and it was for
17:2010 minutes.
17:22It was over the phone, and I'm sitting there. For some reason, I had to connect my tape recorder
17:28to the outlet in my hallway. So I'm sitting on the floor at 5 55, waiting for the phone to
17:36ring,
17:36and of course, she's right on time. I said something like, it's a little early,
17:42and she chided me. She said, it's 6 a.m. I've been up since 4, or something like that.
17:51She wasn't kidding either. Like, it was very much kind of like, what kind of layabout are you
17:57that you are not up and at it by 6? And then there's only 10 minutes, and I had been
18:03warned
18:03that she is incredibly punctual, and we would not go over the 10 minutes. And I'm looking at my tape
18:07recorder. She's answering a question, and we're at 10 minutes and 15 seconds. She finishes, and she goes,
18:14well, honey, we've run over. I've got to go. And says bye, and gets off the phone.
18:21But that's what made her so great. I mean, she had her rules that she lived by,
18:26and she expected other people to live by them. Sorry, I'm crying. I'm getting upset about Dolly.
18:32She was totally in control of the setting and how long she was going to spend and why she was
18:37doing it.
18:38I mean, you know, and she was even like in the room the day that, the two days that we
18:44were
18:44working on the book, we were running out of time. And at one point, they said, you're down to one
18:48minute. And I'm like going, what am I going to ask her in the last minute? She goes, you're going
18:52to use it, aren't you? I was like, oh, yeah. But it was really funny because she was just really,
18:57I mean, even then, it's like the whole business thing was clicking with her all the time. How do I
19:01use my time? What's the best thing? What's coming next? You know, all of those things. And then she's
19:06being entertaining at the same time. So I can't imagine what being in her head was like,
19:10because she's balancing all that stuff and just so comfortable with it. So entertaining.
19:15We did a cover story with her in 2020. And there was a rumor that she had, because no one
19:22would
19:22recognize her, she didn't have on her wig or all her makeup, that she had actually marched in a Black
19:26Lives Matter protest. And so I asked her in a kind of very gingerly way. And she said to me,
19:35she goes,
19:35she goes, oh, no, I haven't. She goes, but I certainly support everyone's right to be seen
19:42and to be heard. And she said, our little white asses aren't the only ones that matter. And we
19:48deliberately did not put that quote in the headline. We didn't even particularly play it up. And it got
19:56picked up everywhere. In my 30 years of being a journalist, I have never had a quote get picked
20:02up like that. It was on the evening news. It was everywhere. And it just goes to show her power
20:11and her influence, and that she wasn't afraid. She wasn't going to go into politics. She didn't
20:16like to discuss politics. She would never endorse a candidate or anything like that. But she knew what
20:22she stood for. And she was not afraid at all to say things that represented her beliefs, which were
20:31very strong Christian beliefs, and what she stood for.
20:34Dolly Parton always thought about the business aspect of everything. And what I love about her
20:39business acumen is how much she believed in herself. And one of the stories that I love is,
20:46I actually went to Graceland. And they tell this story at Graceland, which is of course where
20:50Elvis lived, where you're getting this whole tour about his life. And they will interrupt the tour to
20:57let you know that there's a Dolly Parton story in it all. When Elvis sought to record Dolly's I
21:03Will Always Love You, Dolly famously said no, keeping control of her song that Elvis wanted half of the
21:10publishing royalties to. Slay all day, Dolly. That's the kind of belief that she had in herself and her
21:15own craft that just continues to show obviously throughout an entire life. I think it's also
21:22very important that they take control of their own business. I know I've had my own publishing
21:28company for years. It wasn't about me saying no to Elvis. That was one of the hardest things I ever
21:34had
21:34to do. She twice covered A Stairway to Heaven. A Stairway to Heaven. And she even wrote a new verse
21:44for that that she was doing live that made it more you played up the heaven part and made it
21:48more of like
21:49a gospel song. And I believe this is correct that she did that without asking for permission.
21:56But the interesting part is that at some point Robert Plant showed up to a concert that she did in
22:01Ireland. And at the end of the show he came backstage and he told her how much he loved the
22:08song and what she had done with it. So she got the approval of Robert Plant on Stairway to Heaven.
22:12So it's like, okay, great. You won that one. As much as Dolly's being remembered for her music,
22:19she's also being remembered for her philanthropy. And just what a good person she was. I saw a lot of
22:27stories talk about how she wasn't a billionaire because she gave away so much money. Her net worth
22:33was around $650 million. So I don't think anyone needs to think that Dolly was poor. She wasn't.
22:40But making the money was simply a byproduct to what she could do to help other people. Dolly Wood
22:46was the biggest employer in Sevierville, her hometown. It's Dolly everything, but it's such a fun
22:53spot to go to. It was great to see everything. And they have these, I wouldn't call them necessarily
22:58the museums, but they have these kind of artifacts, these replications of where she lived. So you get
23:04to see the church that she went to when she was a kid. And you get to see a replica
23:09of her house
23:10that she grew up in. And she had a lot of siblings. It was a very small house. And it's
23:15just very cool
23:16to see the whole history kind of play out and where she grew up and really had very humble beginnings.
23:21She wasn't a mega star at any point. She just really believed in her own talent and pushed herself to
23:26get
23:26there. But it's really cool to see. It's very fun to go to Dollywood and just kind of piece together
23:32all the history of her. But there's one part of that museum where you walk in. And of course,
23:38the song that's playing is, I believe, an acapella version of her singing Code of Many Colors,
23:44and then explaining the history of that song.
23:46In my code of many colors that mama made for me.
23:52And it's really impactful because, like I said, she came from very humble beginnings. And to see
23:58the way that that drove everything she did from there on out, because she knew what it was like
24:06to be the kid that had less. And she turned around and said, I will give back for the rest
24:12of my life.
24:13She was the first to open up her checkbook. You know, she helped fund one of the COVID vaccines at
24:20Vanderbilt. She got a lot of her medical treatment at Vanderbilt and, in fact, died at Vanderbilt.
24:25And she was very supportive of Vanderbilt and its medical research. She gave a ton of money to
24:33Vanderbilt in a lot of different ways. There were fires in East Tennessee. She immediately wrote a
24:39check. She knew the power of her giving. And a lot of it, she kept quiet. I'm sure she gave
24:46money that we
24:46will never, ever, ever know about. But she talked about it or we found out about it. I think if
24:53she
24:53knew it would encourage other people to give. And I just think she's an example for everybody.
24:59But I think really at the end of it, and I think this is the really special thing that nobody
25:03can
25:04measure outside of just how you see your friends and family and feel yourself reacting to it. It's just
25:10the love. I don't mean to get emotional, but it's been an emotional week. And that's the other part
25:19of it that I think is just completely unlike anybody. There's so many things that were completely and
25:23totally unique to Dolly. And I think that's the legacy more than anything else. Maybe the legacy
25:29is all the legacies wrapped within legacies. That's what I think. Our first little book in the
25:35imagination library is the little engine that could. And I kind of always thought of myself as the
25:39little engine that did. So, you know, it was free books from the time you're zero to the time you're
25:43five every month. And when you graduated, she would send you a letter because everyone called her the
25:50book lady because they thought she was, you know, like sending all the books herself. And it's a letter
25:55from her about just because you're not getting free books anymore, you can still go to the library,
26:01hear all the other places, please keep reading. Like it was just like, who else is universally good
26:07like that? You know, I saw a tweet, you know, after she died that said, imagine writing 3000 songs.
26:15You have however many Grammys, you have all of these songs on the charts. You have basically conquered
26:22business and you die. And what everybody remembers about you is your kindness. That actually really is
26:30moving. You know, like that's the kind of person that I think we should all aspire to be. So thank
26:36you, Dolly, for that. I just want to say a great big thank you to the folks at Billboard, but
26:42most of all
26:43to you, the fans. I take none of this for granted. So thank you for giving me the opportunity
26:50to take my music all around the world.