The photo shoot in her private studio outsideNashvilleseems designed to capture Dolly Partons Tennessee mountain heart.
But a heart is a hard thing to get just right.
She is one of the most photographed performers on earth, so there are no amateurs here.
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There is a firm schedule.
Time is her hobgoblin.
To make the scene look a little more authentic, the set designer spreads around some dirt.
Credit:David McClister
The lights seem to love her; thats what the photographers say.
I bet the sun and the moon do too.
Lord, I think, shes even prettier than the truck.
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Her creative director sings out, after every frame:
Pretty.
She is also loved for being loved, and loved transcendentally.
I had to look up that last word.
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It means beyond common experience, thought, or belief.
She will change outfits twice morequickly, professionally.
I dont know why, since she would look good standing in a mudhole draped in an old tarp.
Then someone hands her a guitar.
I wonder if anyone else notices that she closes her eyes.
She steals a few seconds more, remembering, The Parton men were famous for their blue eyes.
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Southern Living
And that, right there, is the real shine of it.
You dont need any rubbing or polishing for that.
Its just the way we talk down here, if you grow up a certain way.
I may look artificial, she says, after a while, but Im totally real.
Shes lived her music.
It isnt just an archive to draw from.
When I was 5 or 6, I wrote a song about a corncob doll, she says.
Mama wrote it down.
She had a trunk full of them…. Its all sacred to me.
I had to get rich, she says, to live like Im poor again.
But as shes getting back out, her pants catch on the seat.
Its hard to slide in rhinestones, she explains.
She became a kind ofWheres Waldoin popular culture.
Everyone from drag queens in New York to sorority girls at The University of Alabama wants to be her.
Not to mention (under the category of Who Knew?
Those are my mountains, she says.
I just dont want to let these people down.
Dolly Partons Imagination Library partners with local affiliates to give free books to children around the world.
So she made it real.
I just wanted to do good, she says.
It just moves and slides around her, the way a river does a rock.
She has been married to the same man since…well, forever.
She has never thrown a television off a hotel roof.
But perhaps the most remarkable thing about this story is what some have described as her immunity.
When other songwriters sold the rights to their music, she refused, even turning down Elvis.
Her empire is built on talent and beauty and backbone.
No one can crack a joke about her she hasnt cracked herself.
She hugs me when we meet.
I blush, for the first time in 40 years.
Youre so little, I say, suavely.
All but my boobs and my hair, she replies.
Her laugh is like a bell.
As I gather my wits, I remember why I came.
She was born in 1946, the fourth of 12 children.
She cant remember a time without music.
My mama knew all the old songs, brought over from the Old World, she says.
She would cry, and we would love it.
Mama could jerk a tear out of you.
They heard Knoxville Girl, Down in the Willow Garden, Little Rosewood Casket, and more.
Dolly was making up her own songs before she could even read and write.
I can claim that gift, she says.
Anybody can sing, but to make something good in the world that wasnt there before….
Her uncle Bill Owens encouraged her to take her talents to town, to radio and television.
She was appearing on TV before her family had one in their house.
The only way she could run out of songs was to stop living.
This philosophy gave birth to one of the greatest country musicor any genrehits of all time.
It happened not long after her marriage to Carl Dean, an asphalt contractor.
He went into a bank to ask for a loan for a paving machine.
The red-headed bank clerk seemed, to Dolly, more than friendly.
In 1973, she went into RCAs Nashville studio to record Jolene.
Dolly borrowed it from a little girl she saw at a performance.
I changed the names to protect the guilty, she says.
And after all this time, the writing is still the best part.
Theres nothing that makes me happier than writing a song.
She has a new album in mind.
She uses the word revival.
And I think to myself, Isnt that what you have been doing all along?
I think Im a star to everybody but me, she says.
I always wanted to be famous, but nobody could have thought of the extent it became.
Ill see a whole wall of my pictures somewhere, and Ill wonder How did that happen?
Its more a joy than a surprise.
I popped a zipper, and they had to sew me in, she says.
They may have to cut me out.
Is it a barlow knife?
she says, falling backward, again, into the holler.
