She’s known as the queen of country music, with a distinctive look and sound that’s been delighting fans for more than 50 years. But it turns out that even Dolly Parton has suffered from a touch of imposter syndrome.
“When they put me in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame [in 2022] I wasn’t sure I had earned my spot there,” she tells Music 101’s Charlotte Ryan.
“They put me in anyway, so I thought, well, this is my perfect timing. And I’m gonna do this rock album. I’m gonna get some of the great stars that are in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame singing some of these great songs.”
Dolly Parton Rockstar album cover Photo: Supplied
Listen to the full interview on Music 101
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Rockstar, released this week, is her 49th album. It’s a 30-track behemoth of songs that run the gamut from ‘Wrecking Ball’ (sung with Miley Cyrus) to a cover of ‘Let It Be’ that features Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Peter Frampton and Mick Fleetwood. Parton also wrote five new tracks for the album.
She says it’s a deeply personal selection; many of the covered songs are ones that “I’ve loved all my life and my husband especially loves”.
“I thought, well, might as well take advantage of this moment and do my first and probably only true rock and roll album,” she says.
Parton, 77, says she wanted the songs on the album – both the ones she wrote, and the cover versions - to have “meaning”.
“These songs, I just love. Like getting to sing with Paul McCartney and have Ringo play on a song that I've loved since I heard it, ‘Let It Be’, and then of course you know, just all these great songs that these great artists have had. Just getting to be able to sing these songs, much less have these great artists, some of them, come and sing with me on them, it was just over the moon for me.”
The album also features lots of “great girls”, from Stevie Nicks and Blondie to Pink and Lizzo.
RNZ Music 101 Host Charlotte Ryan talks to Dolly Parton in Nashville Photo: Calvin Samuel
“I think it's great to have some of these great girls on this as well, because they sang their butts off. And I should have them on this rock album because I'm a girl singing a rock album, and I thought well, yeah, I want to really colour it up with some fine girls out there.”
Parton is too professional to pick favourites, but says her ‘Wrecking Ball’ duet with Miley Cyrus is particularly special.
The song ends with the pair singing ‘I Will Always Love You’, in a homage to one of Parton’s biggest hits.
“The song is such an incredible song and Miley is such an incredible singer and I just love her to death, we're very close. And we sing really good together.
“I thought it turned out really well and I was I felt really honoured to get to sing with her and I had to have that song on my album.”
Making the crossover from country to rock was easier than she anticipated, Parton says, because there are plenty of rock music elements in modern country tunes.
“I think so many of our country artists are more like rock than they are country. They've always loved the rock stuff and it's just driving that driving beat with drums and bass and all that.
Country music legend Dolly Parton Photo: Calvin Samuel
Parton has always been careful not to be political in her music or commentary and says there’s no such intent in one of the original songs she wrote for the album, ‘World On Fire’.
“I never thought of it as being political, I was just trying to kick the butts of some of the politicians and people that are not listening to us,” she says.
“I was really just trying to draw attention to the people that in the place that are in these places of power, that have the power, you know, to try to do a little more, to make some changes a little more than I think they are.
“But I just worry about the state of the world. I worry about humanity and civilisation. I worry about you know, I'm not a political person, but I can't keep from seeing what I see, knowing what I know, feeling what I feel. So I think the best way for me to deal with that is to be able to write songs like ‘World On Fire’, about the things that I'm seeing.”
She says the world isn’t necessarily in a worse position than it used to be (“there’s always been wars and rumours of wars”), but the immediacy of the internet means there’s no escaping the news.
“Right now, it's just like, everything is just up there in a second. You can see it it's like there's no secrets or no waiting period. People see everything that's happening all over the world. So, I think it's bad, it’s bad now, but I don’t know that it hasn't always been bad. We just know everything now.”
Parton says she tries to cope with the onslaught of information by trying “to keep my eyes open and my heart and my mind, and keep my writing pen handy”.
“So I can express myself in my way, or at least when I'm doing interviews like this, to say something that might touch somebody and if enough people are touched, maybe it can make at least a change in their own little area. I don't know, you know how much of a change we can make but seems like nobody's willing to try. So I'm just out to say, hey, try. Try a little harder.”
Dolly Parton’s new book, Behind The Seams: My Life in Rhinestones. Photo: Supplied
As well as the album, Parton has written a lavishly illustrated new book, Behind The Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, which details her lifelong love of “big hair and makeup, the long nails, the high heels, the flashy clothes”.
For her interview with Ryan, Parton dressed the part in “a little rock star ensemble with a little bit of the glitter” designed by her long-time style collaborator Steve Summers.
“I'm wearing a black and white little sequined, beaded thing, it’s got some cute little things… little pedal pushers with little butterflies, with other little things. And my shiny shoes, can you see them? I got all decked out for you, Charlotte!”
Parton’s best friend, Judy Ogle, has been the driving force in saving and maintaining her wardrobe over the years.
“She used to always say, ‘I know you’re gonna be a star, and I know you’re gonna have your own museum, so I’m gonna start saving all this stuff’. So she was like a hoarder, she just saved everything, from every show.”
Rebecca Seaver, Parton’s niece, curated a selection of outfits and looks for the book (“she loves my clothes… she grew up with the clothes, so she really got into the whole thing”). Looking back through them all triggered lots of great memories, Parton says.
“Everything just comes back to you. I remember stuff from back behind the stage and what was going on in my life at that time, but I got such a kick, laughing out loud, belly laughing sometimes with some of the clothes and some of the hairdos.
“I was thinking ‘oh my Lord, I couldn't have been serious’ but I know for a fact I was. You know, you really work hard on all that, but I just really, that was where I was at, you know, at the time.”
Looking ahead, Parton hasn’t recorded her voice for AI, saying she doesn’t know enough about it.
“When they say artificial intelligence, I just make the joke and say, ‘everything about me is artificial. I assume my intelligence is too’, but that's a very touchy thing right there. I don't know enough about it to even make a comment. I mean, of course, I hope the body of work I'll leave behind will stand on its own.”
She’s hopeful that the new album will distract listeners from the relentlessness of the 24-hour news cycle. Music, she says, is healing.
Country music queen Dolly Parton Photo: Calvin Samuel
“Music is always fun. Music always lifts you up. This whole album, it was fun for me. It was a challenge but a good one. And I love challenging myself. I just wanted to see if I could do it. And I just really put myself entirely into it. And I think it turned out pretty good.”