Monday, August 16, 2021

I will always love Dolly Parton

I admit it.

When Dolly Parton first came on the scene, I thought she was ridiculous. That hair! That makeup! That - yowza! - rack. (Was it even real?)

Then I saw her up close and personal, walking into a hotel in La Jolla, California. She's just a little bit of a thing. And underneath all that hair and makeup  (and above that rack), Dolly, I realized, is quite beautiful.

And then I started listening to her sing, and realized she's quite a wonderful performer.

I have my favorites, of course. "Wildflowers." Her most excellent duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream." I have a few of her albums, including the amazing one with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris (what a trio!), and a couple of Christmas albums. 

And then I realized that Dolly Parton's also a songwriter. Sure, she's written a clunker or two. "Me and Little Andy" is one of the most god-awful songs ever written, let alone sung. And I'm not wild about "Jolene." But "9 to 5"? And the glorious "I Will Always Love You" (which, oddly enough, was the B-side of "Jolene" when Dolly recorded it).

Oh, and she can act, too. 9 to 5, etc.

And then I learned that she's a shrewd businesswoman, as well. 

Now I'm not the target market for Dollywood. (For one thing, I wouldn't be caught dead in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.) But her amusement park/entertainment complex has been open for well over 30 years. It's profitable, and it's the #1 tourist attraction (by ticket sales) in Tennessee. So, more people pass by Dolly's ticket-takers than visit the ghost of Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry. 

Overall, she's worth an estimated $650 million.

Dolly Parton is also a philanthropist. One of the main initiatives of her foundation is a literacy program that builds a love of reading by sending pre-schoolers a book a month from birth until kindergarten, when - thanks to Dolly - they're ready to read. Then there's her million dollar support for medical research at Vanderbilt University that - get this! - helped with the development of Moderna's covid vax. (I turned out to be a Moderna gal, but I didn't know that when I wrote about this last fall in How wonderful is Dolly Parton? Think COVID vaccine. THAT'S HOW WONDERFUL!)

And then there's what she did with the royalties of "I Will Always Love You." Dolly earned a lot of those royalties - an estimated $10 million during the 1990's -  thanks to Whitney Houston's cover, which was the themesong of the film the The Bodyguard

Last month, Dolly revealed:

... how she spent her money from the songwriting credit for Houston, who died in 2012: She invested in a building located in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood.

“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville, and so I thought, ‘Well, this is a wonderful place to be,’ ” 

...“It was a whole strip mall, and I thought this is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney, so I just thought, ‘This is great, I’m just going to be down here with her people, who are my people as well,’ ” Parton said.

She added, “I love the fact that I spent that money on a complex and I think, ‘This is the house that Whitney built.’" (Source: Washington Post)

Here's what Nashville historian  David Ewing had to say about Dolly Parton's investment in the predominately Black Sevier Park neighborhood:

“We’re just hearing now, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, how down for the cause Dolly has always been — even when others in the music industry weren’t,” Ewing said. “Dolly Parton could have built and bought any piece of property in Nashville. But you would have to have gone out of your way to buy in the 12 South neighborhood, because no Realtor would have shown Dolly that lot to buy.”....

At the time, the neighborhood was “African American funeral homes, businesses and churches,” Ewing said. Now, 12 South is one of the hottest neighborhoods in Nashville, he said.

...“She’s never cared about race or gender or the other things people in the South have judged or restricted others about,” Ewing said. “The fact that Dolly would buy in what was a Black neighborhood was a very Dolly thing to do.”

Oh, Dolly. I will always love you. 

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