Listener supported.WNYC Studios.
Hi, this is Shemol Yai, the producer of Dolly Parton's America.Before we start, one question.
Do you remember the first time you left home?
Remember one of the Dolly songs that you heard Nelson Mandela play?
I'd love to ask you about Porter Wagner.
Now that's when I needed a whip. In this series, we got to ask Dolly a lot of questions.Here's a question for you.How much is Dolly Parton's America worth to you?This series was listener supported.It took Jad and I two years to make.
It involved dozens of plane rides, hotel rooms, we commissioned original music, we had tape sinkers, other reporters across the world.In short, it was a really expensive series to make, paid for by you. Thank you.
When things are listener supported, they just, they're just different.We can chase leads in a different way.We are not beholden to advertisers.The only people we are beholden to is you.But there is a problem, unfortunately.
Of the millions and millions of people who downloaded these episodes, who listened, who enjoyed, laughed, heard the Porter story, heard the Jolene story, only a tiny, tiny handful have stepped forward and made a financial contribution.
We would like to make more of this kind of thing, but in order for us to do that, we need to hear from a whole lot more of you.So please, if you like what you heard, if you want to hear more of this kind of thing, please text the word Dolly to 70101.
You'll get a text back giving instructions on how you can donate, or you can go to dollypartonsamerica.org slash donate.Again, text the word Dolly to 70101.It just takes a few seconds.We'd love to hear from you.Actually, we need to hear from you.
I'm Jed Abumrad, this is Dolly Parton's America, final episode.
No, she's alive.I want to close the series with my favorite Dolly story, hands down. It's a story of the moment that Dolly became Dolly.It happened in a church.Now, I'm not someone who's ever really gone to church.
My family came from a place torn apart by religion.We avoided churches.
And, you know, over the past two years of interviewing Dolly, I was hesitant to sort of get into her faith, because I just kind of figured it would be something I wouldn't really be able to understand.
Because, you know, religion, like politics, it's just one of these things that divides us, right? But then she told me this story about this thing that happened to her in a church.And it's just kind of spooked me a little bit.
No, I have to admit, one of the only reasons we ended up talking about it was because of that UT class, the Dolly's America class.
We'll never know who Dolly Parton is.We'll know who Dolly is, but who Dolly Parton is, probably never.
At the end of that interview, as Shimomori Ai and I and the students were all sitting around, we kind of got onto a thing.
I would love to like sit down and ask her questions.
Okay, let me follow that inspiration.So what's the question?What question would you want to ask her?
Oh man, I feel like there's this hidden side of her and I just like hope that she's doing well.I hope she's okay.I think when I put myself in her shoes, I imagine her life to be exhausting.I don't even know.I would ask her,
This is Lainey, by the way, Lainey Goodwill.
I think I would ask her if she has any regrets about, like, the way that it all played out.
Do you have any regrets about the way it all played out?
No.Well, I guess it's almost like everything I've ever done, good or bad, seemed to be the thing to do at the time. and to change one thing. could change the whole thing.So I don't think you can live your life like that, to regret.
I regret it if I've hurt anybody else on my journey.I regret maybe getting caught a time or two.There's some things I might not should have been doing, but I'm not saying I wouldn't do it again.
But anyway, so to be honest, I guess the real answer to that is no.
What did you get?You're not gonna tell me.What did you get caught at that you were supposed to be getting caught at?
You can't know everything, can you?
Fair enough, fair enough.
One of the other questions that came up... Is it true about the tattoos?That her body is like covered in tattoos?
To be fair, Chima was the one who threw that one out.Is it true about the tattoos?
I have a few tattoos on my body.They are not meant to be tattoos for the sake of tattoos.I'm very fair skinned, and when I have any kind of surgery or any kind of scarring, well, it turns, you know, it's kind of discolors and I can't get the color.
So I, when I first started getting a few little things done, I had a few little tattoos.
to cover up some scarring but i'm not tattooed all over like a bike woman or anything but i do have a few and but they're very delicate i don't have the dark ones they're all pastels can i ask what of what or is that too personal well i have some butterflies i have some lace and some bows a couple of things like that
Okay, all that was really just prelude.The question that drove us to the story I mentioned came from a student named Will Oakes.
And this isn't really much as a question, I just want to have a discussion with her, like, what is the theology of Dolly Parton behind closed doors?Like, what exactly, like, is, are you like the church ladies we've been talking about?
Like, is that you?Is there something deeper there?I just want to get to the core of her belief system, not in a way of, again, judging.I just want to know. like honest to goodness.
What is the theology of Dolly Parton behind closed doors?
Well, now, I am not, I'm a very spiritual person.I do not believe, I don't like talking politics and I don't like talking religion.
And I certainly don't like trying to cram my religion down anybody's throat because I'm not that religious, but I am very spiritual.
How do you practice your faith?
I don't practice it.I live it. I think people try too hard.I talk to God like He is my best friend.I just go around talking to Him.Sometimes I think if somebody saw me in my house, they'd think I was an absolute lunatic.
I just talk to God and sometimes if something great has happened, I just kind of raise my hand, give God a high five or a thumbs up, you know.It's like I just, I don't feel like I have to go to church to do it.I think church is in our hearts.
It's wonderful for those that want to go to church.That's a wonderful thing, but I don't think I have to.And it's like I, I go when I want to or when I can or special occasions, but I live my faith.
You know, if you try to shove that down people's throats or you come on goody-goody, that ain't gonna work.You live by example.You teach by example.You learn by example, don't you think?
And even the old cynics that say, oh, you know, there's no such thing as God.I say, well, that's your problem.I know there is for me. And that's what works for me.
It would scare me to death to think that there was nothing bigger and better than me, that there wasn't something out there that we could depend on.Of course, you look at it, well, if there is a God, why would he let this happen or that happen?
Well, he's not letting things, things happen.He gave us free will.We're the ones that screw up all the time.
We started talking about this and initially I thought that Dali was sort of addressing that big question that people have about God and a belief in God, like how can you believe in God?How can God exist and so many bad things happen in the world?
How would he allow that to happen?And initially I thought she was nodding at that idea, that sort of deist idea that God created the world but then voluntarily gave up some control to us mere mortals.
And so when bad things happen, it's not necessarily his plan.It's sort of his permissive will, as it's sometimes called.I don't know.
Like, I don't even try to analyze it to that degree.I just, I just accept it for me.
But as we kept talking, it became clear her faith is way more particular and idiosyncratic than I would have ever expected.
The Bible says, let every man seek out his own salvation, and that means to save himself.
Whatever it takes to save you, and if you can get to that place and you find your own peace, then you can do good for other people if you're at peace within yourself.
Did you, because I know you grew up in a very devout family, went to church all the time.Did you, was there a moment when you stopped going and it became more internal for you?Was that a chance?
Yeah, well, we grew up in a fanatical church, Pentecostal, Holy Roller, but I still love it.In fact, I'm fixing to, I'm doing a show, I just sold a show called Sister Shine for Lifetime where I'm playing a female evangelist, always wanted to do it.
And it's about a woman that kind of gets torn down because of the religion.But I just always, you know, that hellfire damnation that we went through used to scare me to death.
And I was too scared to, you know, not to, you know, but I never, I never did, you know, I didn't want to go up and, you know, I just was scared of all that.
I used to pray, you know, I just would pray for God to show himself to me or to let me see what that was about, because I would say, I would talk to him even then, I would say, it just scared me to death.You know, in the church, it scares me.
I don't, you know, it's like I don't want to be afraid of God, because then they say we're supposed to fear him, and then they say he's our father, and we're supposed to, and I was confused with all that.
And she says when she saw people go up and get saved and speak in tongues and do the whole thing, she would always feel like, why is that not happening for me?What am I doing wrong?
I never, never felt like I was saved.I never felt like I was safe, that I was getting what they seemed to be getting or supposed to be getting, you know, because I just didn't ever feel like I had reached that place.
But then there was this old abandoned church down the hill.That was, to this day, that stands out in my mind just like it happened.There was this old church at the foot of the hill where we were living. And it just had an old piano in it.
All the windows were all busted.People used to go down there, drink, make out.There was dirty pictures painted on the walls.
She was 12 years old.She would wander into that abandoned church, and as she writes in her autobiography, she would fixate on those pictures.
I spent a lot of time looking at them, studying the way the sexual organs had been drawn, and at times trying to add to them.
You would doodle on those drawings?
Oh, yeah.I love that old church, and every time I'd go down there, there was just a peace in that church.You know, I could just feel the echo and the bigness, and I loved singing it. because I could hear my voice sounding good in there.
But I would take that old piano and I'd bang around.There was a few old keys left on it.I even took a string and rigged it up on a board, you know, where it was kind of like, sound like some Middle Eastern sound.It was just an old droney sound.
so she says there was this one particular day she was in the church first staring at the dirty pictures then singing for a couple hours and after that i just was praying and praying and praying the lord is my shepherd i shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he leadeth me beside the still waters he restores my soul
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.I just was praying because I thought, I need to know.I need a feeling I don't have.I need a safety I don't have.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.And I just remember being in that church, and I felt something. I remember it just came to me.I didn't hear it like a voice.
It came to me as a feeling that was as strong as a voice, though.And I felt like I found God that day.And I felt like I knew who I was that day.
She writes that in this place of confusing images,
I found real truth.Here, in one place, I found God, music, and sex.My fascination was complete.I sang with a strength and conviction that only God could have understood.The joy of the truth I found there is with me to this day.I found God.
I had found Dolly Parton, and I loved them both.
It's kind of perfect in a way that you found that with dirty pictures on the wall and a busted up piano with a string.It somehow feels like all the Dolly things.
Yeah, the sexuality, the spirituality, the sensuality, and the music, all that is me.
And I remember when I left that old church, I was still walking around the road back up to our house, and Bonnie Owens, one of my old uncles that owned a sawmill up the road, and he came down, and I was just jumping, I was just flying, you know, just jumping up and down, all skipping around, and he said, where are you going on this fine day?
And I said, I'm on the road to paradise.And so I remember just saying that,
She says her uncle was a little confused.
But I still, like if your mama talks in tongues and your mama lays hands on people and you love your mama and your aunts and your uncles and your grandpa, that's real to them as what I have is real to me.
I think part of what I love about this story, well, a lot of things, it kind of captures Dolly Parton for me, how she can be all of these things at once.
She's able to pull in all of these disparate things from the borderlands and somehow hold them all together to where they don't feel contradictory.There's something welcoming about this kind of faith.It's so singular. permeable.
And as for Dolly, she says she can will herself back to that abandoned church anytime she wants.
It's like a little invisible wall.I can just kind of go through there and be in my God place.And I can stay there till I'm restored or healed in my spirit if something's really troublesome.And nobody can go there but me.I can't take nobody with me.
How do you go there?What do you do to get there?
I just walk right through it.
Sometimes she says if things have been really intense, she will fast for three or four days.No food, just water as a way to get back to that place.
I know when it's time.I just know if I don't have, if I can't deal with it anymore and I just am worrying too much, fretting too much.And I'm not, even if I pray and I'm not, I just think I have to stop this now.
I just have to go to my, my own little space.
Dolly Parton's miracle will continue in a moment.
I'm a very spiritual person, as you know.
Not religious, but I'm very... I connect to that, and that's where I get my energy, and that's where I get my creativity, that's where I get my strength, that's where I get my stamina to go on when things are hard.
I just kind of draw from that stuff out there that I feel is there for all of us.It's just that I connected to it early, and I just use it.
This is Dolly Parton's America, I'm Jad, I boomerang.My final interview with Dolly, we met at a small house that she owns in Nashville, not too far from where I grew up, actually.
Honestly, I thought, oh my God, I've passed by this house a million times on the way to school, I had no idea.We sat on a blue couch, she was dressed in all white, and I asked her some more questions about her faith, and also about the future.
So many people we spoke with refer to you as Saint Dolly. But it does make me wonder, what do you think happens when you're not here and it's just Saint Dolly and it's no longer Dolly Dolly?
Well, first of all, I'm no saint.Trust me.I'm no saint.But for me, as far as what I hope my music will be left behind, I hope that it will always live.I think a lot of that other stuff may fall away.
But I would like to think that I've left some good pieces of music.I think as long as time lasts, people will be doing music all kinds of different ways.
As we were talking, it became clear that this question that I had thrown out, what happens next, is something that her and her team are thinking about on all levels.
She hinted, without really elaborating, that they are thinking about business deals regarding her publishing catalog.They're already going into the vaults.
I am a lucky person because I've got hundreds, hundreds, even thousands of songs, and a big part of them have never even been recorded.
There's enough stuff to go on forever with my music, to do compilation albums, to do actually new and original stuff.And I am purposely
trying to put songs down for that very purpose, to have a click track and my vocals to where any arrangement can be done.
Will we be hearing Dolly albums of new material for 50 years?
From now on, where my music is concerned.
It could be that we'll hear your vocals over someone else's music 100 years from now.
Yeah, anybody could produce that.Anyone, any producer anywhere in the world, a hot producer.When I'm gone, They could take my songs, just the click track and my vocal. and build a complete arrangement around that.Any style, anything that we do.
Because as you know, if you've got a good click track and a vocal, anything can be done with that.So that will go on forever.I mean, I'm one of those people that believe in being prepared.
I don't want to ever leave my stuff in the same shape like Prince or Aretha or anybody that don't plan ahead with that.And as far as what happens after,
You know, we go on, like I say, I'm no saint, so I'm hoping just as a Christian faith person, you know, that we go on to a greater thing.
I believe that we're all part of that great divine plan, and I'm hoping to get on up there and do some more writing and singing.
play one of those golden harps and write some more songs and have my own mansion and walk them golden streets of glory and keep on doing it forever and ever and ever.So I'm going to get in the angel band for sure.
I'm going to play in the angel band and I'm going to maybe play the harp up there.I don't know.
You are just one prayer from heaven.
I really don't know where we go.I don't know if there's such a thing as reincarnation.I kind of believe all that kind of stuff.I'm just open to things.
And when I was working with Shirley MacLaine, who had that book out about reincarnation, and somebody said, oh, how'd you and Shirley MacLaine get along?And we got along fine.I said, I don't know that I believe in reincarnation.
And I didn't believe in it when I lived before. So, it's a joke.
Took me a second, sorry.I'm just saying, you don't really know.You just hope and you have faith.That's what faith is.But I believe that it's going to be better.I think it's not the end of me.I don't think it's the end of any of us.
I think we're recycled and if nothing else, we just go back into that great flow of divine energy and hopefully we can spread ourselves around in other wonderful ways.That's what I hope.
Dolly, again, I just really want to thank you.
Well, let me just say, though, that I feel honored, and hopefully you'll treat us with respect.
I was happy to spend the time, because once I got into it, when I saw that you really were sincere about it, and you really wanted to know my true feelings, then maybe something we've done might inspire people to do a little better.
I hope so.I hope so. Dolly Parton's America was produced, written, and edited by me and the incredible, amazing, invaluable Shimo Holiayi.Brought to you by Awesome Audio, OSM Audio, and WNYC Studios.
We had help from W. Harry Fortuna throughout the series.Huge thanks to him.Thank you to the folks at Sony Music, Carper Collins.Thanks to St.Augustine Church. Jonathan Fenelon and Vanessa Pena there.
And thanks to Nora Brown for singing for us in that church.Thank you to Lynn Sacco of the Dolly Parton's America class at the University of Tennessee, to all of her students who spent so much time with us.
To David Dotson of the Dollywood Foundation, Danny Nazel, Sam Haskell, Teresa Hughes.Thank you to the Editorial Brain Trust of Susie Lechtenberg, Lulu Miller, Pat Walters, Soren Wheeler, and Sam Shahi.
A very special thanks to all of the people on our Tiger team. Theodora Couslin, Rachel Lieberman, John Pasmore, Maya Pesini, Sahar Baharlou, Kim Nowacki, Millie Christie-Draveau, Liz Weber, Dan Fischette, and Ashley Luss.
Thank you to Christine DeCarvalho for the beautiful series art that you can see at dollypartonsamerica.org, where you can also find a playlist of music from the series.Thank you to Apple Music for partnering with us on that.
And I want to thank my dad and, of course, Dolly. If you like this series, and this is the first time you've ever heard anything I have been involved in, definitely go to radiolab.org and check out that show.17 years of content waiting for you.
Also, to keep tabs on myself, Shima, all the new projects that we will be developing, go to awesomeaudio.com.That's osmaudio.com.And that is a wrap.I'm Jed Abumrad signing off.Thanks for listening.
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