We are so sad to hear the news about Dolly Parton…

Of all the rockstars you can think of to hang out with, the one person I’d have really liked to have met was Dolly Parton. Everyone I’ve met who has crossed paths with her has said she was one of the most genuine, sincere people they’ve ever encountered.

Our former Music Editor Jaan Uhelszki had the chance to sit down with Dolly in Nashville and get this interview back in 2014 – when we put Dolly on the cover. Why would we not?

Here’s another look at that epic interview:


Dolly Parton has a gift of intimacy, and makes every person she comes into contact with feel like they’re the only person in the world. It’s not something you’d expect from one of country music’s most recognizable icons—someone who has sold more than 100 million records and just released her 42nd album, Blue Smoke. So, how does she do it?  “I never think of myself as a star. I think of myself as a working girl, always have. That’s why I never had any ego problems. I’m thankful and grateful,” she says. And you know she means it.  In a sit-down interview, TONEAudio talked to the eight-time Grammy winner, theme park mogul, movie star, philanthropist,  and singer-songwriter about cooking, creativity, Bob Dylan, and what she really thinks about when she’s onstage.

JU: You’ve just released your 42nd studio album. How do you know when it’s time to make a new record? Does a buzzer go off in your head? DP: Something like that. I have to weigh everything and ask myself: Should I tour? Put together a band? Record an album? I’m 68 now and I have to be smart about time. JU: So you overthink it? Or do songs usually just demand to be written and you know it’s time.

DP: Yeah, most of them do. But in this particular case, I had a lot of songs in the can. “Blue Smoke” I wrote years ago, and I used to do it onstage because it was just a fun song to do. A lot of fans remembered it and they kept saying, “Why don’t you ever put that out?” So when I got ready to do this [album], not only did I include the song but I thought Blue Smoke was a great title because I was going to do a lot of bluegrass stuff.

JU: And you love the word blue. You’ve put the name in so many of your song titles.

DP: I guess a lot of it comes from growing up in the Smokey Mountains. The Cherokee had a word, “shaconage,” and it meant land of blue smoke. That’s what they called them the Great Smokey Mountains. When I did my bluegrass album, I named it The Grass Was Blue. I was going to travel around with a bluegrass band, and at one time I thought I was going to call my band Blue Smoke. That was before I wrote the song. I was going to call my label Blue Indigo. I never thought about that until you said that. I wrote a song called  “Blue Me.”

JU: I love how you referenced the Cherokee word.

DP: Well, thank you, because I am very spiritual. I’m not religious at all but I totally believe in that. I have to. I need to. I can’t imagine anybody not believing in something bigger than us because I’d choose to believe it even it wasn’t so.

JU: You are a known early bird, and you’ve said you commune with God, or you actually write songs with him in what you call the Wee Wisdom Hours.

DP: Wee-hour wisdom.

JU: Is there a time that you always wake up? [Self help guru] Wayne Dwyer has said if you are awakened early in the morning at the same hour, you should stay up, because someone/some universal force has a message for you.

DP: Years ago, I used to wake, it was almost like clockwork, it was just a thing. I would wake up at 3:00 a.m. every day. But now that I’m older, I’m waking up earlier and earlier. I go to bed early though, but I get up really early because I love the mornings. That’s my time. Nobody else around, everybody asleep, all the energies have died down and I really feel that God’s just waiting to come there. I think about God as like a farmer, and he’s always throwing stuff out. I want to be one of those early-rising people so I get some of that stuff before it gets picked through. I always feel the energies, other people’s energies, bad or good, that the world is kind of settled about that time. So I just feel like it’s quieter and I have a clearer direction.

We all have our own time. That’s my time, anywhere from like midnight to six a.m. I’ll get up, I’ll do my spiritual work, I’ll answer mail or I’ll call in messages to be typed up, and I definitely always do my affirmations, my reading, my Scriptures, and whatever I’m doing at the time. A lot of times I write songs, especially if I’m writing for something. I wrote a lot of the stuff for Blue Smoke in the wee hours.

JU: You have some interesting things on the album. The cover of Bon Jovi’s “Lay Your Hands on Me” that you turned from hot to holy, and back to hot. Can you tell me a little bit about working with Jon Bon Jovi?

DP: We didn’t get together to do it. When I first heard that song years ago I thought, wow, that is spectacular. What a great gospel song. I grew up Pentecostal church where laying on hands meant invoking the Spirit. Or to pray for the sick. Even now I’m always asking God to lay his hands on me. And so when I first heard that I thought it was a gospel song till I started listening to what it was really saying. I’m always loving to do covers, so I thought, well, I just can’t take the liberties to think that I’m just going to go ahead and record this song without knowing if they’ll let me do it. My manager worked as Jon Bon Jovi’s tour manager for a long time, so he put me in touch with him and I just asked him if it would be okay if we turned his song into a gospel thing. He said he thought it would be fantastic. I said, “Well, you throw in some stuff, too.” He said, “Okay. I’ll throw in some stuff.” Then I called [exBon Jovi guitarist] Richie Sambora, who wrote the music for it, and made sure he was okay with it. I didn’t want to just take the liberties. I wanted to make sure that we were all okay. We sent things back and forth. This line works. What about this line? So out of all that, we got this version. I was really inspired, so I wrote a whole bunch of lines.

JU: You also cover Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Did you feel you needed to work with him on that?

DP: No, I did not. I met him years ago but he we really didn’t connect. Although, I’ve always loved his songs. I’d recorded “Blowin’ in the Wind” years ago on another album, and I’ve sung a lot of his songs through the years. But no. We just didn’t connect.

JU: You also sang a duet with Willie Nelson, “From Here To The Moon and Back.” You too seem to bring out the best in each other.

DP: I love Willie. I’ve worked with him through the years. He’s very hard to sing with because of his phrasing. I mean, just like you’d think, because we both are stylists, and you’d think we’d be able to do it easily. It was really fun singing with him, but it was like an exercise of some sort, trying to catch him with all his little phrases and all. He called up and said, “Let’s do that moon song you wrote because I can really play some hot guitar on that one.” I love that old funky sound he gets on that guitar. I love what he played on that, too. I’m glad we did that together.

JU: Do you have any rituals before you write?

DP: I cook. I love to get in the kitchen when I’m getting prepared to write because if I’m in a good creative mood, my food is spectacular. If my food is spectacular, my writing’s going to be spectacular.  It’s very creative for me, so I always cook and write, usually at the same time. When I prepare to write, what I love to do—my favorite thing to do in the world—is to have time set aside, like two or three weeks to say I’m just going to go write. I go up to my old mountain home. Sometimes I fast and pray for a few days to get myself kind of in a spiritual place—get through the headaches, and everything with comes with the fasting till I get kind of clear. I hate to fast but I try to do that and kind of humble myself a little bit. After that, I get into the writing, then it starts to be creative, and then I can cook. After I’ve got connected.

JU: You are in tremendous shape. You’re a flirt. You say you’ve never met a man you don’t like, yet you’re a role model for women. What do you attribute that to?

DP: Well, I think women see me more like a sister or a girlfriend, or like a special aunt. I think they sense that feeling I have for them because all of my sisters—I have five—and I were very close to my mother, my aunts, and my grandmas, so I just really connect with women. But I don’t think women are threatened by me. Because I’m overdone, I’m more like a cartoon character, so I don’t think they feel threatened in that way either. Like I’m going to steal their man.

JU: In your book My Life And Other Unfinished Beauty, there are a number of photographs of you. Despite what you say, you really were a natural beauty.

DP: I’m really not, trust me. You haven’t seen me without all my makeup. Even in those pictures, I was already made-up. I’m not a natural beauty so I’ve tried to make the most of everything I’ve got. I’ve tried to turn all my negatives into as many positives as I can. That makes me feel better.

JU: You were never afraid to show your brains or your tough side. Even in less-enlightened times. Where does that come from?

DP: I knew I was a woman but it didn’t dawn on me that could be a detriment until I came up against somebody who was trying to overrun me or come on too much, or trying to offer me this and that if I would do that. It was only then that I would [get tough] because I always believed in myself. I believed in my talent. I believed in my brains. I would always go into any place of business with any man, no matter how big or strong they were, and say:  “I’ve got something to offer here. I think I can make us both a lot of money if you’re interested in this.” But if it got out of line, I knew how to walk away and say, “I guess it wasn’t meant for us to do any business.” You always have to be willing to walk away from something that’s not right.

JU: You seem like you’ve always had that brutal confidence.

DP: Well, I always was confident in myself. But I think a lot of that comes from my faith in God, and depending on him and believing that through God all things are possible. I would gather strength from that. I’ve been stronger all my life because of that. I never turned [my belief] loose. Never stopped believing, never. Never will. Even if I die a horrible death, I can’t blame God for that because I’m sure I will have brought a lot of that on myself.

JU: What do you think your job is?  You have said you would have been a hairdresser if you hadn’t done this.

DP: Or a missionary. I woulda, too.

JU: But what do you think your job really is?

DP: I pray every day, and certainly every night before I go onstage, that God will let me shine and radiate with his light

And to let me be a blessing, and let me not have people idolize me because I do not like idolizing stuff. If they see a light in me, I want them to think that it’s the light of God. And even if I don’t get to heaven, if I can help somebody else head in a better direction, that makes me happy. I just want God to use me to uplift mankind, to let me do something to point people in his direction, not mine.

JU: They say that the people that you like are a mirror for you. You’re a mirror for so many people.

DP: Well, we’re all God’s children. We’re all pieces of God, we’re all pieces of one another. Everybody I see, I relate to. I see somebody in my family in that person, somebody I love. And I try to go right to that God light in everybody, to that God spark that we all have. I try to play to that even if I don’t, well, immediately like them. I know there’s that little spark in there.

JU: One of my favorite stories is when you went to see the Judds perform in Lake Tahoe and when they went offstage before their encore, you snuck out onstage and took their bows for them.

DP: I haven’t done anything like that in a while. I still am embarrassed about that. I had to do it, just like I had to take off all my clothes and run across Tom Jones’ lawn. But don’t put anything past me. I’m capable of doing anything.

JU: You mean if someone dares you to do something, you just have to follow through. I love that personality quirk of yours—if it’s a quirk.

DP: It is. I’m just like that. So if somebody dared me to do anything right now, I’m sure I would have to be held back from doing it. But I haven’t done anything like that lately. With the Judds, I was back there watching. But I don’t think they cared that I ran out there and took their bows, but I worried that they did. I’m sure they talked about it, talked about me bad. But I just couldn’t help it.

JU: Is there one thing you’d change about yourself?

DP: Well, to change one thing would change everything. It’s like of course we all wish to have great hair if we don’t. We all want to be tall if we’re short. But I think God gives us just what we need to have and he has to keep us humble some way, so I just accept that I am who I am and how God meant me to be, and it’s working so far. People always ask me, “Do you have any regrets?” I say, “Well, I don’t think so because I never did anything I might regret.” I might regret getting caught at a few things but I didn’t regret the doing it because I never did anything that didn’t feel like the thing I had to be doing at the time, or wanted to do. I mean so how can you go back and say, ooh, I regret that?

JU: I don’t know about you, but I just regret the things I didn’t do. The shoes I didn’t buy.

DP: Yeah, that would be me. I would regret more of what I don’t do than what I’ve done. Always.

JU: UK talk show host Graham Norton talked about how much he loved you, and thought you could be friends. He wanted to. But he realized that you really couldn’t, because you were busy being Dolly all the time. Is that accurate? Are you Dolly all the time?

DP: Did you think that was a negative statement?

JU: Maybe a little. I think he was just hurt. Or wanted you to let him into your life. Into your inner circle.

DP: Well, it’s not that you don’t let them in because every time I meet somebody, like I say, I play to that little spark that I find in them, and I loved him. I thought we worked so great together. But it’s true, sort of like me and Kenny’s [Rogers] song from this new album [“You Can’t Make Old Friends”]. It’s like there’s new people all around. But it’s just that you just don’t really have the time to even be with your family and your old friends, or do the things you need to do. But it doesn’t mean every now and then there’s a person that will worm their way. But I don’t even, like I say, have time for the things I need to do.

JU: Is it difficult to be such a big celebrity and have a private life?

DP: No, not for me. My life is good. I’ve managed to manage that really well. When I’m home, I’m really home. When I’m with my husband, I’m totally with him. I figured that out early. I had to because this is what I do. I’ve dreamed myself into a corner, so I have to be responsible for all of the things that I’ve dreamed and I’ve seen come true. I’ve been blessed that my dreams come true. But there’s a big responsibility. It’s wearing. Sometimes you just physically and emotionally can hardly keep up.

But, this is what I do. I never think of myself as a star. I think of myself as a working girl, always have. That’s why I never had any ego problems. I’m thankful and grateful. And I look at the body of work that I’ve done sometimes and I’m just shocked by it. I’m amazed by it and think, “How in hell did I get all that done? In this many years. How did I do all that?” But I did it.

JU: You have many gifts, but I think one of your greatest gifts is your ability to connect. To fully see someone when you’re with them, as if they’re the only person in the world.

DP: Well, thank you. That’s what I go back to that looking for God in everybody. Finding that spark. But I do feel that way, though. People also say, “Don’t you get so tired of singing the same songs, saying the same stuff?” I say no, because every one of those little faces is not a face I’d seen before, so that’s the first time they heard it from me. First time I’ve said it to them. And I know that it’s real coming from me, and I know that it’s like an energy there. Even though I do these interviews day in, day out, it’s like looking at you and the way you ask questions and the tone of voice makes me have a whole different delivery, makes me add more to something I’ve said before. But it takes on new meaning for me.

JU: What do you think about when you’re onstage? Did I unplug the iron?

DP: You know, that’s funny. Right in the middle of a song, especially songs when I’m talking to the audience, I’m really right there with them because you can’t lose your concentration. But I’ve sung these songs so many times, right in the middle of a song my mind will trail off, and I’ll think, “Did I leave the coffee pot on? Did I unplug the iron?” Like you said. And then I’ll think, “Ooh, you better get back or you’re going to miss your words.”

20 Things You Might Not Know About Dolly Parton

1. Dolly once lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest.

2. While it’s reported she’s Miley Cyrus’ Godmother, Parton is Cyrus’ honorary Godmother. There was never a formal ceremony.

3. It’s often reported that her breasts, measuring a reported 40DD, are insured for $600,000. False.

4. While Parton turned down Jack White’s offer to produce her, she did let him buy her and her friends dinner at an expensive Nashville hotspot.

5. Parton and her husband Carl Dean often go food shopping in the middle of the night at 24-hour Walmart near their home outside of Nashville.

6. Parton has stopped trying to disguise herself in public because people always recognize her voice. Last time she tried, some kids said: “You’re Dolly Parton in a black wig!’”

7. Although she’s co-owned the Dollywood theme park since 1986, she claims she’s “too terrified” to ride any of the rides.

8. The world’s first cloned mammal—a sheep—was named Dolly after her in 1996.

9. Parton once had a line of wigs distributed through Revlon cosmetics.

10. Parton has never made a  big decision without fasting first. She usually fasts in multiples of seven. Either seven days, 14 days, or 21 days.

11. She was rejected from the high-school cheerleading squad at Sevier County High School.

12. The Ku Klux Klan once picketed Dollywood because of Parton’s annual Gay Day.

13. She once played herself in an episode of “Alvin & the Chipmunks.”

14. Kevin Costner was the one insisted Whitney Houston record Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” for The Bodyguard.

15. “I Will Always Love You” was Saddam Hussein’s reelection theme song.

16. A photograph of Parton’s little-seen husband Carl Dean is on the cover 1969’s My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy.

17. Parton received death threats after she wrote “Travelin’ Thru” for the film Transamerica, about a transgender woman.

18. She has three tattoos: An angel on her upper left arm, butterfly on her chest, and a red flower in between her cleavage. 1

9. Her production company, Sandollar, produced the hit show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

20. Parton hates to fly and suffers from motion sickness.