On Dolly Parton, Brilliant In Every Era

Today marks an unfathomable loss: Dolly Parton has died. Brilliant artist, devoted philanthropist, remarkable human; to list her achievements here feels redundant, as the cult of Dolly has long since gone national. Here, I've collected some of my writing on Dolly that has been scrubbed from the web; it was originally presented as digital liner notes for a series of Parton reissues put out by Vinyl Me Please. Conveniently, I wrote about three albums that offer snapshots of the star at three distinct stages: her solo debut, her commercial peak, and her veteran, catalog artist era. Hopefully it will guide some listening, remembering and mourning.

Hello, I'm Dolly (1967)

It's hard to imagine a time when the music industry didn't know what to do with Dolly Parton — before she was instantly acknowledged as not just a self-evident musical genius, but a larger-than-life multimedia icon. But when a 19-year-old Dolly Rebecca Parton first signed to Monument Records in 1965, those men who thought they held the keys to her musical future were befuddled.

"My voice is pitched real high and people thought it sounded childish," Parton explained in her first major interview with the Music City News in 1967. "They thought it sounded young — too young — so they thought I might have a better chance in rock 'n' roll since you really didn't have to sing any certain way to be rock 'n' roll," she quipped, laughing. Indeed, Parton's first singles are a mishmash of '60s pop stylings, a little rockabilly and a little in line with the era's girl groups, with her irrepressible voice shining through all the while.

Luckily, Dolly herself was never confused about why she came to Nashville the day after she graduated high school from her tiny hometown in Eastern Tennessee. "I really came to do country because I always sung country," the 21-year-old said in that same first interview, with characteristic gumption. "That's what I was and what I wanted to be."

Converting The Skeptics: Roger Miller

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Dolly Parton and the Highwomen at Newport Folk: An Excerpt from 'Her Country'

Over the past few months, I've been really enjoying sharing some archival interviews from people I spoke with for my book Her Country, which will finally be available in the UK on September 24 via Omnibus Press. You can preorder a copy here, which has a new cover,

How Nashville Could Make Country Music Stop Being A Punchline

It's sort of a surreal time to be writing this newsletter. (Also, a surreal time to be alive I suppose but when isn't that the case…) For years now, Marissa and I have jointly been banging the drum: Appreciate the women in country music, and make

Put A Record On: Outlaws Real and Imagined

Welcome back to Don’t Rock the Inbox. Here’s this week’s music recommendation post and playlist, which are for paying subscribers only. If you’re interested in paid content but not able to afford it, shoot us an email. The Good "If I Was An Outlaw,"