How did she do it? 
Talent obviously mattered. But talent alone cannot explain how a woman born into poverty in rural Tennessee built a career lasting approximately seven decades and encompassing country and pop music, songwriting, movies, television, publishing, tourism, business and philanthropy.Plenty of enormously talented performers disappear after a few hits. Some are exploited by managers or record companies. Others cannot adapt when audiences change. Still others become prisoners of the public identities that originally made them famous.
Parton escaped virtually all of those traps.
Part 1
Look closely at her career and something more complicated than celebrity emerges. Parton appears to have possessed an unusual combination of creative ability, business judgment, self-awareness and an instinct for understanding audiences. She protected valuable intellectual property, took calculated risks and repeatedly expanded the meaning of “Dolly Parton” without making the public feel that she had abandoned the person they originally embraced. Long before entertainers routinely talked about creating personal brands, Parton had turned herself into one.
Perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in the way she treated her songs. She wrote thousands and she understood the economic reality that has bedeviled generations of musicians: Creating valuable music does not necessarily mean that the person who created it will own it. The famous Elvis Presley episode illustrates the point beautifully. He wanted to record Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” For an ambitious songwriter, an Elvis Presley recording could have seemed like an opportunity too enormous to refuse.
There was a catch. Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wanted a substantial share of the publishing rights.
Parton refused.
She later said that losing the Presley recording opportunity broke her heart. Nevertheless, she would not surrender ownership of the song. Think about the power relationship involved. Parton was effectively saying no to Elvis Presley because she believed the long-term value of her composition outweighed the immediate prestige of having one of the world’s biggest entertainers record it.
Then came Whitney Houston.
Part II
Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” recorded for The Bodyguard, became one of the biggest-selling singles in music history. Parton still owned her song. The episode is usually told as delightful music-industry folklore. It should also be taught as a lesson about intellectual property. Parton demonstrated the same willingness to accept short-term risk when she separated professionally from Porter Wagoner.
Joining The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967 had given her an enormous career boost. Wagoner’s established television audience introduced Parton to country-music listeners across the country, and their partnership became highly successful. Eventually, however, what had opened a door threatened to become a ceiling. Parton wanted an independent career. Staying with Wagoner offered security and continued exposure, but it also risked permanently defining her as the female half of somebody else’s act.
She left.
“I Will Always Love You” was written partly as a farewell to Wagoner. In retrospect, her departure can look inevitable because it was anything but inevitable at the time. Parton was wagering that she could become a bigger star independently than she could remain as part of a successful partnership. That gamble worked. Then there was the most conspicuous element of the enterprise: Dolly herself.
Part III
The towering blond hair, heavy makeup, rhinestones, high heels, tight clothes and exaggerated femininity became instantly recognizable. It would be difficult to argue that this public image simply happened. Parton constructed it. What makes the strategy fascinating is the apparent contradiction at its center. Few major entertainers looked more deliberately manufactured, yet Parton managed to convey an extraordinary sense of authenticity. She didn’t pretend otherwise.
She joked about her appearance and exaggerated it further. She famously explained that as a child she had admired a woman in her community whom other people regarded as the town tramp because young Dolly thought she was beautiful. That ability to joke about herself gave Parton enormous control over the way other people joked about her.
Make fun of the hair? Dolly already had. Make a crack about the breasts? She could probably make a better one. Suggest that the clothes were excessive? Excess was precisely the point. Rather than spending her career defensively explaining herself, Parton turned the joke into part of the act. There was another advantage to the persona: People could underestimate the woman wearing the costume.
Country music during Parton’s rise was controlled by men. The flamboyant blonde with the Tennessee accent could have been easily dismissed as lightweight. Parton sometimes seemed perfectly content to let people make that mistake. Behind the persona, however, was a sagacious woman paying close attention to publishing rights, contracts, television opportunities, movie roles, ownership and the commercial value of her identity.
Parton did not require everybody sitting across the negotiating table to appreciate her intelligence. What mattered was whether she understood what was happening at that table. Her ambitions also extended beyond the country-music establishment that had created her. Crossing over into mainstream pop risked alienating traditional country fans. Parton took the chance anyway. “Here You Come Again” became a major crossover success. Then 9 to 5 expanded her audience dramatically. The 1980 movie placed Parton alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and demonstrated that she could succeed as a comic actress. Her title song simultaneously became an anthem expressing the frustrations of working life.
People who might never have tuned their radios to a country station now knew Dolly Parton. Movies including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias extended that reach further. The important point wasn’t simply that Parton kept trying new things. Plenty of celebrities do that and fail spectacularly. Parton generally expanded without making her previous audience feel discarded. Eventually, the career evolved into something even more sophisticated. Dollywood demonstrates the principle.
Part IV
A celebrity-owned or celebrity-branded theme park could easily have become a tacky exercise in attaching a famous name to an unrelated business.
Dollywood made sense because it was connected to the existing Parton story. She came from Tennessee. She continually celebrated her Appalachian upbringing. Her childhood, family and regional identity were woven throughout her songwriting and public persona. A Dolly Parton entertainment destination in Tennessee. therefore. didn’t seem disconnected from the singer.
It reinforced her.
Music strengthened Dolly’s public identity. That identity supported Dollywood. Dollywood strengthened her association with Tennessee and Appalachia. Tourism strengthened the businesses, and the businesses further expanded the Dolly Parton name. In contemporary business terminology, she had created something resembling a brand ecosystem. And then Parton did something that significantly changed what her fame represented. She became increasingly associated with philanthropy.
The Imagination Library began in Tennessee in 1995, inspired partly by her father’s inability to read and write. Its idea was almost startlingly uncomplicated: Give children books: The program ultimately distributed hundreds of millions of them.
Parton also contributed to education, disaster relief and medical research. Her $1 million contribution to Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped support research associated with development of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. That philanthropy expanded the public meaning of Dolly Parton beyond entertainment. People who couldn’t name three Parton songs could revere her putting books into children’s hands. Celebrity had acquired another purpose.
Parton’s political instincts also contributed to her longevity. She generally avoided becoming a partisan combatant. That didn’t mean she lacked personal opinions, but she frequently emphasized that her audience included Americans with different political views. The consequences were remarkable. Liberals embraced Dolly. Conservatives embraced Dolly. Rural audiences identified with her. LGBTQ audiences embraced her. Christians embraced her. Hollywood embraced her. Working class Americans heardf themselves in her songs, while the country establishment that launched her career never completely lost its claim on her.
Part V
Maintaining such a diverse audience in an increasingly polarized culture required more than charm. It required knowing when not to turn every opinion into a public declaration. That restraint was another form of career management. None of this requires us to turn Parton into a saint following her death. Just the opposite. Remove the posthumous canonization and the underlying achievement becomes easier to see. A poor girl from the Great Smoky Mountains entered an entertainment industry dominated by men. She wrote songs and protected their ownership. She left the professional partnership that helped make her famous when she decided it was restricting her future.
She moved from country into pop and from records into movies. She turned an exaggerated appearance into an instantly recognizable trademark. She laughed at herself before others could use the same material against her. She allowed people to underestimate her while she conducted business. Then she built enterprises around an identity that remained coherent enough for audiences to recognize. She used part of the resulting fortune for philanthropy that substantially expanded her reputation beyond show business.
And she managed variations of that dynamic balancing act while generations changed, musical tastes shifted, political divisions widened and the technologies through which Americans consumed entertainment were repeatedly transformed. That may be a more revealing measure of Dolly Parton’s achievement than another declaration that she was an icon. There have always been gifted singers. Many vanish
Gifted songwriters lost control of their work, movie stars saw their audiences vanished, celebrities whose fortunes evaporated and famous entertainers who discovered that fame doesn’t automatically confer business judgment. Parton avoided those outcomes.
So perhaps the most extraordinary thing Dolly Parton created wasn’t the five-star “Jolene,” “9 to 5” or even “I Will Always Love You.” Perhaps her most ambitious and successful creation was the one that took approximately seven decades to complete: Dolly Parton!!!
AMEN TO THAT!
August 27
News Coverage of the Death of the Iconic Dolly Parton: Did the Pundits and Aficionados Get It Right?
Part II
Dolly Parton’s success allows for a question that deserves more attention than the flood of nostalgic and never ending tributes that followed her death,How did she do it?
Talent obviously mattered. But talent alone cannot explain how a woman born into poverty in rural Tennessee built a career lasting approximately seven decades and encompassing country and pop music, songwriting, movies, television, publishing, tourism, business and philanthropy.Plenty of enormously talented performers disappear after a few hits. Some are exploited by managers or record companies. Others cannot adapt when audiences change. Still others become prisoners of the public identities that originally made them famous.
Parton escaped virtually all of those traps.
Part 1
Look closely at her career and something more complicated than celebrity emerges. Parton appears to have possessed an unusual combination of creative ability, business judgment, self-awareness and an instinct for understanding audiences. She protected valuable intellectual property, took calculated risks and repeatedly expanded the meaning of “Dolly Parton” without making the public feel that she had abandoned the person they originally embraced. Long before entertainers routinely talked about creating personal brands, Parton had turned herself into one.
Perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in the way she treated her songs. She wrote thousands and she understood the economic reality that has bedeviled generations of musicians: Creating valuable music does not necessarily mean that the person who created it will own it. The famous Elvis Presley episode illustrates the point beautifully. He wanted to record Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” For an ambitious songwriter, an Elvis Presley recording could have seemed like an opportunity too enormous to refuse.
There was a catch. Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wanted a substantial share of the publishing rights.
Parton refused.
She later said that losing the Presley recording opportunity broke her heart. Nevertheless, she would not surrender ownership of the song. Think about the power relationship involved. Parton was effectively saying no to Elvis Presley because she believed the long-term value of her composition outweighed the immediate prestige of having one of the world’s biggest entertainers record it.
Then came Whitney Houston.
Part II
Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” recorded for The Bodyguard, became one of the biggest-selling singles in music history. Parton still owned her song. The episode is usually told as delightful music-industry folklore. It should also be taught as a lesson about intellectual property. Parton demonstrated the same willingness to accept short-term risk when she separated professionally from Porter Wagoner.
Joining The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967 had given her an enormous career boost. Wagoner’s established television audience introduced Parton to country-music listeners across the country, and their partnership became highly successful. Eventually, however, what had opened a door threatened to become a ceiling. Parton wanted an independent career. Staying with Wagoner offered security and continued exposure, but it also risked permanently defining her as the female half of somebody else’s act.
She left.
“I Will Always Love You” was written partly as a farewell to Wagoner. In retrospect, her departure can look inevitable because it was anything but inevitable at the time. Parton was wagering that she could become a bigger star independently than she could remain as part of a successful partnership. That gamble worked. Then there was the most conspicuous element of the enterprise: Dolly herself.
Part III
The towering blond hair, heavy makeup, rhinestones, high heels, tight clothes and exaggerated femininity became instantly recognizable. It would be difficult to argue that this public image simply happened. Parton constructed it. What makes the strategy fascinating is the apparent contradiction at its center. Few major entertainers looked more deliberately manufactured, yet Parton managed to convey an extraordinary sense of authenticity. She didn’t pretend otherwise.
She joked about her appearance and exaggerated it further. She famously explained that as a child she had admired a woman in her community whom other people regarded as the town tramp because young Dolly thought she was beautiful. That ability to joke about herself gave Parton enormous control over the way other people joked about her.
Make fun of the hair? Dolly already had. Make a crack about the breasts? She could probably make a better one. Suggest that the clothes were excessive? Excess was precisely the point. Rather than spending her career defensively explaining herself, Parton turned the joke into part of the act. There was another advantage to the persona: People could underestimate the woman wearing the costume.
Country music during Parton’s rise was controlled by men. The flamboyant blonde with the Tennessee accent could have been easily dismissed as lightweight. Parton sometimes seemed perfectly content to let people make that mistake. Behind the persona, however, was a sagacious woman paying close attention to publishing rights, contracts, television opportunities, movie roles, ownership and the commercial value of her identity.
Parton did not require everybody sitting across the negotiating table to appreciate her intelligence. What mattered was whether she understood what was happening at that table. Her ambitions also extended beyond the country-music establishment that had created her. Crossing over into mainstream pop risked alienating traditional country fans. Parton took the chance anyway. “Here You Come Again” became a major crossover success. Then 9 to 5 expanded her audience dramatically. The 1980 movie placed Parton alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and demonstrated that she could succeed as a comic actress. Her title song simultaneously became an anthem expressing the frustrations of working life.
People who might never have tuned their radios to a country station now knew Dolly Parton. Movies including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias extended that reach further. The important point wasn’t simply that Parton kept trying new things. Plenty of celebrities do that and fail spectacularly. Parton generally expanded without making her previous audience feel discarded. Eventually, the career evolved into something even more sophisticated. Dollywood demonstrates the principle.
Part IV
A celebrity-owned or celebrity-branded theme park could easily have become a tacky exercise in attaching a famous name to an unrelated business.
Dollywood made sense because it was connected to the existing Parton story. She came from Tennessee. She continually celebrated her Appalachian upbringing. Her childhood, family and regional identity were woven throughout her songwriting and public persona. A Dolly Parton entertainment destination in Tennessee. therefore. didn’t seem disconnected from the singer.
It reinforced her.
Music strengthened Dolly’s public identity. That identity supported Dollywood. Dollywood strengthened her association with Tennessee and Appalachia. Tourism strengthened the businesses, and the businesses further expanded the Dolly Parton name. In contemporary business terminology, she had created something resembling a brand ecosystem. And then Parton did something that significantly changed what her fame represented. She became increasingly associated with philanthropy.
The Imagination Library began in Tennessee in 1995, inspired partly by her father’s inability to read and write. Its idea was almost startlingly uncomplicated: Give children books: The program ultimately distributed hundreds of millions of them.
Parton also contributed to education, disaster relief and medical research. Her $1 million contribution to Vanderbilt University Medical Center helped support research associated with development of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. That philanthropy expanded the public meaning of Dolly Parton beyond entertainment. People who couldn’t name three Parton songs could revere her putting books into children’s hands. Celebrity had acquired another purpose.
Parton’s political instincts also contributed to her longevity. She generally avoided becoming a partisan combatant. That didn’t mean she lacked personal opinions, but she frequently emphasized that her audience included Americans with different political views. The consequences were remarkable. Liberals embraced Dolly. Conservatives embraced Dolly. Rural audiences identified with her. LGBTQ audiences embraced her. Christians embraced her. Hollywood embraced her. Working class Americans heardf themselves in her songs, while the country establishment that launched her career never completely lost its claim on her.
Part V
Maintaining such a diverse audience in an increasingly polarized culture required more than charm. It required knowing when not to turn every opinion into a public declaration. That restraint was another form of career management. None of this requires us to turn Parton into a saint following her death. Just the opposite. Remove the posthumous canonization and the underlying achievement becomes easier to see. A poor girl from the Great Smoky Mountains entered an entertainment industry dominated by men. She wrote songs and protected their ownership. She left the professional partnership that helped make her famous when she decided it was restricting her future.
She moved from country into pop and from records into movies. She turned an exaggerated appearance into an instantly recognizable trademark. She laughed at herself before others could use the same material against her. She allowed people to underestimate her while she conducted business. Then she built enterprises around an identity that remained coherent enough for audiences to recognize. She used part of the resulting fortune for philanthropy that substantially expanded her reputation beyond show business.
And she managed variations of that dynamic balancing act while generations changed, musical tastes shifted, political divisions widened and the technologies through which Americans consumed entertainment were repeatedly transformed. That may be a more revealing measure of Dolly Parton’s achievement than another declaration that she was an icon. There have always been gifted singers. Many vanish
Gifted songwriters lost control of their work, movie stars saw their audiences vanished, celebrities whose fortunes evaporated and famous entertainers who discovered that fame doesn’t automatically confer business judgment. Parton avoided those outcomes.
So perhaps the most extraordinary thing Dolly Parton created wasn’t the five-star “Jolene,” “9 to 5” or even “I Will Always Love You.” Perhaps her most ambitious and successful creation was the one that took approximately seven decades to complete: Dolly Parton!!!
AMEN TO THAT!
Categories
News, Commentary Opinion Fit to Print