“Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.”
—Judy Garland
Story from Dolly Parton’s autobiography, ‘My Life and Other Unfinished Business.’
That silly preacher picked the wrong day to bother Lee Parton. His daughter remembers it well. Lee was “sweatin’ and a’groanin’ tryin’ to get a stump out of the ground.”
Parton’s first self-produced album
That snooty ol’ preacher? There he was in his starched collar, grinning at Lee over the fence. “This particular preacher wasn’t much of a help to anybody. And he seemed to show up only when he was out beatin’ the bushes for money,” Lee’s daughter, Dolly, recalls. (Yes, that Dolly Parton. This is a story from Dolly’s autobiography about her very smart dad.)
At the time, Dolly was around five, and the Partons were poor as dirt, but rich in pride. They were coming up, too. Dolly’s dad worked hard to provide.
In the early days, it was “sharecropping” (farming someone else’s land in return for some crops). Dolly’s mom, dad and all 12 Parton kids crammed in a one-room cabin. No electricity… and plumbing? Forget it. The only “runnin’ water” was the kind that ran in the creek nearby.
But Dolly’s dad saved up. He banked just enough. About five thousand dollars bought the family a house, a giant step up. “Over in the holler” the family called it… For sure, it wasn’t much.
The Very Best of Dolly Parton
Weeds ran wild. Fences sagged. The roof leaked. “Making something out of this was gonna be more work than sharecroppin’ ever was,” says Dolly, “but Daddy did it.”
And he was proud, she recalls. It was his. It was theirs. Dolly remembers the long, hard hours her dad worked to get it in shape — month after month, day after day. The town folk noticed. So did that preacher.
“Well hellllllloooo, Lee!” the Parson exclaimed (big, fake grin stretched ear to ear).
“This is a right nice place you and the Lord got here,” the preacher said to Dolly’s dad.
Lee seized the moment. Wiped the sweat from his brow. Looked that preacher up and down. Then, with a gleam in his eye, Dolly’s quick-witted daddy replied,
“Yeah, well, you shoulda seen this sonofabitch when the Lord had it all by Himself.”
In the yard, Dolly’s mama surely giggled. You can imagine the kids (old enough to understand) covering their grins with their hands.
That was Dolly’s dad — he couldn’t read or write, but he was sharp as a tack. And he knew how to work hard… and had no patience for pretense.
Even though Dolly’s now got fame, her friends and fans know she’s just the same. After she rose to the top, she penned “Smoky Mountain Memories” as a tribute to Dad. Her Top 40 hits “Daddy” and “Daddy Come and Get Me” were most surely sung with her daddy in mind.
What makes Dolly a star who all of us love?
She understands the right path to fame.
Be who you are.
Down Home with Dolly
Photograph by Pat Murphy Racey, Dollywood Publicity
Dolly Parton is a cultural icon best known for her work as a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in country music. Dolly is also an actress, author, philanthropist, and business-woman. She has composed over 3,000 songs in her 60-some year career, many of which became number 1 hits, earning her a number of Grammy’s.
As a businesswoman, she co-owns a major film production company and is the force behind the theme park Dollywood, which brought greater prosperity to the Smokey Mountains of East Tennessee — the poor, rural region of her upbringing.
Dolly was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush in 2006; the Living Legend Medal by the U.S. Library of Congress; and the Kennedy Center Honors, among numerous others.