Dolly Parton has fascinated people from every walk of life for most of her professional career, an interest that extends far beyond the confines of her music. Over the last 40 years or so, countless thousands of reviews, interviews and features ranging from the superficial and inaccurate to the highly perceptive and in-depth have appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world catering to reader interest in Dolly’s private, professional and business life. She has also been the subject of learned articles by academics interested in sociological phenomena associated with her fame and achievements. Such widespread media interest, sometimes highly intrusive, has not always been to her liking yet she has acknowledged that being in the public eye helps to maintain interest in her as an artist and in her business ventures, such as Dollywood.
Dolly has largely courted publicity and has succeeded in retaining a high media profile long after most of her country contemporaries have largely faded from view. Whilst I endeavoured to read as many articles as possible, the fact is that I could only guarantee of seeing a small percentage of the total print devoted to her. Hopefully the vast amount I read as part of my research constitutes a representative sample. I am particularly indebted to the Country Music Foundation and the Nashville Public Library for making available large quantities of press cuttings going back to the Sixties. Special thanks to Michael Creed who, along with a partner, runs the newsletter Dolly Part’ners UK.
The internet is now a research tool of infinite scale with large quantities of new material being added each day. Key in “Dolly Parton” to Google and you are presented with over 600, 000 sites. Facts and figures, pictures, film and album reviews, song lyrics, opinions, are all available at the click of a mouse. As with the massive number of articles written about Dolly over the years it is only possible to assess a small percentage of the total. Dolly now has an official website and a number of particularly dedicated fans have set up websites in her honour, some of which are very informative, well organised and user friendly. Particularly helpful were www.raredolly.com, www.dollyon-line and www.dollymania.net.
Video material, mainly featuring Dolly’s two television series, was provided by the Country Music Foundation in Nashville. Again, Michael Creed provided a large quantity of miscellaneous video material including films, interviews, guest appearances and even clips from home movies showing Dolly as a young girl. Michael also lent me The Journal Of Country Music Volume X, Number 1 (1985) which contains an informative article “excerpted from an autobiography of Porter Wagoner” that was said to be “still in progress”. It apparently still is.
Dolly’s four cassette readings from her 1994 autobiography were illuminating – not simply for the content which was of course available in the book but for the passion she put into the task, delivering the words like a stage performance. It serves to demonstrate Dolly’s powerful ability to conjure emotions for her audience even in the sterile environment of a recording studio and illustrates why Dolly is the star she is.
Of the books in the following Bibliography, I particularly drew on Willadeene Parton’s works on the Parton and Owens’ family’s life and Steve Eng’s biography of Porter Wagoner which contained a lot of information not readily available elsewhere.