Dolly Parton

0:00Billionaire Mark Cuban has stared into the belly of the beast of America's health care system. I mean, it's so bad you can go through a long list of really quality hospitals and they don't know their costs. So, can Medicare for all be a solution? We take a hard look at the cost of the program along with US health care itself. Find this and hear more stories from the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. No matter what their taste is in music, people love Dolly Parton. Musicians and singers from all different genres have covered songs she wrote or made famous, from jazz saxophone and sonny Rollins to Beyoncé. And while politics divide our country, loving her is something that unites us. She died yesterday at the age of 80. Today as we mourn her death, we're going to feature the interview I recorded with her in 2001. She's been on my mind for the past couple of weeks, ever since I heard one of her songs on the radio that I hadn't heard before.

1:02She didn't write it, but her voice is so gorgeous on it, I had to play it again when I got home and have played it several times since. It's called Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You. In 1980, it became one of her many number one hits. Here it is. I'm one who I used to take comfort from long before I met you. I caught a spark from his eyes, a forgotten desire. With the word or a touch, I could have rekindle that fire.

2:02Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You. No one can light up the night like you do. A flickering embers of love I've known one or two. Old Flames Can't Hold A Candle To You. Dali Parton was a singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur and philanthropist. She was successful enough and had a big enough personality to start her own theme park, Dali Wood. She became a singer on Country Music Star Porter Wagner's TV show in 1967. She went on to have a solo career with many hits including Jo-Leen, which Beyoncé recorded on her Country Music album Cowboy Carter,

3:079-5, and I will always love you, which was later a huge hit for Whitney Houston. When I spoke with Dali Parton in 2001, her recording career had recently returned to the music she grew up with. Her 1999 recording, The Grass is Blue, won the International Bluegrass Music Association's Album of the Year Award. We spoke after the release of her follow-up album Little Sparrow, that featured traditional mountain music as well as her original songs in that vein. We started with the title track, which she wrote. The first fragile little thing Little Sparrow, Little Sparrow, Flies so high and feels no pain.

4:11Oh ye maidens, heed my warning, never trust heart to me. They will crush you like a sparrow, leaving you to never me. They will vow to always love you, swear no love, but yours will do. Then they'll leave you for another. Break your little heart in a tomb. Little sparrow, little sparrow, precious sparrow, little sparrow, little sparrow, little sparrow, fly so high and feels good.

5:16That's Daly Parton with the title track from her new CD, Little sparrow. Daly Parton, welcome to Fresh Air. Well, thank you ain't you glad we started out with something upbeat, like a broken heart. But anyway, I thought that would be a good one to start with since it is the name of the album that I'm out trying to promote. Because I need the money, because you know it costs a lot to make me look cheap. But anyway, thanks for having me on too. I'm looking forward to spending some time with you. This new CD and your previous CD, The Grass is Blue, they're both traditional music. And I'm interested in why you're heading in that direction now. You know, as opposed to a more almost like show business version of country music. Well, I have always loved this kind of music. I really think this style of music is more suited to my voice. This is the kind of music that I used to sing all my days growing up back in the Smoky Mountains. And this music is really so now people are really into the simplicity of it.

6:18And so just for fun for myself, there was a poll in the Bluegrass community of what person they'd like to hear most do. Bluegrass album that hadn't done one and they said me. So I won, you know, hands down with that. So I said to Steve Buckingham, when we did The Grass is Blue, the album just before this one. I said, well, let's just do a Bluegrass album. And lo and behold, we won the Bluegrass album of the year with that. So we thought, well, we need to do something along the same lines. But I didn't want to just do a full, blown Bluegrass album and try to just do exactly what we did with the others. So we wanted to expand it. So we did a little more mountain music. We added a little bit of flavors of some Irish sounds also. So I call this a blue mountain music. It's like Bluegrass and mountain music. So that kind of seems to sum up what the style is, I think. You were born in 1946 in a one-room cabin in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. What was the music you heard as a child? Well, a lot of the stuff that we heard was that old porch pick and music. Old songs brought back from England and Ireland that all appellate to music.

7:20And a lot of the stuff that people up in the mountains wrote. So my mother was, and all my mom was people, used to always play and sing. Mommy used to sing a lot. So we would sing like a lot of the old gospel songs. A lot of old gospel songs were written to sound old, like I say, by a lot of my own people. Who was most musical in your family? All of us. My mother was very musical and my grandpa Jake, I think, was a preacher, a pinnacoste preacher, that I wrote a song about many years ago called Daddy was an old time preacher, man. I think he was a music teacher of sorts back there in the hills. I have, there's 12 of us kids, six girls and six boys, and we all sing and write and play. It's just that I think I've taken it farther. I don't know that I'm near as good as some of the others, but I've been more willing to sacrifice and work a little harder than some of the others might have been willing to do. Just because they weren't having a family and do other things. But there's a lot of talent in this family. Do you remember the first songs that really meant something to you?

8:20Yeah, the songs that I used to hear, my folks sing back home and stuff. Mama used to sing about, she used to tell stories from the Bible and sing a lot of those old timey songs. But the stuff I used to hear was a church, one of my favorite songs of all time is, if we never meet again, the side of heaven. And my dad passed away a few weeks ago and he always loved that song. Of course, I was way too emotional. I'm very sorry. Thank you very much. But I was too emotional to sing in that original song. So, like later, I went up to the grave and just sung it for myself and for daddy. So anyway, those are the kind of songs that I always loved. And I recorded, if we never meet again, on an album once, from Dollar Wood, a live album. That album was called Heart Songs, and they are Heart Songs. So I grew up just 11, all those old folk songs of tragedy, like the two little orphans and all that sort of stuff. And someday I hope, and possibly even from my next album, to do an album of a lot of those old mountain true folk songs.

9:22When did you start writing songs and realising that you had an ear for that as well as for singing? Well, I started singing already on television when I was 10 years old. But I started playing guitar and writing serious songs when I was about seven. And my mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff. So she used to keep stuff that I didn't remember I had written and she has stuff in a trunk and many years ago. She said, here's some stuff you might want to look at. This is stuff you used to write for, you could write. Before you could write it down, you see it's to write it down. So actually I've been doing it all my life, seriously and professionally since I was 10. Do you remember any of the songs you wrote as a girl? Oh, I used to write songs about Cobb Dolls. I had this little Cobb Doll the first song I remember writing. Her name was Tassel Topp. It was a little doll that Mama, daddy had burned poker hole eyes in to make eyes. Mama had put the corn silk hair back on her and made a little dress for her name was Tassel Topp. And I did, I think I was five or six, you know, somewhere in there, seven.

10:25And it's like little tiny Tassel Topp. I love you enough, I hope you never go away. I want you to stay and so on and so on. So I just wrote all about her dress and all about her hair. So yeah, I just wrote about everything that, you know, they come to mind. Were you writing about tragic love and heartbreak by the time you were 10? Yes, I was as a matter of fact. I wrote a song, I can't remember exactly how it goes, but it was about a boy getting killed in the war because we used to hear all those stories. Back home, and if they weren't singing those sad ass songs, they were telling stories about it. You know, that makes an impression on a little child. So we thought, you know, I thought that you needed to write some really songs of tragedy. I thought you had to do that in order to be a mountain singer. And I wonder how it sounded with you as a girl singing these tragic songs? About the same as it does now, my voice ain't changed a lot. Sometimes people say my voice has like a little girl singing all these Lord-Offles songs. It's like this little sparrow and the silver dagger from the other one.

11:26And, you know, tender lie from this one. It's like I love to sing all those sad songs. Well, you know, rare is the singer who can sing as much as you have and not have it roughen their voice. Well, my voice is of a high pitch. So I guess I don't think my voice will ever deepen or lower itself in any way. But it's one of those voices I hope that'll last a long time. Because I hope to be singing even when I'm old. Hope to sit at my own porch and sing those old folk songs. Or maybe put them down on tapes and sell them. But anyhow, I just love... And a lot of the songs I write, like for instance, on my blue tears. A song that's on this album that I wrote many years ago. And we can play that if you want to after this. But I wrote this song and it really uses a lot of the old English style, like fly ye away from my window, fly ye as far, like the yees and the yees. It sounds old-timey. So I had recorded this song numerous times.

12:26But some of my songs I like so well, I think well, they just seemed to fit here and fit there. So it kind of lended itself to that Irish feel. So it's one of my favorites. You want to play that? Absolutely. But before we do, tell us when you wrote it and where you were in your performing career at the time? Well, I wrote it about the old 25, 30 years ago, I guess. And I was sitting on a couch in a place where I lived over at any activity in one of the first houses that I had after I had moved to Nashville and had gotten married. And I just remember wanting to write something old-timey because I was probably home sick or thinking about the old days. And I just started singing it. I was at that time already, probably pretty big name with the Port of Wagner show. And that's where I had started. So I was trying to write songs that would make good records. And when I first did this one, it was more up tempo. But on this version of it, I slowed it down. Well, let's hear my blue tears written by Dali Parton as featured on her new CD, Little Sparrow.

13:29Fly away from my window, Little Blue Blue. Fly as far as you can away from here. And let not your soul fall upon my ear. Go spread your blue wings and I shed my blue tears for the ones that I had. Dali Parton in your autobiography, you said that when you were young, you read everything you could get your hands on, the Bible, the Farmers, Almanac, Fairy Tales, the funeral home directory. Is that about all there was in the way of books? No, well, there were books at school, but there were so many of us kids. We didn't there take school books home because the kids would just chew them up or pee on them or tear them up. The page is out of them so that I always tell us not to bring books home because that didn't have to pay for them. But I used to read everything I get my hands on at school and Fairy Tales I love.

14:32So I would, you know, anytime there was a break at school, I could get my hands on a book. You know, on the desk or something, I would read that. I still love books. I read everything. I read all the, whatever the hit books are on the best cell or less. I try to read that. People give me gifts because I'd rather read when I travel on the bus and when I fly, I'd rather read, then to watch television when I'm home. So I just enjoy that. There were 12 kids in your family looking at your mother and the life that she was leading and the other women in the family. What did you think the life of an adult woman was going to be for you? Well, I knew it wasn't going to be that. I knew that I had to go. It wasn't that I wasn't proud of who I was and where I was from. But I had a dream. I just couldn't imagine myself. I was a baby sitting from the time I have a sister and two brothers older and there's eight children and younger me. So I had a house full of kids because my mom was sick a lot. She had one owner and one inner for as long as I remember.

15:32So I had a house full of kids and I just knew that I wanted to do something with my music and I knew that I was going to leave when I was 18 years old. And I graduated from high school on a Friday night and I left for Nashville the next Saturday morning. I was ready to go. I met my husband the first day I got there. We've been married for 34 years and been together 36 years. I met him 36 years ago. And unfortunately we never were able to have children of our own, but that's okay too because after I moved to Nashville, I brought five of my younger brothers and sisters to Nashville that lived with me. We sent them to school. Now they have kids and those kids called me Aunt Granny and my husband Uncle Peepaw. So we were really grandparents to them. So I've still been saddened with a bunch of kids with no kids in my own. You've said that your grandfather was a preacher, your mother was devout. What was church like when you were young? Oh well, we were one of those shouting, healing, holy roller churches. And it was high powered, which was great. I really learned a thing in church I think, really with the emotion.

16:40And we were a free, you know, it was a free spirited church. And if you'd wrote a song, a gospel song, of course, you could get up and sing it and play your guitar and whatever. So it was really, there was a lot of that hell, fire, brimstone and scaring you to death if you go out unprepared, which you know, it's true. But I used to think, well, there's got to be more to that. They had me so scared of God. I was afraid to talk to them. I was afraid to talk back. And I was afraid to punish me somehow, you know, it's stuff. And I really, through the years found my own place with God. Now, when you were young and singing in church, did you sing about God in church and then sing about sinning at home? Why used to sing at church and sing at home? And I don't talk about it. I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys. When I could make an excuse to go out and go to the bathroom, because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys. But anyhow, I had a deep faith in God. And I also was, you know, was, was high spirited and fun-loving.

17:46And I, of course, was led to believe that everything you did, you know, was a sin. But I don't believe that now. I think it's a sin if you believe it to be. And if it hurts somebody else, it's a sin. But I'm very deep in my faith. In fact, there's not an album that I do that I don't do something that is spiritual. In fact, a song I used to sing in church years ago that we did up tempo. One of the songs we sang every time we went church was a song called In the Sweetbye and Bye. And that's on your CD too. Yes, it is. And that's why I was going to say, and when I wanted to do one of those gospel songs on this album, so I slowed this down and it landed itself real nice to some more of that Irish feel. So at some point, if you want to play that one, I think that would be a good choice. And why don't we play that now? Okay, let's do it. There's a land that is fairer than day. And by faith we can see it far. For the farther way, it's over the way.

18:57To prepare us a dwelling place there. In the sweet by and by. We shall meet on that beautiful song. In the sweet by and by. We shall meet on that beautiful song. We shall sing on that beautiful song. In the sweet by and by from Dali Pertan's new CD, Little Sparrow. Now, when you were young, you sang on the radio and then you sang on TV and it was before your family even owned a TV. Did it make it any more or less momentous to be on TV knowing that your family and probably a lot of the other people you knew as well didn't even own one to watch you on?

19:57Well, I don't think a lot of that registered on me at that time. My purpose was to go sing. I was singing on radio. To me, it was the same as singing on the radio. I didn't even know really what all it meant about singing on television. I just knew it was another place to go sing. They had microphones and it was a show. So I was going to do the show. And so I don't think I thought about whether or not that somebody couldn't watch me. But after I did start being like a regular and about our TV, I wanted my folks to watch it. But I bought the TV, but it didn't last long in the house because nobody around our area had a television. So everybody would come down and sit in our floor and sit on our couch, watch guns, smoke, and wagon train, and woody woodpecker. And all the shows that were on and daddy couldn't get them out of the house to get ready to go to work. So he said, this damn television is out of here. So that didn't last long. So it didn't matter if I was on television or not. You know, it's like me and woody woodpecker had to go. That's funny. We're listening to the interview I recorded with Dolly Parton in January of 2001. She died yesterday at the age of 80.

21:01We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. Working not to buy water, wear to make living, get to buy. It's all taken and all given. They just use your mind and they never give you credit. It's a love to try new. Working for Love, One New York event promises to find you your perfect match using Palantir, though not affiliated with the actual software company. They can sue me. I could lose everything, but it would all be worth it if at least two people here have a spark. So no pressure. The facts, myths and dark jokes surrounding Palantir. Listen to a plan of money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, we talk with our panel Mo Rocca, Shane Torres and Annie Rowerda about the latest trend in dating, smelling bad on purpose. This Firmone Maxing is just not bathing. Yes, yeah. So this is like when Uber came out and they're like, it's not taxi, it's a ride chair.

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23:09Your first record, it was a 45, one side was puppy love and the other side was girl left alone. How old were you when this came out? I was about 10 or 11, I think when I cut that and that came out on GoBand Records probably several months or so after that. That was my very first record. And that was a very exciting thing for me. The first time I ever heard that played on the radio, it was on a local radio show back home. It never did do anything other than just that it was first but it did play locally. And I about killed myself. I was sitting on a cabinet, sitting up on the sink cabinet with my, and my aunt was cooking in the kitchen and the radio was on and my song came on and I jumped off of the thing and slid on the floor, slid on the rug and fell and trying to get to work at her radio. So I was killed myself trying to get to hear my first record. But it was fun. I'll never forget the thrill of hearing myself the first time on the radio. I thought, well, I've made it now.

24:11Could you sing a few bars of one of those songs? I like it. It's where it's got one of those silly songs. You know, you pull my pig tail. You make me mad. Then you kiss me. Make me glad. Sometimes you even make me sad. Still you're sweet, sweet, I ever had a puppy love. I was trying to get all those little bebop 50s sounds in there too. But anyhow, needless to say, it didn't, it didn't sail much, but it was a start. Now these were songs you co-wrote, I think with your uncle? My aunt, Dorothy Cho, co-wrote the other side. The girl left alone. Oh yeah, that's when you was talking earlier about singing those sad songs. I was 10 years old singing. The girl left alone. There's no hope for me. I'm tossed to and fro like a ship on a sea. I made my mistakes and now I must pay. Now how many mistakes could I make in 10 years old?

25:16Now I can't see that there's no hope for me. But anyway, it's like a 10 years old. So I wrote Michael Bill, who was also my manager at the time, that also produced that record, the A and the B side. We wrote puppy love together. So those were just, you know, like I said, you got to start somewhere. And then my first record after that I wrote with another uncle of mine. I was 15 years old and got on a major label which was Mercury. And I had a song called It May Not Kill Me, but it sure gonna hurt. How did that go? Oh, it's the bad. That's about it. It may not kill me, but it sure gonna hurt. And then it goes into the past tempo. It's just about like losing somebody's like you're gonna walk away and I'm gonna stay and, you know, and I don't like it may not kill me, but it sure gonna hurt. So when you were 18 and you took a bus to Nashville, left home, were you hoping to be a performer, a songwriter, both? Yeah, I was gonna be all of that. I was gonna be everything I could be, but definitely I was gonna be a songwriter and a singer. And that was what I headed out to be, was to be a star.

26:25And I vowed that I wouldn't go home until I had something show for it. And I didn't. But I was very, very homesick. And it was, well, I actually got real lucky, but it was about a year before I really had enough to show for it to think I could go home. And I got lucky too. I had a top 10 record on a song called dumb blonde, like just because I'm, I'm blonde. Don't think I'm dumb because this dumb blonde ain't nobody's food. That was my first top 10 record. And I was, I guess that wasn't about 66, 60. No, it wasn't about 65, I guess. Somewhere in there. So I just knew that that's what I had to do. And that was my destiny. I know now how lucky I was because I know a lot of people that got there about the same time I did had twice the talent still ain't made it. So I know how lucky I've been and I'm grateful for it every day because I love what I do. Now another thing you did early on is that you sent songs to Buddy Killin the head of tree publishing, which is a big country music publisher. And did you get other people to record your songs?

27:25Well, I wrote a song with my uncle Bill Owens, the same uncle that I was talking about. We had the song of the year, the BMI song of the year in 1966. And Bill Phillips had a song called Put It Off Until Tomorrow. You've hurt me enough today. And a lot of people through the years have recorded that song. So yes, I had a different songs recorded by different artists. That being the biggest at that time. And I did write for Tree for a while. Buddy Killin was very good to me. And then Buddy, I mean Fred Foster, who owned a monument records, took me over and I started to write for a combine music. And I had a song by music and recorded for monument records. And that's where I had Dunblond and something fishy. I had two or three top 10 records before I started with Port O'Aganer Show in 1967. Well, since you mentioned Port O'Aganer, let me play a recording that you made with him in 1968. And then we'll talk about that period of your life. And the song is just between you and me. Who wrote the song? Did you write that?

28:26No, I didn't write that and come think of it. I don't know who wrote that. I'll top my head. That's been a few years. Okay, so this is Dolly Parton with Port O'Aganer recorded in 1968. So I feel so blue sometimes I want to die. And so I've got a broken heart, so why? They say that time will heal all wounds in my standing. And I know that someday I'll forget and love again. Just between you and me. I've got my debts about it. Just between you and me. You're too much to forget.

29:32That's Dolly Parton with Port O'Aganer. You performed on his popular TV show for a while and made several recordings with him. How did you start working with him? Well, Port O'Aganer had the number one syndicated country television show in the country at that time. He had a girl on there for many years named Norma Jean who had become a very big country star in her own right. She got married, was getting married and moving back to Oklahoma City and left the show. And that left the spot supporter was looking for a girl singer. And I had had people have been talking about me in town, you know, the new girl in town. And that I had something fishy, dumb blonde and a couple of other songs. And so Porto had just got wind of that and he'd just come down to his office for an interview. And so I sat down with my guitar and started singing songs I written. And he was very impressed. And I got the job. And that's how that happened. Then we started doing duets together, which we were very successful. I was with the show for seven years.

30:38What did you learn about performing doing a weekly TV show? Well, you have to learn a lot of things, not just the weekly TV show, but we also went out on the road together, did stage shows. I learned a lot from Porto watching professional people work like that as far as how to talk to an audience and how to be comfortable in front of a camera. And I had done TV back home when I was a kid. I had grown up singing already on TV back in Knoxville, Tennessee. But you have to learn how to not do silly things because cameras on you not pick your nose and stuff like that. Or not to scratch your head or nothing. No other parts of your body. So you have to just learn how to be aware that you're all because people are aware of you. So it's amazing how you really, I'm just like a sponge. I just gather up everything. You don't really realize what all you are learning just by watching professional people work. It's a lot of the artists and stars that would come on Porter show all the time every week. You learn something from everybody.

31:39Well, I thought we could hear your original version of I Will Always Love You, which was used again in the movie The Bodyguard and was a huge hit for Whitney Houston. Do you remember writing this song and what you were thinking of when you wrote it? Oh, absolutely. I remember that one. That one was about when I was leaving Porto Wagner because I had been with him seven years. I had told him because see, I had had had plans to have a solo career of my own. I hadn't planned to get caught up with another group. But Porter show was very successful and it was a thing to do. And when I had told him I would stay, I told him I would stay for five years because I wanted to go on. But I stayed two years longer, but I kept staying and staying and I kept wanting to go because I felt like I really needed to go out on my own if I was ever really going to have a solo career. And Porter was dead against it. He wouldn't hear of it and he had a fit. We fought a lot. There was a lot of problems going on. No matter how I tried to talk to him, I could not make him understand. And I thought, well, why don't you write a song about him? Just say you appreciate him and you appreciate everything he does and that you'll always love him for everything he's done, that you'll always love him, period.

32:43So I just out of a broken heart of not being heard or anything, no one had to make major decisions that would ultimately change my life forever. And his for that matter. I wrote that song one night out of great grief and depth and just trying to say the right things to say goodbye. Well, why don't we hear your version, your original version of I Will Always Love You. Okay. I Will Always Love You.

33:48I Will Always Love You. That's Deli Parton, recorded in 1974. So do you know how this song ended up being used in the bodyguard? Well, they had told me that when Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston were doing this movie, Kevin also, I think, produced this movie and put all this stuff together. There was a song they had wanted to use that they had planned to use as the theme song instead of I Will Always Love You. And then come find out like a few weeks before that they had, I don't know what the song was, but a few weeks before the song they had planned to use someone else recorded it and put it out. So they were in desperate need of a song to say basically what I will always love you said. And from what I understand, Kevin Costner's secretary said, did you ever hear a song that Deli Parton, that country star, you know, the one with the big boobs and the big hair?

34:50Seriously, she said, Deli Parton, that country star. She said she had a song called I Will Always Love You. And I think it'd be perfect. And she brought it into him and they said he loved it. And so they chose it. We're listening to the interview I recorded with Deli Parton in 2001. We'll hear more of it after a break. This is Fresh Air. You count on sunscreen to protect your skin, but that SPF rating on the bottle might not be exactly as advertised. So you could measure an SPF 50 at one lab and an SPF 30 at another. On the Sunday story, is it time to update sunscreen guidance? Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast on the MPR app. History is intriguing, but unlike the present, it can feel far off. On NPR's Thurline, we bring it back to life and put you in the middle of it. Go inside the stories from then that shape the world we live in now. Find NPR's Thurline wherever you get your podcasts.

35:58Hi there, I'm Brittany Loose and not to brag, but I host a really fabulous podcast. It's called It's Been a Minute. I love making it and I think you'll love listening to it. Over the last year, hundreds of thousands of listeners have been tuning in. And I gotta say, if you haven't yet, you're missing out. Listen to The It's Been a Minute Podcast from NPR today. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Dalley Parton in January of 2001. Now you said that when you were young, you knew you wanted to be a big star. Why did you want to be a star? Because I wanted to be rich. I wanted to travel. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to do stuff. I wanted to be seen, I guess. I need a lot of attention being brought up in the family of 12. You don't get much attention unless you're in trouble. So I think it was just, I just had a very outgoing personality and I wanted to be out going all the time. You've joked that if you were a man, you would have been a drag queen.

36:58I always say that it's a good thing I was a woman. Because if I had a bit of man, I would have been a drag queen just because I'm a damn godly. Because I like all the flesh and the glitter and I just love, I love playing in my clothes. I love playing in my life. It's like I love makeup. I love clothes and I got the kind of personality that can pull it off. I just love what I do. I'm comfortable being myself. Even if I make other people uncomfortable with the way I look, if I'm comfortable with it, then it's okay with me. How did you first start dressing in that? What's the word I'm looking for? Almost oversized. Gorgeous. If your hair was big, it was going to be real big. A lot of that came though from a very serious place. That was a country girl's idea of what glamour was. I didn't have any money to have stuff and I've often joked about it. But it's the real truth that I patterned myself after what they considered the trash in our hometown.

38:02There was just one woman I thought she was beautiful. She had the prox out of hair and she had it all piled up on her head and had red fingernails and red lipsticks and wore her powder. She was pretty thin and I'd say, I want to look at her and shake nothing but trash. I thought, that's what I want to be when I grow up. That's where my look came from and then the glamour girls and the movie stars and all that. But I enjoyed and I still like doing it. When they say less is more, that's not my motto. Mine is more is more. The more I can get, the more I want of life and of everything. But in addition to me being and all that God in all, I take my music and my writing very serious and hopefully people know that my heart is true. I've always believed that a part of my magic, if there was any, was the fact that I look so artificial but I am so totally real. And I think when you hear these kinds of songs, I think you know that has to come from the heart.

39:07We're talking about this really oversized image that you've created. But your new CD and the CD before that are really kind of scaled down. You know, there are traditional songs and bluegrass songs. Some, some, you know, with a really good band behind you but they're very unshow-bizzy. Do you almost feel like you need to change how you look on stage when you're singing these kinds of songs with the kind of band that you have? No, I know I don't think so because I think people have come to know me as I am and some people will never accept the fact that I'm a serious writer and a serious singer and the ones that do accept it. They know it for a fact and they overlook the image which I've enjoyed playing in the image. So the only change I would make only just from a show business, fashion statement. I may wear some things that may be cut a little bit more country western, you know, like if I, but it'll still be beaded. It'll still have shine and glitter on it. So it's not that I don't think I have to wear overall to say about a farmer.

40:09I don't think I have to, you know, I don't think I have to. I think people would really be more disappointed if I dress down because they're so used to seeing me be the way that I am. That would bother them more. They'd think, why would she want one of them rhinestone dresses instead of that old corny looking thing? So if I dress down as plain and as real as some of this music is, I would definitely look like Farms' daughter. Dolly Parton, a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. My interview with Dolly Parton was recorded in January 2001. She died yesterday at the age of 80. She's gone but will always have her music. One of her most famous songs was Jo-Leen. Beyoncé introduced even more people to it when she recorded it on her country music album Cowboy Carter. Here's Dolly Parton's 1973 recording of Jo-Leen.

41:17Dolly and Dolly please don't take in just because you care. Your beauty is beyond compare with flaming locks of all of her hair with ivory skin and eyes of emerald green. Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain and I cannot compete with you. Dolly. He talks about too many sleep and there's nothing I can do. Coming up, Jazz Critic Martin Johnson reviews the new album by singer Cecil McClure and Selvam. This is Fresh Air. On Dear Life Kit, our team answers your listener questions with time tested advice from past episodes. But we don't always agree. Opposite, no. That's not what we thought. What if he's the one? Oh my god. What? Listen to the latest juicy episode of Dear Life Kit on the Life Kit podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

42:21You've got a lot of ways to get news and a lot of podcasts in your feed that take a long time to get to the point. Here and now anytime gets to the heart of the day's big story, all in about 20 minutes every afternoon. Get smarter and expand your world fast. Listen to here and now anytime on the NPR app or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Fresh Air. Our Jazz Critic Martin Johnson says all 20th century Jazz Grates have cast long shadows that their 21st century protégés must escape. But few musicians have a heart of task than vocalists. Evading the extraordinary grounds set by first name legends like Ella, Billy and Sarah. An establishing a distinctive style of her own is a daunting task. Yet he says Cecille McLaren-Salvant has accomplished just that. A mid-a-remarkable series of recordings and live shows.

43:22She's created a unique vocal style and curatorial skills that make each new recording an event. Her latest recording with every breath I take is her most daring yet, a traditional recording with an orchestra and a program of ballads. Yet Martin says that although rooted in the classics, Selvant always sounds in the moment. The first one day, and died away. Dick Ellington, sophisticated lady, has been a classic for so long that it's often referred to as a war horse.

44:24Yet when Cecille McLaren-Salvant sings it, she imbues it with curiosity. She's convinced that there are new aspects in the song to redeem and highlight. Her singing is a quest to find and celebrate them. With some fame in a restaurant, is that all you really want? That's pure to then queries what makes McLaren-Salvant special and without peer even in an era of great young jazz vocalists like Samara Joy, Veronica Swift and Somi. Cecille, yes she's on a first name basis with the jazz community, has amazing range and astonishing technique, but she employs them purely in the investigation of a song.

45:35Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air. Send in the clowns is already a slow number, but Cecille decelerates it to communicate all of the longing, hope and dismay in the lyrics. The emotions of a song are Cecille's focus. On previous recordings, she's made songs by Stevie Wonder and Kate Bush, her own with this style, but on her new recording she tackles ten great American songbooks standards with similar plumb. Here's her take on the buddy Johnson Classic ever since the one I love has been gone.

46:58I'm all confused about every little thing. Cecille records with the Dutch Metropolitan Orchestra under the direction of Tules Buckley, the arranged fancier by Canadian Big Band leader Darcy James R. U, with whom she created an oratorio called O. Cress that is being made into a film. One of the most remarkable aspects of the recording demonstrated there on ever since the one I love has been gone is how Cecille, who often records in just duo or even solo settings, makes our orchestral recording sound intimate, as if more than a dozen musicians comfortably squeezed into your living room. One relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life to get the feel of life from jazz and cocktails.

48:07Cecille's spirit of inquiry and formidable technique make her music contemporary and her talent as a storyteller makes it affecting. Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life has been in the canon of American songs for many decades, yet McLearn's Alvante Take feels new and fresh and makes the wistful reflections of the song much more potent. It's music with an extraordinary past and an amazing present.

49:07Martin Johnson writes for the Wall Street Journal and Downbeat. He reviewed with every breath I take by Cecille McLearn's Alvante. Tomorrow on Fresh Air will feature Tanya's interview with Riz Ahmed. He's nominated for an Emmy for his performance in the Prime Video Series, Bate. He plays a British Pakistani actor auditioning to be the next James Bond. Ahmed is also a writer and creator of this series. He started a film adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and he'll explain why he believes the most famous speech in the English language has been misunderstood for centuries. I hope you'll join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stenechevsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers and Rebel DeNato, Lauren Crenzel, Theresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thaia Chaliner, Susan Nyokundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler.

50:16Our digital media producer is Molly C. V. Nesper. Roberta Shorock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. How do products end up on Big Box Shows? Well, we have Planet Money, a pitch, the Planet Money, board game. I'm trying not to think how much of a big deal it is and how much work has gone into. It's really big. Is it helpful if I remind you how big it is? It's sort of the whole thing. We go inside the minds of the people who decide what goes on store shows. Listen to Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On NPR's Wildcard Podcast, musician Sarah Barellis on being a crier. My mom is a big crier too and she loves to take credit for my crying. Mom, my crying is mine. Watch or listen to that Wildcard conversation on the NPR app, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.