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Dolly Parton was a genius-level songwriter, a rhinestone-studded glittering country music queen from Sevier County, Tennessee. Her vaulting ambition manifested itself in down-home masterpieces that transcended the genre, like \u201cCoat of Many Colors,\u201d \u201cJolene,\u201d and \u201cI Will Always Love You.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was an undeniable gracious force of nature and a multimedia star whose \u201caw-shucks\u201d persona and disarming sense of humor \u2014 coupled with bountiful talent \u2014 made her that rarest of commodities in a bitterly divided time: a genuinely universally beloved public figure. <\/p>\n
Parton, who died at age 80<\/a>, her nephew Brian Seaver announced in an Instagram post on Tuesday<\/a>, was always ready with a self-deprecating quip about her flamboyant appearance. \u201cIt costs a lot of money to look this cheap,\u201d was one of her favorites, and when asked what she hoped people would think of her 100 years from now, she would say: \u201cDang, she looks good for her age.\u201d <\/p>\n I met her once, back in 2001 for an interview at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. She was promoting Little Sparrow, the second of two excellent bluegrass albums she had released in a little over a year at a time when country radio had all but given up playing her music. <\/p>\n Like Johnny Cash and other icons of her generation, she had attained legendary status, but the industry wasn\u2019t interested in the new music she was making, focusing on younger stars rather than golden greats. <\/p>\n But the last thing Dolly Parton was going to do when Music City turned its back on her was pout or complain. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re older than God!\u201d Parton, who was then 55, told me. <\/p>\n \u201cIt ain\u2019t like we ain\u2019t had our day,\u201d she said, referring to herself as well as fellow travelers like Cash and Merle Haggard. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like I didn\u2019t have a great career.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we can\u2019t last forever. And I always try to think ahead,\u201d she said, adding that \u201cever since I got started in show business, I\u2019ve always tried to pay attention to the business of the show.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe in progress. Change is going to happen \u2026 You can\u2019t just stay the same way \u2026 I can\u2019t just not sing because I\u2019m not getting played on the radio,\u201d she told me. \u201cI can\u2019t not write just because there\u2019s no real place for me in Nashville.\u201d<\/p>\n Parton, who was the fourth of 12 children, wrote her first song when she was 7. \u201cLittle Tiny Tassel Top\u201d was an ode to a corncob doll. <\/p>\n When it came up in conversation, she couldn\u2019t resist singing it.<\/p>\n \u201cI love you an awful lot, my little tiny tassel top,\u201d she sang in a little girl\u2019s crystalline voice. \u201cYou\u2019re the only thing I\u2019ve got. Hope you never go away, \u2019cause I want you to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Parton said she planned on continuing to record music that brought her back to her hardscrabble roots because she knew it would resonate with audiences. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll never do anything that\u2019s as real, that I enjoy singing as much, and that I can sing as well as these songs\u201d so close to her heart, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cThese are the kind of statements you want to make. You know, long after you\u2019re dead and people research your career and say \u2018Damn, that was good!\u2019 These are the things you want to leave behind.\u201d<\/p>\n I saw Parton sing for larger audiences than just me four more times over the next 15 years. <\/p>\n In 2004, she played the Spectrum in South Philly. At that show, she played a banjo and fiddle while gender-flipping John Denver\u2019s \u201cThank God I\u2019m a Country Boy.\u201d She accompanied herself on piano on \u201cThe Grass Is Blue\u201d and played auto-harp on \u201cCoat of Many Colors.\u201d <\/p>\n And of course, she made jokes, kidding about the size of her chest while referring to a Super Bowl<\/a> halftime show wardrobe malfunction: \u201cIf I was to pull a Janet Jackson tonight, I\u2019d take out everybody in the first three rows.\u201d<\/p>\n Before a show at the Mann Center in 2005, Parton spoke to The Inquirer about her album Those Were the Days, on which she covered folk and pop songs like \u201cImagine,\u201d \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind,\u201d and \u201cTurn, Turn Turn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m one of those people that love all kinds of music,\u201d she said. \u201cI was always listening to all styles of music, and still do.\u201d She went on: \u201cThose songs give you a kind of hope \u2026 I am getting that sappy in my old age, to kind of wish things could be better.\u201d<\/p>\n