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DOLLY

  • Writer: Libby K. Hanaway
    Libby K. Hanaway
  • 6 days ago
  • 13 min read

Updated: 3 days ago


We've got 🌟 loads 🌟 of sunny Dolly Parton content ahead, but first, a framework for good in troubled times:


It’s been a volatile, disorienting few weeks in national/global events and discourse, and I've gotta be honest: I didn't really know how or when to insert buoyant content into our heavy flood of current events, this despite confidently pledging at the end of my Notes section that I'd keep the show going even on dark news days. However, the days have now turned into weeks, and guess what? Keeping the light on — and then writing about that light — is harder than I predicted. For me, it feels a little like choosing not to read the room, even when the room is on fire. But also: isn't keeping the light on the entire premise of this site? I needed to go back and re-read my own words for a little personal pep talk.


So here's my current and evolving* framework: in turbulent times (personal, political, what have you), sharing what's good — and consuming what's good — is both a reminder and a bridge. First, seeking out good can work like a piece of yarn looped around a finger, reminding us that looking and working for good is an active, deliberate expression of hope. It might feel like checking out or glossing over, but it's actually the juice that keeps us moving forward.


Good in challenging circumstances also creates a sort of safety override switch for our nervous systems, a resettling bridge from heightened fight-or-flight mode to rest and restoration ... and then a pathway back and forth as needed so that we don't short-circuit. In this way, good is a very good recalibrator ... which makes me think about E as a 2nd-grade teacher: to head off possible classroom calamity, she regularly gave her kids "brain breaks" — just a few minutes of a whole-class game or quick dance party to reset their systems for learning. It was a brief time investment that almost always paid out.


The value of good extends much farther and wider, but in our present days, I hope finding some good can both spur healthy, positive action and give your brain the break it might need.

*a framework that's been slightly edited on 1/30/2026 as I continue to work out my thinking.


—— 🌳 ——



And now, ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats because it's time to turn a BIG, BRIGHT SPOTLIGHT — plus all the stage lights (with loads of links, too) — on our gal and national treasure, Dolly Parton!  She’s an icon, an artist, an entertainer, an actress, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a bridge-builder, an age-defier, a songbird original, and a storyteller extraordinaire. Please give it up for The One, The Only ... Ms. Dolly Parton 👏👏👏!!



In my suburban 1970s Chicago, I like to think I grew up with Dolly … and also Waylon, Willie, George, Tammy, and Loretta.  My dad, Earl Eugene (Gene to all), grew up in rural Kentucky and brought country music’s stories — songs of heartbreak, hardship, friendship, mischief, roads, dogs, and more — directly into our green-carpeted living room.  Whenever we heard George Jones singing our dad’s favorite sad ballad — “He Stopped Loving Her Today” — we knew Gene was nearby, leaning back in his chair and slowly tapping his fingers in time with the music.  



Rick, too, grew up with old-school country music, especially Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash.  In both households, we were listening to genuine music legends, which counted for nothing by the time we firmed up our inflated middle-school-through-college sense of cultural superiority. By then, what was there to do with our parents' taste in music except poke fun and run far, far away?  Country music just felt so … embarrassing. 


So that was us, smug teenagers sticking to our 1980s radio and cassette tape hits … yes, so so smug until years later when we found ourselves seeking out Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Willie-in-braids in concert, touring Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, and taking our time at the Johnny Cash Museum.  You can run from your history, but you cannot hide.  



Which brings us back to Dolly.  



All through the years, Dolly was out there in the air and on the air.  She had that clear, bright, warbly voice and a long, flowing ribbon of Top Ten albums and #1 songs. But she also seemed to carry a kind of airy-bubbly punchline persona with her extra-bountiful bosom, bedazzled costumes, country twang, deep dimples, sky-high heels, long painted nails, and an unlimited assortment of higher-the-hair-closer-to-God bleached-blonde wigs.  She seemed like a glittering caricature, easy to underestimate and dismiss … which I did.  But one of the great things about growing older is that hopefully — over time — you can get a wider view and fix your course before it’s too late.  With Dolly, I am relieved to say I came to my senses many years ago and I know with certainty that DOLLY IS A QUEEN 🎸👑 🎸.



WHAT MAKES DOLLY SO GOOD?


1._DOLLY WORKS.  In her musical career thus far, Dolly has ...


  • Written over 3,000 songs, which is most likely an underestimate. Of those songs, she has recorded nearly 1,000 while 100+ have been recorded by other artists (including "I Will Always Love You," forever immortalized by Whitney Houston).


  • Recorded 100+ song collaborations with wide-ranging performers from country to rock to pop to hip hop. "Islands in the Stream" with Kenny Rogers is legendary!


  • Recorded 68 albums: studio, live, soundtrack, holiday, compilation, and collaboration in country, pop, bluegrass, gospel, and rock. Forty-nine of her albums have landed in the Top Ten for country music.


  • Played up to 20 instruments across her music — all by ear and, most impressively, despite her maximum-length acrylic nails. Her repertoire includes acoustic and electric guitar, fiddle, saxophone, piano, dulcimer, mandolin, autoharp, and five-string banjo.


  • Performed her music in thousands of live-on-stage and recorded-for-television shows, beginning with her breakout 1967 debut on The Porter Wagoner Show.


That's mega-watt superstar level right there. But hold onto your hats because there's so much more:


Dolly also acts and produces, first hitting the big screen in the 1980 comedy 9 To 5 alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, sunnily empowering women with creepy, harrassing bosses everywhere. [And her theme song for the movie — which includes the typewriter-clacking of Dolly's own long nails in the background — is one of the all-time greats: "Pour myself a cup of ambition" = 🏆. Dolly went on to write the music and lyrics for 9 To 5: The Musical, which opened on Broadway in 2009]. Dolly also was part of the tear-jerky ensemble for Steel Magnolias and involved in dozens of other big and small screen projects.



Dolly runs businesses, too — very successfully. In 1986, she opened Dollywood, a 165-acre theme park in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains — roller coasters, musical shows, the whole kit n' kaboodle. It might sound like a folksy little side hustle, but Dollywood (and her Splash Country water park and Dolly Parton's Stampede Dinner Attraction) are major destinations. For real: in 2025, TripAdvisor named Dollywood a Travelers' Choice Best of the Best.


Dolly has also been whipping up cake mixes, canned frosting, and frozen meals like Chicken & Dumplings and Country Fried Steak for grocery stores across the country. On Walmart.com, "Dolly Parton's Favorite Chocolate Flavored Cake Mix" has an impressive 4.5 rating with 266 reviews. A reviewer named Heather wrote: "This has the best flavor ... absolutely delightful! that Dolly sure knows what she's doing and thats a woman I can definitely get behind." Me, too, Heather — me too! 


A partial list of additional Dolly Parton business and creative ventures:



2._DOLLY IS SMART AND FUNNY.  Dolly Parton's talent has often been eclipsed by her anatomy, which she merrily admits has been adjusted and amplified by a trick or two. For decades, she represented an entire category of dumb-blonde, big-boobs jokes ... and it's true: you could stuff two large balloons down your shirt and everyone knew exactly who you were. But Dolly can slyly beat anyone to the punchline, poking fun at her own modified and sparkled self while giggling all the way to her extraordinary success. She's said to have an exceptional IQ, but she matches it with cleverness, kindness, and a big fake-eyelashed wink. My favorite Dolly Parton quote captures it all:


“I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes,“ she once said, “because I know that I'm not dumb.

I also know I'm not blonde.” 



3._DOLLY GIVES.  Dolly's talent and generosity are a double deal. She is enormously, enthusiastically philanthropic. Her gift-giving is so legendary that in 2023 Billboard ran a piece called "Dolly Parton's Good Deeds Timeline" to make it easier to track it all. Through her Dollywood Foundation (which earns 4/4 stars from Charity Navigator), she's given loads of $,$$$,$$$ to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, TN wildfire relief, TN flooding relief, bald eagle conservation, academic scholarships, and more. Most notably, Dolly is the tireless engine behind Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library advancing childhood literacy. With local community partners in multiple countries, her library has provided 3,197,250 children with 304,538,420 books and counting. Amazing, amazing! This excerpt from Dolly's letter on the Imagination Library website explains her determination to get books in the hands of young readers everywhere:


“Hi everybody. This is Dolly.


“Before he passed away, my Daddy told me the Imagination Library was probably the most important thing I had ever done. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me because I created the Imagination Library as a tribute to my Daddy. He was the smartest man I have ever known but I know in my heart his inability to read probably kept him from fulfilling all of his dreams.


“Inspiring kids to love to read became my mission. In the beginning, my hope was simply to inspire the children in my home county but here we are today with a worldwide program that gives a book a month to well over 3 million children. [emphasis mine]


“Of course, I have not done this alone. The real heroes of our story are the thousands of local organizations who have embraced my dream and made it their own. They raise millions of dollars each year and wake up every day with a passion to make sure their kids have every opportunity to succeed."



🚨 ATTENTION 🚨

THE QR CODE IN THE PIC ABOVE SHOULD ACTUALLY WORK WITH YOUR PHONE (I JUST TESTED IT FOR FUN!). IF YOU'D LIKE TO SPREAD SOME BOOK JOY TO CHILDREN, GIVE IT A TRY!

YOU CAN ALSO ACCESS DONATION INFO ON THE IMAGINATION LIBRARY SITE



4._DOLLY IS AUTHENTIC. (If you don’t count plastic surgery, which — in Dolly's case — I do not.)



One of the first Dolly Parton songs I remember was "Coat of Many Colors," and it has always stuck close by me. I first paid attention to the lyrics as an early teen who was mortified to be seen shopping with my mom at a discount store. (Forgive me, Mom 🙏.) But I could see Dolly took a higher path, singing with a confident pride about her humble beginnings and the coat her mother made with scraps and love:


"My coat of many colors that my mama made for me,

Made only from rags, but I wore it so proudly.

Although we had no money, I was rich as I could be

In my coat of many colors my mama made for me."


Same with "My Tennessee Mountain Home." She sings about her roots with warm, loving, descriptive affection:


"In my Tennessee mountain home,

Life is as peaceful as a baby’s sigh.

In my Tennessee mountain home,

Crickets sing in the fields near by.


Honeysuckle vine clings to the fence along the lane,

Their fragrance makes the summer wind so sweet.

And on a distant hilltop, an eagle spreads its wings

And a songbird on a fence post sings a melody."


And then there's her thrumming "Jolene," a real-life hybrid story conjured from a beautiful little green-eyed, red-headed girl named Jolene at one of Dolly's early live television shows and an also-beautiful red-headed bank-teller who enjoyed flirting with Dolly's newlywed husband, Carl Dean. Dolly worried he'd find the bank-teller more appealing. With her pen to paper, Dolly might have leaned into spite or fire, but instead chose an open, mannerly, self-effacing plea:


"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,

I'm begging of you, please don't take my man.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,

Please don't take him just because you can.

Your beauty is beyond compare

With flaming locks of auburn 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, Jolene."


[And speaking of Carl Dean, here's an essential Dolly Parton authenticity FYI: Dolly married Carl Dean in 1966 two years after meeting him at the Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville, TN. Dean remained a private man in the asphalt paving business and Dolly became a flamboyant show-business butterfly; their union may have been a head-scratcher to many, but they defied expectations and were married for 58 years until Dean's death last year at age 82.]



5._DOLLY EMBRACES. Dolly has a bigger-tent, longer-table point of view. As an artist who's consistently sent a message about being true to oneself (starting with her own shimmery glamour-girl self, a lover of excessive sparkles since she was little), she's been boldly, cheerfully nudging traditional Nashville norms by promoting women's rights in early songs (later joking, “I was the first woman to burn my bra — it took the fire department four days to put it out”(additional classic Dolly quotes here); embracing the drag queen community (famously quipping she'd have been a drag queen herself had she not been born a girl); writing and performing the multi-nominated and award-winning theme song "Travelin' Thru" for Transamerica, and applying the "know better/be better" standard to business decisions. According to this BBC piece from 2020, after hearing pushback about the word "Dixie" in Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede (the word Dixie and its associated show themes since removed), Dolly offered a simple, clear, non-defensive response:


"As soon as you realise that [something] is a problem, you should fix it. Don't be a dumbass. That's where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose."


Her standard is kindness, goodness, and doing the right thing — and that's just that.



6._DOLLY DOES NOT SLOW DOWN. Last Monday, January 19, 2026 — when Dolly Parton turned 80 years old — the state of Tennessee officially proclaimed 1/19 as "Dolly Parton Day" in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the Volunteer State. Is she riding off into the glowing Tennessee sunset now that she reached her ninth decade? Nope — she is still revving it up. In honor of her milestone birthday, she released a collaborative re-recording of her 1977 hit "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" (joined by Queen Latifah, goddaughter Miley Cyrus, Lainey Wilson, and Reba McEntire), with net proceeds directed toward pediatric cancer research at Vanderbilt's Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital.


[A funny little side story about other recent collaborative work: in 2024, Dolly recorded a duet version of "Please, Please, Please" with Sabrina Carpenter with the following stipulations 🤭: “Of course, she can talk a little bad now and then. I told her, I said, ‘Now, I don’t cuss. I don’t make fun of Jesus. I don’t talk bad about God, and I don’t say dirty words, on camera, but known to if I get mad enough.’”).]


Dolly is still performing live shows and is getting ready to open Dolly's Life of Many Colors Museum and Dolly Parton's SongTeller hotel next summer in Nashville and is soon launching her long-dreamed Dolly: A True Original Musical (you, too, can subscribe via the link for future performance information 🎟️!). She's also the video-recorded master of ceremonies for her current Threads: My Songs in Symphony concert series in cities across the U.S.


Rick gave me tickets to Threads as a Christmas present, and in early January we sat in Denver's Boettcher Concert Hall to hear three talented singers — backed by the Colorado Symphony — give their spirited renditions of Dolly standards. Dolly herself appears — in a rhinestoned conductor's suit with a shiny white conductor's baton — on the big screen between songs, telling stories and introducing her music along the way. The whole crowd seemed so genuinely happy and grateful to be in the not-quite-real presence of one of music's all-time great storytellers.




Dolly Parton is a genuine national treasure, and that's not just my biased opinion. Most of the cultural award-givers of the nation think so, too, recognizing and celebrating her talent, achievements, and generosity over many years. She's earned a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame (1999), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2001), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2022). In 2006, she was bestowed the Kennedy Center Honors; in 2021, the Library of Congress Living Legend Award; and in 2025, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Among a towering pile of other awards, she's also earned 11 Grammys, including the Grammy Lifetime Achivement Award in 2011.


One final accolade to spotlight: in 2024, the Recording Academy (home of the Grammys) and the U.S. Department of State awarded Dolly the PEACE through Music Award in recognition of how she "represents the best of America – her excellence in music, her servant's heart in giving back to those in need, and her unique ability to always bring people together." Now, I'm not saying that Dolly Parton is our very own Dalai Lama (I tried to make a little Dolly/Dalai pun there, but I'm remembering she actually does sing, "I'm not the Dalai Lama, but I'll try / To offer up a few words of advice ... 🎶🎶"). So, again: I'll not say that Dolly is country music's Dalai Lama or its What-Would-Jesus-Do? Jesus, but I do think it might be good and wise to take a minute every now and then to ask this simple question stacked five-deep on a marble t-shirt table* in Nashville, TN:



💖


*If you're now feeling the need for some Dolly Parton representation,

The Dolly Shop at Reese Witherspoon's Draper James could be your place.


**Also, the brick mural cover photo for this post comes courtesty of Wes McFee on Unsplash


EXTRA GOOD

ALSO LINKED THROUGH THE EXTRA GOOD PAGE HERE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2026


1._GOOD LAUGHS: Whew: that was a very long post, so we'll keep this section short n sweet just like Ms. Dolly herself. Last month I saw this clip and could not stop grinning and laughing out loud. In recognition of the record-breaking snow that slammed most of the U.S. over the weekend (I hope you're warming up and digging out?), please enjoy this record-setting (one would think) pup tear up the slopes during an Alpine World Cup downhill race in Bormio, Italy. Apparently, the race occurred back in December 2022, but the video resurfaced last month. Best encore presentation! It's a wholesomely funny scroll through the comments section, too!

⬇️

ABSOLUTELY TURN ON/UP THE MUSIC (PROBABLY IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT CORNER VIA DESKTOP) BEFORE THE VIDEO STARTS — THE MUSIC IS ESSENTIAL

🎶 👑 🎶



🏆 🐶 🏆


SEE YOU AGAIN NEXT TIME FOR
ANOTHER BATCH OF GOOD

😀


 
 
 

2 Comments

Guest
6 days ago

Thank you! This good thing came at a time when we all need some good things and goodness. Your Dolly "Here's one Good Thing" post filled the bill. So many positive things can help us remain sane in these insane times


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Libby K. Hanaway
Libby K. Hanaway
6 days ago
Replying to

Thank YOU! Writing about Dolly was an absolute mood boost — and listening to her music and watching the video links boosted it even higher. She is a balm for troubled times 🧡! Hugs and love to you, JLH!

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