Transcript

Dolly Parton

0:00 This is fresh air. I am 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 saxophonist Sunny Rollins to Beyonce. And while politics divide our country,

0:19 Loving her is something that unites us. She died yesterday at the age of eighty. Today as we mourn her death, the We're going to feature the interview I recorded with her in two thousand one. 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.

0:37 She 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 nineteen eighty it became one of her many number one hits. Here it is. So

1:01 To take comfort for I'm long before I make Uh Is that Up the button

1:27 With the I could have very careful Bye. No. Dally Parton was a singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.

2:23 She was successful enough and had a big enough personality. To start her own theme park, Dollywood. She became a singer on country music star Porter Wagner's TV show in nineteen sixty seven. She went on to have a solo career with many hits, including Jolene, which Beyonce recorded on her country music album Cowboy Carter. Nine to five. And I will always love you, which was later a huge hit for Whitney Houston.

2:49 When I spoke with Dolly Parton in two thousand one Her recording career had recently returned to the music she grew up with. Her nineteen ninety nine recording, The Grass is Blue. When the International Bluegrass Music Association's album of the year award. We spoke after the release of her follow up album, Little Sparrow.

3:08 That featured traditional mountain music. As well as her original songs in that vein. We started with the title track. Which she wrote. Little sparrow

3:19 Mm. N Sh Precious fragile little thing. Little sp

3:38 Fly so Field no Mm-hmm.

4:42 That's Dolly Parton with the title track from her new CD, Little Sparrow. Dolly Parton, welcome to Fresh Air. Well thank you. Ain't you glad we started out with something upbeat? Like a broken heart. No but anyway I 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'cause I need the money'cause you know it costs a lot to make me look as cheap. Uh huh. But anyway, thanks for having me on too. I'm looking forward to spending the

5:21 Spending some time with you. This new C D and your previous C D, The Grass is Blue they're 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 uh almost like show business version of country music. Well, I have uh 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 say all my days growing up back in the Smoky Mountains. And this music is is really so so now people are really into the simplicity of it. And so just for fun for myself, there was a poll in the bluegras community of what person they'd like to hear most do a bluegrass album that hadn't done one

6:02 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 bluegras album and lo and behold, we won the bluegras 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 bluegras album and try to just do exactly what we did with the other. 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 uh blue mountain music. It's like Bluegrass and mountain music. So that kinda seems to sum up what the style is, I think.

6:40 Now you were born in nineteen forty six 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 picking music, the old songs brought back from England and Ireland, that old Appalachian music and a lot of the stuff that people up in the mountains wrote. So my mother was uh and all my mama's people used to always play and 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.

7:12 Who was most musical in your family? All of us. My mother was very musical and my grandpa Jake, I think, uh was a preacher, Pentecostal preacher, that I wrote a song about many years ago called Daddy Was an Old Time Preacher Man. I think he was he was a music teacher of sorts back there in the hills. I have there's twelve of us kids Six girls and six boys and 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 you know, to do just'cause they wanted to have a family and and do other things. But uh there's a lot of talent in this family. Do you remember the first songs that m really meant something to you?

7:56 Yeah. I used to hear my folks sing back home and stuff Mamma 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. Uh one of my favorite songs of all time is If We Never Meet Again, This Side of Heaven. And my dad passed away a few weeks ago and uh he always loved that song and of course I I was way too sorry. Thank you very much. But I was too emotional to sing at Daddy's funeral, so like later I I went up to the grave and and just sung it. for myself and for daddy. So anyway those are the kind of songs that I always uh loved. And I recorded If We Never Meet Again on a album once from Dollywood, a live album. That album was called uh

8:40 heart songs. And they are heart songs. So so I grew up just uh loving all those old folk songs of tragedy, you know, like the two little orphans and all that sort of stuff. And some day I hope and possibly even for my next album to do an album of a lot of those old mountain true folk songs. When did you start writing songs and re realizing that you had an ear for that as well as for singing? Well, I started singing on radio and television when I was ten years old, but I started playing guitar and writing serious when I was about seven. And uh my mother was always fascinating. 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 in a trunk and s 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. This used to write it down.

9:30 So actually I've been doing it all my life, seriously and professionally since I was ten. Do you remember any of the songs you wrote as a girl? Oh, I used to write songs about uh Cob dolls. I had this little Cob doll, the first song I remember writing. Her name was Tassletop. It was a little doll that uh mama, daddy had burned po poker hole eyes in to make eyes, and Mama had put the corn silk hair back on her and made a little dress for and her name was Tassletop and I did uh I think I was five or six, you know, somewhere in there, seven.

10:02 And I was like little tiny tassel top, I love you an awful lot. 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 Yes, I was, as a matter of fact. I wrote a song uh I can't remember exactly how d it goes, but it was about a boy getting killed in the war'cause 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 what it's like and y and that makes an impression on a little child. So we thought we you know, I thought that You needed to write some really s songs of tragedy. I thought you had to do that in order to be a mountain singer.

10:47 And I I wonder how it sounded with you as a girl singing these tragic songs. Uh about the same as it does now. My voice ain't changed a lot. Sometimes people say my voice sounds like a little girl singing all these Lord awful songs. It's like this like little sparrow and the silver dagger from the other one and uh you know, Tender Lie from this one is like I love to sing all those sad songs. Well Rina Rare is the singer who can sing as much as you have And not have it roughened.

11:14 Their voice. Well, my voice is is uh of a high pitch, so I I guess uh I I don't You think my voice will ever deepen or lower itself in any way. But uh It's

11:27 You know, it's one of those voices I hope that'll last a long time'cause I hope to be singing even when I'm old, hope to sit out on my own porch and sang those old folk songs and maybe Put'em down on tapes and sell them. But um anyhow I I just love And a lot of the songs I write, like for instance on uh 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 um I 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 yes. It sounds old timey. So I had recorded this song numerous times but

12:02 Some of my songs I like so well, I think well, they just seem to fit here and fit there so it kinda lended itself to that Irish um feel. So I it's one of my favorite. You want to play that one? 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 oh twenty five, thirty years ago, I guess. And uh I was sitting Uh on a couch in a place where I lived over in Anneok, Tennessee, in one of the first houses that I had after I'd moved to Nashville and and had gotten married. And I just remember wanting to write uh something old timey'cause I was probably homesick or thinking about the old days. And I just started, you know, just

12:41 singing it and uh I was at that time already uh probably pretty big name with the 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 uh when I first did this one it was more up tempo but on this version of it I slowed it down. У Лессер Ми Блу Тирс, вritten by Dolly Parton as featured on her new CD. Little sparrow. Fly I win

13:10 Mm. Mm-hmm. Fly spark! I should get away from here. And let not your song.

13:24 Goes for a job. Get my blue cheer. Delly Porton, in your autobiography, you said that when you were young you read everything you could get your hands on, the Bible, the farmer's 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 uh there were so many of us kids we didn't dare take school books home because the kids would just chew'em up or pee on'em or tear you know the pages out of'em. So they'd always tell us not to bring books home because daddy'd have to pay for'em. But I used to read everything I'd get my hands on at school and fairy tales I I love. So I would

14:09 You know, any time there was a break at school I could get my hands on a book, you know, on the desk or something, I I would read that. I still love books. I I read everything. I I read all the Whatever the hit books are on the on the bestseller list I try to read that. People give me gifts'cause I'd rather read when I travel on the bus and when I fly. I'd rather read uh than to watch television when I'm home. So I just enjoy that. There were twelve in your family. Looking at your mother, And the life that she was leading and the other women in the family

14:40 the life of an adult woman was going to be for you. Well, I knew it wasn't gonna be that. Uh, 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 ba I was babysitting from the time I have a s sister and two brothers older and there's eight children younger than me, so I had a house full of kids. 'Cause mom was sick a lot. She had one on her and one in her for as long as I remember. So those of us that uh you know, were home we had to kinda

15:11 to do the chores. So I had kids. I had a house full of kids and 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 eighteen 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. And then I marr I met my husband the first day I got there. We've been married for thirty four years and um been together thirty six years. I met him thirty six 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 and that lived with me. We sent them to school. Now they have kids and those kids call me Aunt Granny and my husband Uncle Pe Paw. So we're grandparents to them. So I've still been saddled with a bunch of kids with no kids of my own. Yeah.

15:58 What was church when you were young? Oh well, we were one of those shoutin' healing holy roller churches, you know, and and it was high powered, which was great. I really learned to sing in church I think, really with with the emotion. And we were a free uh 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, uh 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 that'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 him, I was afraid he'd talk back.

16:40 And I'm afraid he'd punish me somehow, you know, with stepping up 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? Well, I used to stand at church and sin at home and I don't talk about I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys wondering if I could act make an excuse to go out and you know go to the bathroom'cause all the outdoor toilets but anyhow, uh

17:11 I was only going out to to see the boys. But anyhow I I had a deep faith in in God and but I also You know where it's a was high spirited and fun loving. And I um of course was led to believe that everything you did w 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 uh I'm very deep, uh in my faith. In fact there's not an album that uh

17:39 That I do that I don't do something that is spiritual. In fact a song I used to sing in church uh years ago that we did up tempo, one of the songs we sang every time we went to church was a song called In the Sweet By and By. That's on your N C D too. Yes it is and that's what I was gonna say and I when I I wanted to do one of those gospel songs Um on this album. So I slowed this down and and it lended itself real nice to some more of that Irish feel. So uh at some point if you want to play that one, I think that would be a good choice. Well why don't we play that now? Okay, let's do. Here's a l

18:15 Betty. Mm. And by fate. We can see

18:27 For the fun to the way You prepare And sweet Line.

18:47 We shall meet Um We shall meet. And then Oh

19:08 We shall see! That's in the sweet by and by from Dolly Parton's new C D. Little sparrow. N now, when you were young you sang on the radio and then you sang on T V and it was before your family even owned a T V um did it make it any more or less momentous to be on T V 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?

19:33 Well, I don't think a lot of that registered on me at that time. I my purpose was to go sing. I you know, 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 uh so I don't think I I thought about Whether or not Um that somebody couldn't watch me. But after I did start being like a regular and bought our T V I wanted my folks to watch it. But I bought the T V but it didn't last long in the house because nobody around our area had a television. So everybody

20:09 Uh would come down and set the in our floor and sit on our couch, watch Gunsmoke and Wagon Train and Woody Woodpecker and all the shows that were on and Daddy couldn't get'em out of the house to get ready to go to work, so he said, This damn television's outta 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 two thousand one. She died yesterday at the age of eight. We'll hear more of the interview after a break.

20:40 I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to our remembrance of Dolly Parton. She died yesterday at the age of eighty, and Here's more of the interview we recorded in two thousand one.

21:14 Your first record, um uh it was a it was a forty five, one side was Puppy Love and the other side was Girl Left Alone. How old were you when this came out? I was about ten or eleven I think when I cut that. And uh that came out on Goldban Records, uh Probably a Several months here or so after that. That was my very first uh record and uh 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.

21:41 show back home. It never did do anything other than just that it was the first, but it did play locally. And I about killed myself I was sitting on a cabinet, uh sitting up on the sink uh cabinet uh with my I was and my aunt was cooking in the kitchen and the radio was on and and my song came on and I jumped off of the thing and slid on slid on the floor, slid on a rug and fell and trying to get to t where I could turn the radio up. So I almost killed myself trying to get to hear my first record. Yeah, but it was fun. It was I'll never forget the thrill of of hearing myself the first time on on the radio. I thought well, I've made it now. Could you say?

22:18 Could you sing a few bars of one of those songs? They side of the side. Puppy love, yeah, puppy love, puppy love. They all call it puppy love. I'm old enough now to kiss and hug and I like it. It's puppy love. It's why it's got one of those silly songs, you know, you pull my pig tail, to make me mad. Then you kiss me, make me glad. Sometimes you even make me sad. Still you're the sweetest sweetheart I ever had a puppy love up be la And I was trying to get all those little Bebop fifties kinda sounds in there too. But anyhow Needless to say, it didn't uh it didn't sell much, but it was a start. These were songs you co wrote, I think, with your uncle? Mm-hmm. My aunt, uh Dorothy Joe.

22:58 Uh co-wrote the other side, uh the girl left alone. Oh yeah, that's when you was talking earlier about singing those sad songs. I was ten years old singing, I'm a 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 ten years old? Now I can see that there's no hope for me. But anyway just like a ten years old. So I wrote my Uncle Bill, who was also my uh manager at the time that also produced that record the A and the B side, uh we wrote Puppy Love uh together. So those were just Yeah, like I say, you gotta start somewhere. And then my first uh record after that I wrote with another uncle of mine. It was I was fifteen years old and got on a major label, which was Mercury.

23:49 And I had a song called It May Not Kill Me, but it's sure gonna hurt How did that go? Oh, it's a that that's about it. It may not kill me, but it's sure gonna hurt. And then it goes into fast tempo and it's just about like losing somebody. It's like you're you're gonna walk away and I'm gonna stay and uh You know, when I don't like it, may it may not kill me, but it's sure gonna hurt. So when you were eighteen and 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 that. I was gonna be everything I could be, but definitely I was gonna be a a s a songwriter and and a singer and um that was what I headed out to be, was to be a star.

24:31 And uh I vowed that I wouldn't go home until I had something to show for it and I didn't. But I was very, very homesick and uh it was a y I 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 then I got lucky too. I had a Top ten record on a song called Dumb Blonde. Like just because I'm I'm blonde, don't think I'm dumb,'cause this dumb blonde ain't nobody's fool. That was my first top ten record, and I was I guess that was in about sixty six. Sixty No, it was in about

25:03 Sixty five, I guess. Somewhere in there. So uh I just knew that that's what I had to do and that was my destiny. I know now how lucky I was'cause I know a lot of people that got there about the same time I did and had twice the talent still ain't made it. So I I know how lucky I've been and I'm grateful for it every day'cause I love what I do. No, another thing you did early on is that you sent songs to Buddy Killen, the head of Tree Publishing, which is a big country music publisher. And did you get other people to record your songs? Well, 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 nineteen and sixty six, and Bill um Phillips had a song called uh Put It Off Until Tomorrow. You've hurt me enough today. And a lot of people through the years have uh recorded that song. So yes, so I had a different songs recorded by different artists, that being the biggest at that time. And I did write for Tree for for a a while. Buddy Killing was very good to me and then Buddy I mean um

26:01 Fred Foster, who owned uh Monument Records. took me over and I started to write for Um Combine music. And uh

26:10 And record for Monument Records. And that's where I had Dunblond and something fishy. Had a I had Two or three top ten records before I started with the Porter Wagner show in nineteen sixty seven. Well since you mentioned Porter Webner, uh let me play a recording that you made with him in nineteen sixty eight and then we'll talk about that period of your life. And the song is just between you and me. Who who wrote the song? Did you write this? No, I didn't write that and and uh come think of it, I I don't know who wrote that off the top of my head. That's been a few years.

26:38 Okay, so this is Dolly Parton with Porter Wagner, recorded in nineteen sixty eight. So I feel So Times I want to die So

26:55 So what They say that time will heal. Mas And then

27:10 And I know But some day I'll forget. And love again Just between you and me.

27:22 I got my doubts about it. Just between you and me. You're too much to forget That's Dolly Parton with Porter Wagner. You performed on his

27:42 popular TV show for a while and you know made several recordings with him. How did you start working with him? Well, Porter had the number one syndicated country television show in the country at that time. He had a a a girl on there for many years named Norma Jean, who had become a very big country star in her own right. And uh she got married w was getting married and moving uh back to Oklahoma City and left the show. And that left the spot so Porter was looking for a girl singer and I'd had uh people had been talking about me in town, you know, the new girl in town and uh that I I had something fishy, dumb blonde and a couple of other uh songs and so Porter had just uh got wind of that and he'd just call me down to his office for an interview. And so I sat down with my guitar and started singing songs that I'd written.

28:34 And uh 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. What did you learn about performing doing a weekly T V show? Well, you have to learn a lot of things, not just the weekly T V show, but we also went out on the road together, did stage shows. I learned a lot from Porter, 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 uh it's and I had done T V back home when I was a kid. I had grown up singing on radio and T V back in Knoxville, Tennessee. But you have to learn how to

29:14 not do silly things,'cause cameras on you, not pick your nose and stuff like that. Or or not to scratch your head or or nothing. No other parts of your body. So you have to kinda just learn how to be aware that you're you're on 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 you don't really realise what all you are learning just by watching professional people work'cause a lot of the artists and stars that would come on Porter Show all the time every week, you learn something from everybody. Well 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 Portal Wagner because I had been with him seven years. I had told him'cause see I had had plans to have a sing 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 uh 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.

30:24 But I kept staying and staying and I kept wanting to go'cause I felt like I really needed to go out on my own if I was ever really gonna 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 and no matter how I tried to talk to him to make I could not make him understand and I thought well won't you just 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 and that you'll always love him, period. So uh I just out of a a broken heart of not being hurt or Anything knowing I 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 uh 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.

31:12 Okay. Yes J I would hope. U

31:38 S. Of the way! That's Dolly Parton recorded in N Seveny Four. So do you know how this song ended up being used in the bodyguard?

32:11 Well they had told me that um when Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston were doing this movie. Kevin also uh think produced this movie and and put all this stuff together. They 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 uh what I will always love you said. And from what I understand

32:47 Kevin Cosner's secretary said, Did you ever hear a song that Dolly Parton, that country star, you know, the one with the big boobs and the big hair that Seriously, she said Dolly Parton, that country star um She said she had a song called I Will Always Love You and I think It'd Be Perfect and she brought it in to him and they said he loved it and so they chose it. We're listening to the interview I recorded with Dolly Parton in two thousand one. We'll hear more of it after a break. This is fresh air.

33:16 This is fresh air. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Dolly Parton in January of two thousand one. N now you said that when you were young you knew you wanted to be a big star. Why why did you want to be a star? 'Cause 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 needed a lot of attention being brought up in a family of twelve. You don't get much attention unless you're in trouble. You know, it's like uh 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.

33:52 I always say that it's a good thing I was a woman'cause if I'd have been a man I would have been a drag queen just'cause I'm so damn gaudy.'Cause I like all the flash and the glitter and you know, I just love you know, just I love playing him uh. clothes. I love playing, you know, in all in my life. It's like I love make up, I love clothes and I got the kind of personality that can pull it off and I just um I just love you know what what I do. I'm comfortable. being myself. Even if I'm make other people uncomfortable with the way I look. If I'm comfortable with it, then it you know, it's

34:24 It's okay with me. How how did you first start dressing in that um um What's what's the word I'm looking for? Almost oversized. Goody oversized kinda way where if your hair was big, it was gonna be real big. Well I think a lot of that came though from a very serious place. That's that was a country girl's idea of what glamour was and when I uh you know I didn't have any money to have stuff and 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. There was this one woman I thought she was beautiful

35:00 And you know, she had the peroxide hair and she you know, had it all piled up on her head and had red fingernails and red lipstick and and, you know, wore her powder and I just thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. And Mama said Oh quit looking at her, she ain't nothing but trash. And I thought, ooh, that's what I wanna be when I grow up trash. So that's where kinda my look came from and then how the the glamour girls and the movie stars and all that. You know, it was really like uh like that. But it was still, you know, I mean I enjoy it. I still like doing it and I've always just it's like when they say less is more, that's not my motto. Mine is more is more and

35:35 The more I can get the more I want of life and of everything and it's like but In addition to me being all that God and all, I take my music and my writing very, very serious and hopefully people know that my heart is true and I've always believed that a part of my magic, if there was any, was the fact that I look so artificial but 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. We're talking about this really oversized image that you've created. But your new C D and the C D before that are really kind of scale down. You know, they're they're traditional songs and bluegrass songs, sung sung you know, with with with a really good band behind you, but they're they're very um show busy.

36:19 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. Uh no, I don't think so because I think people have come to know me Uh 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 in the image. So the only change I wouldn't make only just

36:47 from from a show business fashion statement. I I w I may wear some things that w 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 and glitter on it. So it's not that I don't think I have to wear overalls in order to sing about a farmer. I don't think I have to You know, I don't I don't think I have to. I think people would really be more disappointed if I dressed down because they're so used to seeing me be the way that I am, I think that that would bother them more. They'd think, Why we should have worn one of them rhinestone dresses instead of that old corny looking thing. So um if I if I dress down as as plain and as real as some of this music is, I'd I would definitely look like Farm's daughter.

37:28 Dolly Parton, a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. My interview with Dolly Parton was recorded in january two thousand one. She died yesterday at the age of eighty. She's gone, but we'll always have her music. One of her most famous songs. was Jolene.

37:46 Beyonce introduced even more people to it when she recorded it on her country music album, Cowboy Carter. Here's Dally Parton's 1973 recording of Jolene. July. The Bobby Emerald Green

38:33 Your smile is like a breath of spring Your voice is soft like summer rain And I cannot compete with you Julie. Talks about two in his sleep and there's nothing up Coming up, jazz critic Martin Johnson reviews the new album. by singer Cecile McLaurin Salvant.

38:54 This is fresh air. This is fresh air. Our jazz critic Martin Johnson says all twentieth century jazz greats have cast long shadows that their twenty first century proteges must escape but But few musicians have a harder task than vocalists. Evading the extraordinary grounds set by first name legends like Ella, Billy, and Sarah.

39:17 And establishing a distinctive style of her own is a daunting task. Yet he says Cecile McLaurin Sylvant has accomplished just that. Amid a remarkable series of recordings and live shows. She'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.

39:40 A traditional recording with an orchestra and a program of ballads Yet Martin says that although rooted in the classics, Salvan always sounds in the moment. I say Into your Ski

40:03 And in this hard Nice. The flame that flickered one day. Mm. Die.

40:20 No way. Duke Ellington's sophisticated lady has been a classic for so long that it's often referred to as a war horse. Yet when Cecile McLaurin Solvant sings it She imbues it with curiosity. She's convinced that there are new aspects in the song to redeem and highlight.

40:40 Her singing is a quest to find and celebrate them. Never thinking Tomorrow. Nun shall I Diamond.

41:01 Shine. Dancing With Some fam in a restaurant. Is that

41:12 All you really want. That spirit of inquiry is what makes McLaurins all unspecial and without peer, even in an era of great young jazz vocalists like Samara Joy. Veronica Swift. And so me. Cecile, yes she's on a first name basis with the jazz community, has amazing range and astonishing technique.

41:38 But she employs them purely in the investigation of a soul. Isn't it real Yeah. Are we a pair? Me

41:59 Here at last, on the ground. You Okay. Sending the clowns is already a slow number. But Cecile decelerates it to communicate all of the longing, hope, and dismay in the lyrics.

42:19 The emotions of a song are Cecile's focus. On previous recordings, she's made songs by Stevie Wonder and Kate Bush her own with this style, but But on her new recording she tackles ten great American songbook standards with similar a plum. Here's her take on the Buddy Johnson classic. Ever since the one I love's been gone.

42:41 Uh Sir F What the phone Didn't we?

43:04 I'm all confused. About every little thing. Cecile records with the Dutch Metropole Orchest under the direction of Jules Buckley. The arrangements are by Canadian big band leader. Darcy James Argu.

43:20 With whom she created an oratorio called Ogress that is being made into a film. One of the most remarkable aspects of the recording was that Demonstrated there on ever since the one I love's been gone is how Cecile, who often records in just duo or even solo settings, has As if more than a dozen musicians comfortably squeezed into your living room.

43:45 I used to visit all The very gay places. Those come what may places. Where one relaxes On the axis of the wheel of life.

44:04 To get the feel From J And cock. Pail. Cecile's spirit of inquiry and formidable technique make her music contemporary.

44:19 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 McLaurin Sauvant's 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.

44:39 Life. And lonely. Again.

44:48 And only last year. Everything seems so Sho No Is awful again.

45:07 A trough full of hearts. Could only be Martin Johnson writes for the Wall Street Journal and Downbeat. He reviewed With Every Breath I Take by Cecile McLaurin Sylvant.

45:27 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 Bait. He plays a British Pakistani actor, auditioning to be the next James Bond. Ahmed is also a writer and creator of the 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.

45:59 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 Stanishevsky. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Ribaldonato, Lauren Crenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Challoner. Susan Yecundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez Whistler.

46:23 Our digital media producer is Molly C V Nesper. Roberta Shorok directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.