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Entertainer talks about her work and Chattanooga connections

By: Lisa Denton
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Dolly Parton

Entertainer Dolly Parton recently sat down with members of the media to preview new attractions at her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

Her purpose was to announce the Polar Express ride during the Christmas season at the park and a family ropes course and circus theater coming in 2009. (More on that in an upcoming Diversions section.)

After the news conference, she talked with the Times Free Press about her new musical, songwriting and her love of Chattanooga.

Q: I know that you’ve done a lot of work on “9 to 5 The Musical.” Is there any chance that we’ll see at least a version of it here at Dollywood?

A: I had thought this would be a perfect place for it. But I doubt it, certainly not till it’s off Broadway and kind of starts doing its touring because it takes years for that to happen. ... Maybe in years to come we might be able to put some of our own actors and singers and dancers and do it at Dollywood, but that won’t be for a long time.

(People who want to see it) will just have to go to New York.

Q: Tell me about your songwriting process. You talked about waking up with new dreams and ideas every day.

A: That’s exactly what I do. I wake up with new dreams and new ideas, and I never know what somebody’s going to say that’s going to inspire a line. You think, oh what a great thought, what a great idea to make a song out of it.

Now a lot of songs, if I get commissioned, to write, say for instance, like “9 to 5” you know basically what you have to write based on what that character is saying. For the most part, my stuff just comes to me and I just kind of get after it. I come up with something every day. I don’t always complete a song every day, but sometimes I’ll write several songs a day.

I’m never far from my pencil and paper. Never far from my little tape recorder so I don’t lose a melody, because those things go so fast. You’ll think, oh I’d never forget that, and then a day later, it’s like man, I could kick my own butt because I didn’t put that down. I learned years ago to write it down and put the melody down or it’ll pass.

Q: Do you find that your songwriting goes in cycles, as far as the sound and type of music? Do you go into a bluegrass phase that you stay in for a while, maybe more country, or the dance project you want to do?

A: It’s a mix of everything now. Used to, back in the early days, if I was particularly writing for a bluegrass album or a country album, I would try to stay in that. But now I’m so programmed and such a skilled writer, I can be right in the middle of a bluegrass song, and break, get an idea, and think oh, what a great idea for a dance record and start writing on something else. I can just come in and out of it now, I’m so used to writing, and just kind of keep my wits sharpened by doing it.

I know when I did the musical “9 to 5,” I was so programmed, and I had everything on full tilt, I was working on those songs. Because of that, my mind wouldn’t slow down, but everything wasn’t about “9 to 5,” so I’d get up in the middle of the night, and (I) wrote some of the best love songs and things I’d ever wrote only because my mind was in that writing mode. So it just comes and goes.

Q: And it has to come out.

A: It has to come out, and I will just will stop something. I don’t think it matters. I don’t have to just finish that song right now because I know what it’s about and I’ll get back there. That’s always a good feeling. It’s a safety valve. It’s like working without a net. But after so many years of doing it, you don’t panic. And I’ve never had a writer’s block. Sometimes I get so busy that I don’t get to write as much as I’d like to but I know that I could if I just had a minute to do it.

So when I don’t write for a long time, I never panic. If you start dwelling on it, thinking you’ve got a problem, then you’ve got a problem. Then you’ve got a writer’s block, but I don’t go there.

Q: I know you have a few Chattanooga connections through (Lakeview High School graduate) James Rogers (who performs in the park) and (Red Bank High School graduate) Gary “Biscuit” Davis (who is featured in the preshow at Dixie Stampede, which she also owns).

A: Great guys.

Q: And you got married in Ringgold, Ga.

A: Yes, I got married in Ringgold, Ga. My husband (Carl Dean) used to live in Chattanooga for a little while when he was a boy. He lived in — where’s Missionary Ridge? That’s where he was, he lived there when he was a boy. ...

I have lots of friends in Chattanooga. Chattanooga is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. ... My husband and I love to go down there. We used to go down all the time and stay at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.

I took my nieces and nephews down there when (the Tennessee Aquarium) first opened up. I took my bus. All my little nieces and nephews they loved it. We went around to all the different things.

BOOK EXCERPT

Dolly Parton includes an account of her 1966 wedding to Carl Dean in Ringgold, Ga., in her 1994 autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business.” Here’s an excerpt:

It was a Friday when we got to Ringgold. We got our license without effort at the city hall. The judge, or justice of the peace or whatever title the man had, spit his tobacco against the wall and started in on the marriage rites. “Wait,” I said. “I want to get married in a church.”

Well, between spits the judge explained that we could only be married right away if we did it there at the courthouse. If we wanted to be married elsewhere, we would have to wait until Monday. ... We decided to go back to Tennessee and return on Monday.

I couldn’t wait till Monday to pick where I was going to be married, so we drove around town until we found Ringgold Baptist Church. We went in and had a chat with the minister. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. He just seemed to sense by looking at Carl and me that we were sincere about being together for life. The minister, Don Duvall, shook our hands and said he’d be pleased to marry us on Monday. ...

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