she retained her links with the music she loved and grew up with. Luckily the lady had her songwriting ability to fall back on and by penning country hits like Put It Off Until Tomorrow and The Company You Keep for Bill Phillips and I’m In No Condition for Hank William Jr. When she tackled an old pop hit like the teen ballad, Happy, Happy Birthday Baby, the result was little better and Dolly was certainly not happy with these recordings. Her own songs, like Old Enough To Know Better, were over-produced with a heavy bass beat and brass used in abundance with poor Dolly fighting to be heard. Her initial recordings for Monument were produced by the underrated Ray Stevens, but the chemistry did not blend at all. To begin with Foster made the mistake of pushing Dolly towards the pop market. Like so many successful writers (Larry Gatlin, Roy Orbison and Kristofferon the most notable), she was helped on her way by Fred Foster, the owner of Combine Music and Monument Records. Apart from recordings made for the Goldband label in Louisiana when she was still a child and a gospel album made as a member of The Parton Family, Dolly’s first real attempt at a successful recording career was in Nashville in the mid-1960s. Guided by her uncle, Bill Owens and supported by her family, she was groomed toward stardom at an early age.
Though the times were hard on Dolly and her family, they fought the problems of poverty by hard work combined with love and religion, which held the family close together.įrom an early age Dolly knew that she wanted to be a singer. Many of her songs reflect this early life. Her early life was spent in the hill country of East Tennessee, one of a dozen children. She is, in every sense of the word, a contemporary Cinderella. Dolly, a beautiful 32-year-old singer and songwriter, has really emerged in the last three years as an international country music superstar.
First published in Country Music People, May 1978ĭuring the past eight years Country Music People has seen the emergence and the downfall of many great country music stars, and I feel that it is the career of Dolly Parton that most fully spans the one hundred editions of the magazine.
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