She's Alive!

(laughing) - Hi, this is Shimo Liai, the producer of "Dolly Partens America." - Yeah, they're really amazing. - Shots, guys. - Look, are you gonna take us? - Before we start, one question. - Do you remember the first time you left home? - You remember one of the dolly songs that you heard Nelson Mandela play? - I'd love to ask you about Porter Wagner. - Now, that's when I needed a whip. (laughing) In this series, we address Dolly a lot of questions. Here's a question for you. How much is Dolly Partens America worth to you? This series was listener supported. It took Jad and I two years to make. It involved dozens of plane rides, hotel rooms, we commissioned original music, we had tape-sinkers, other reporters, across the world. In short, it was a really expensive series to make. Paid for by you. Thank you. When things are listener supported, they just, they're just different. We can chase leads in a different way. We are not beholden to advertisers. The only people we are beholden to is you. But there is a problem, unfortunately. (upbeat music) Of the millions and millions of people who downloaded these episodes, who listened, who enjoyed laugh, to heard the Porter's story, heard the Drolleen story. Only a tiny, tiny handful have stepped forward and made a financial contribution. We would like to make more of this kind of thing, but in order for us to do that, we need to hear from a whole lot more of you. So please, if you like what you heard, if you want to hear more of this kind of thing, please text the word Dolly to 70101. You'll get a text back, giving instructions on how you can donate, or you can go to dollypartensamerica.org/donate. Again, text the word Dolly to 70101. It just takes a few seconds. We'd love to hear from you. Actually, we need to hear from you. And thanks. ♪ Glory to his day ♪ I'm Chad Abumrod, this is Dolly Partensamerica. Final episode. ♪ Holy, holy ♪ - He's alive. - No, she's alive. I want to close this series with my favorite Dolly story, hands down. It's a story of the moment that Dolly became Dolly, and it happened in a church. Now, I'm not someone who's ever really gone to church. My family came from a place torn apart by religion. We avoided churches. And over the past two years of interviewing Dolly, I was hesitant to get into her faith, 'cause I just kind of figured it would be something I wouldn't really be able to understand. 'Cause religion like politics, it's just one of these things that divides us, right? But then she told me this story about this thing that happened to her in a church. And it's just kind of spooked me a little bit. (all laughing) - No, I have to admit, one of the only reasons we ended up talking about it was 'cause of that UT class, the Dolly's America class? - We'll never know who Dolly Partens is. We'll know who Dolly is, but who Dolly Partens is probably never. - At the end of that interview, as Shimole Liai and I and the students were all sitting around, we kind of got onto a thing. I would love to sit down and ask her questions. - Okay, let me follow that inspiration. So what's the question? What question would you want? What question would you want to ask her? - Oh man, I feel like there's this hidden side of her. And I just like, hope that she's doing well. I hope she's okay. I think when I put myself in her shoes, I imagine her life to be exhausting. I don't even know, I would ask her. - This is Laney by the way, Laney Goodwill. - I think I would ask her if she has any regrets about the way that it all played out. Do you have any regrets about the way it all played out? - No, well, I guess it's almost like everything I've ever done, good or bad seem to be the thing to do at the time. And to change one thing could change the whole thing. So I don't think you can live your life like that to regret. I mean, I regret it if I've hurt anybody else on my journey. I regret maybe getting caught a time too. It's some things I'm not not should have been doing, but I'm not saying I wouldn't do it again. But anyway, so to be honest, I guess the real answer to that is no. - What did you get? What did you get? You're not gonna tell me, but what did you get caught at that you were supposed to be getting caught at? - You can't know everything, can you? - All right, fair enough, fair enough. One of the other questions that came up-- - Is it true about the tattoos? That her body is like covered in tattoos? - What? - No. - To be fair, chemo is the one who threw that one out. Is it true about the tattoos? - I have a few tattoos on my body. They are not meant to be tattoos for the second tattoos. I'm very fair skinned, and when I have any kind of surgery or any kind of scarring, well, it turns, you know, it's kind of discolors and I can't get the color. So I, when I first started getting a few little things done, I had a few little tattoos to cover up some scarring, but I'm not tattooed all over like a bike woman or anything. But I do have a few, but they're very delicate. I don't have the dark ones, they're all pastels. But can I ask what, of what, or is that too personal? - Well, I have some butterflies. ♪ Like a butterfly ♪ - I have some lace and some inbows of hoes. - The bows, a couple of things like that. - Okay, all that was really just prayer-loo. The question that drove us to the story I mentioned came from a student named Will Oaks. - And this isn't really much as a question. I just want to have a discussion with her, like, what is the theology of Dolly Parton behind closed doors? Like, what exactly, like, is, are you like, the church ladies we've been talking about? Like, is that you? Is there something deeper there? I just want to get to the core of her belief system, not in a way of, again, judging. I just want to know, honest to goodness. - What is the theology of Dolly Parton behind closed doors? - Well, now, I am not, I'm a very spiritual person. I do not believe, I don't like talking politics and I don't like talking religion. And I certainly don't like trying to cram my religion down anybody's throat, because I am not that religious, but I am very spiritual. - How do you practice your faith? - I don't practice it. I'll live it. I think people try to hard. I talk to God like He is my best friend. I just go around talking to Him. Sometimes I think, if somebody saw me in my house, I think I was an absolute lunatic. I just talk to God, and sometimes it's something great is happening. I just want to kind of raise my hand, give God a high five or a thumbs up. It's like, I don't feel like I have to go to church to do it. I think church is in our hearts. It's wonderful for those who want to go to church. That's a wonderful thing, but I don't think I have to. And it's like I go when I want to, or when you can, or special occasions, but I live my faith. If you try to shove that down people's throats, or you come on goody, goody, that ain't gonna work. You live by example. You teach, by example. You learn by example, don't you think? And even the old cynics just say, oh, you know, there's no such thing as God. I said, well, that's your problem. I know there is for me, and that's what works for me. It was scare me to death to think that there was nothing bigger and better than me, that there wasn't something out there that we could depend on. Of course, look at it, well, if there is a God, why would he let this happen to that happen? Well, he's not letting things, the things happen. He gave us free will. We've the ones that screw up all the time. - We started talking about this, and initially, I thought that Dolly was sort of addressing that big question that people have about God and a belief in God. Like, how can you believe in God? How can God exist? And so many bad things happen in the world. How would he allow that to happen? And initially, I thought she was nodding at that idea, that sort of deist idea, that God created the world, but then voluntarily gave up some control to us mere mortals. And so when bad things happen, it's not necessarily his plan. It's sort of his permissive will, as it's sometimes called. I don't know. - Like, I don't even try to analyze it to that degree. I just accept it for me. - But as we kept talking, it became clear. Her faith is way more particular, and idiosyncratic than I would have ever expected. - The Bible says, let every man seek out his own salvation, and that means to save himself. Whatever it takes to save you, and if you can get to that place and you find your own peace, then you can do good for other people, if you're at peace within yourself. - Did you, 'cause I know you grew up in a very devout family, who went to church all the time, Did you? This is a moment when you stopped going and it had been getting more internal for you. Was that okay? Yeah. Well, we grew up in a fanatical church, in a cost of Holy Role, but I still love it. In fact, I'm fixing to, I'm doing a show, I just sold a show called Sister Shine for Lifetime, where I'm playing a female evangelist, I always wanted to do it. And it's about a woman that kind of gets told down because of the religion. But I just always, that help our damnation that we went through used to scare me to death. And I was too scared to, but I never did, I didn't want to go up and, I just was scared of all that. And I used to pray, I just would pray for God to show Himself to me or to let me see what that was about, because I would say, I would talk to Him even then, I would say, I'd just scared me to death, you know, in the church. It scares me. I don't, you know, it's like I don't want to be afraid of God, because then they say we're supposed to fear Him and they say He's our Father and we're supposed to, and I was confused with all that. And she says, when she saw people go up and get saved and speak in tongues and do the whole thing, she would always feel like, why is that not happening for me? What am I doing wrong? I never, never felt like I was saved. I never felt like I was safe that I was getting what they were seem to be getting or supposed to be getting, you know, because I just didn't ever feel like I had reached that place. But then there was this old abandoned church down the hill. That was to this day, to this day, that stands out in my mind just like it happened. There was this whole church at the foot of the hill where we were living, and it just had an old piano in it. All the windows were all busted, people used to go down there drink, make out, they would go to the picture, find it on the walls. She was 12 years old. She would wander into that abandoned church, and as she writes in her autobiography, she would fixate on those pictures. I spent a lot of time looking at them, studying the way the sexual organs had been drawn and the times trying to add to them. You would doodle on the unless drawings? Oh, yeah. I love that old church, and every time I'd go down there, there was just a piece in that church, you know, I could just feel the echo and the bigness, and I loved singing it. I was like, I hear my voice sound good in there, but I would take that old piano and I'd bang around. There was a few old keys left on it. And I even took a string and rigged it up on a board, you know, where it was kind of like a sound like so in the Middle Eastern sound, it was just no drummy sound. But it was a little bit of a sort of a sound, but it was just a little bit of a sound. So, she says there was this one particular day she was in the church, first staring at the dirty pictures, then singing for a couple hours. And after that, I just was praying and praying and praying. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makeeth me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restored my soul. Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. I just was praying because I thought I need to know, they come from me. I just need, I need a feeling I don't have, I need a safety, I don't have. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I just remember being in that church and I felt something. I remember, it just came to me, I didn't hear it like a voice, it came to me as a feeling that was as strong as a voice though. And I felt like I found God that, that day. And I felt like I knew who I was that day. She writes that in this place of confusing images, I found real truth here in one place, I found God, music and sex. My fascination was complete. I sang with a strength and conviction that only God could have understood. The joy of the truth I found there is with me to this day. I found God. I had found Ali Parton and I loved him both. It's kind of perfect in a way that you found that with dirty pictures on the wall and a busted up piano with a string, it somehow feels like all the dolly things. Yeah, the sexuality, the spirituality, the sensuality and the music, all that is me. And I remember when I left that old church, I was still walking around the road back up to their house. And Vonny Owens, one of my old uncles that under saw me all up the road and he came down and I was just jumping, I was just flying, you know, just jumping up and down, all skipping around. And he said, "Where are you going on this Friday?" And I said, "I'm on the road to paradise." And so I remember just saying that. She says her uncle was a little confused. But I still, like if your mama talks in tongues and your mama lays hands on people and you love your mama and your aunts and your uncles and your grandpa, that's real to them as what I have is real to me. I think part of what I love about this story, well, a lot of things, it kind of captures Dolly Parton for me, how she can be all of these things at once, like she's able to pull in all of these disparate things from the borderlands and somehow hold them all together to where they don't feel contradictory. There's something welcoming about this kind of faith. It's so singular and permeable. And that's for Dolly. She says she can will herself back to that abandoned church anytime she wants. It's like a little invisible wall. I can just kind of go through there and be in my God place. And I can stay there till I'm restored or healed in my spirit if something's really troublesome. And nobody can go there with me. I can't take nobody with me. How do you go there, do you? What do you do to get there? I just walk right through it. And she says if things have been really intense, she will fast for three or four days. No food, just water. That's the way to get back to that place. I know when it's time, I just know if I don't have, if I can't deal with it anymore, and I just am worrying too much, fretting too much, and I'm not, even if I pray and I'm not ready, I just think I have to stop this now, I just have to go to my own little space. Dolly Parton's America will continue in a moment. I'm a very spiritual person, as you know. Not religious, but I'm very connected to that, and that's where I get my energy, and that's where I get my creativity, that's where I get my strength, that's where I get my stamina to go on when things are hard. I just kind of draw from that stuff out there that I feel is there for all of us. It's just that I connect it to it early, and I just use it. This is Dolly Parton's America, I'm Chad Abumrod. My final interview with Dolly, we met at a small house that she owns in Nashville. Not too far from where I grew up, actually. Honestly, I thought, oh my God, I've passed by this house a million times on the way to school, I had no idea. We sat on a blue couch, she was dressed in all white, and asked her some more questions about her faith, and also about the future. So many people we spoke with refer to you as St. Dolly, but it does make me wonder, like, what do you think happens when you're not here, and it's just St. Dolly, and it's no longer Dolly Dolly. - Well. Well first of all, I'm no saint, trust me, I'm no saint. But for me, as far as what I hope my music will be left behind, I hope that it will always live. I think all that love at us, stuff may fall away. But I would like to think that I've left some good pieces of music, and I think as long as time lasts, people will be doing music all kinds of different ways. As we were talking, it became clear that this question that I had thrown out, what happens next is something that her and her team are thinking about on all levels. She hinted without really elaborating that they are thinking about business deals regarding her publishing catalog. They're already going into the vaults. I am a lucky person because I've got hundreds, hundreds even thousands of songs, and a big part of them have never even been recorded. There's enough stuff to go on forever with my music to do compilation albums, to do actually new and original stuff, and I am purposely trying to put songs down for that very purpose to have a click track, and my vocals to where any arrangement can be done. Really? So I think ahead. What would be hearing dolly albums of new material for 50 years from now on? It could be that we'll hear your vocals over someone else's music 100 years from now. Yeah. Anybody could produce that. Anyone, any producer, anywhere in the world, a hot producer, when I'm gone, they could take my songs, just the click track and my vocal, and build a complete arrangement around that. Every style, anything that we do, because as you know, if you've got a good click track to where you've had a vocal, anything can be done with that. So that will go on forever. I'm one of those people that believe in being prepared. I don't want to ever leave my stuff in the same shape like Prince, or Aritha, or anybody that don't plan ahead with that. And as far as what happens after, you know, we go on, like I say, I'm no saint, so I'm hoping just as a Christian faith person, you know, that we go on to a greater thing, that we're I believe they were all part of that great divine plan. And I'm hoping to get on up there and do some more writing and singing and play my those golden harps and write some more songs and have my own mission and walk them golden streets of glory and keep doing it forever and ever and ever. So I'm going to get in the Angel band for sure. I'm going to play in the Angel band and I'm going to maybe play the harp up there, I don't know. I really don't know where we go. I don't know if we, you know, if there's such a thing as reincarnation, I kind of believe all that kind of stuff. I'm just open to things. And when I was working with Shirley McLean, who had that book out about reincarnation and somebody said, oh, how'd you and Shirley McLean get along and we got along fine. I said, I don't know that I believe in reincarnation and I didn't believe in it when I lived before. So it's dope. Oh, yeah, yeah. Took me a second. Sorry. But anyway, so I'm just saying, you don't really know. You just hope and you have faith. That's what faith is. But I believe that it's going to be better. And I don't, I think this not the end of me, I don't think it's the end of any of us. I think we're recycled. And if nothing else, we just go back into that great flow of divine energy and hopefully we can spread our selves around in other wonderful ways. That's what I hope. Dolly, I just, again, I just really want to thank you. Well, let me just say, though, that I feel honored and hopefully you treat us with respect. I was happy to spend the time because once I got into it when I saw that you really were sincere about it and you really wanted to know my true feelings and maybe something we've done might inspire people to do a little better. I hope so. I hope so. Tolly Parts America was produced written and edited by me and the incredible, amazing, invaluable, Shimoli Eye. Brought to you by Awesome Audio, OSM Audio and WNYC Studios. We had help from W. Harry For tuna throughout the series, huge thanks to him. Thank you to the folks at Sony Music, HarperCollins, thanks to St. Augustine Church, Jonathan Fennelon and Vanessa Pena there, and thanks to Nora Brown for singing for us in that church. Thank you to Lynn Sacco of the Dolly Parts America class at the University of Tennessee to all of her students who spent so much time with us. To David Dottson of the Dollywood Foundation, Danny Nezel, Sam Haskell, Teresa Hughes, thank you to the editorial brain trust of Susie Lecktonburg, Lulu Miller, Pat Walters, Soren Wheeler and Sam Shahi, a very special thanks to all of the people in our Tiger team. The Adora Cuzzelin, Rachel Lieberman, John Pazmore, Maya Pascini, Sahar Baharlue, Kim Nawaki, Millie Christie-Dervaux, Liz Weber, Dan Fischett and Ashley Luff. Thank you to Christine De Carvalo for the beautiful series art that you can see at Dollypartonsamerica.org where you can also find a playlist of music from the series. Thank you to Apple Music for partnering with us on that. And I want to thank my dad and of course Dolly. If you liked this series and this is the first time you've ever heard anything I have been involved in, definitely go to radiolab.org and check out that show, 17 years of content waiting for you. Also to keep tabs on myself, Shima, all the new projects that we will be developing go to awesomeaudio.com, that's osmaudio.com, and that is a wrap. I'm Chad Abumarad signing off. Thanks for listening.