CORRECTION: 100 million books delivered to a million kids every month. https://t.co/ayXa1fQsne
— laura olin (@lauraolin) February 11, 2019
… Although I always think of her as our Queen of Cups: loving, generous, and wise. Just for giving all those books to all those kids who need them, she’d deserve a place in the pantheon:
… “My dad didn’t get the chance to go to school. And Daddy couldn’t read and write, and that was kind of crippling to him,” Parton said. “He was such a smart man, though. He just had such good common sense. They call it horse sense in the country.”
“But Daddy thought it was just something he couldn’t learn after he was grown, so he never tried to learn to read and write. And that was just kind of embarrassing to him,” she continued. “But I didn’t want Daddy to feel embarrassed.”
Parton was determined to give the children of Sevier County something her father never had: early access to books. She started the Imagination Library in 1995, and involved her father, too. He was able to see the program take off before he died in 2000.
“He got to hear the kids call me ‘The Book Lady.’ He got a big kick out of that,” she said. “But he took great pride and felt like he’d helped do something special.”…
And if she didn’t have that golden voice, she could’ve been a successful comedian. From NYMag:
“All of my life, I have been known for two things,” deadpanned Dolly Parton, as she took the stage to collect the MusiCares Person of the Year, pausing for effect, “Well, not them.”
“I’ve also been known as a singer and songwriter, too,” the country icon clarified. “Although, I’m not complaining — Ol’ Pancho and Lefty’ve been pretty good to me!” She then confided to the packed-to-the-back-wall crowd assembled at the Los Angeles Convention Center: “Everybody always expects me to do a boob joke, and I like to do that right up front.”
To illustrate Parton’s reputation as a stellar songwriter over the course of her five decade career, an A-list assembly of talent from across a wide swath of musical genres took the stage to perform her biggest hits and most personal compositions as the Recording Academy and its philanthropic arm MusiCares paid tribute to Parton’s singular accomplishments and longtime commitment to giving back at its annual Grammy Week gala…
Being honored for her contributions to music, Parton told Vulture on the red carpet, “means more than anything, because if I had to stop everything else and just choose one thing, I’d choose to be a songwriter.”…
For Nettles, who portrayed Parton’s mother in two television movies based on the icon’s childhood, Parton holds a particularly special place in her life. “For me, she is a mentor, she is an icon, she is a hero, someone I look up to as a singer/songwriter, as a woman, as a businesswoman, as a philanthropist, as an actress,” Nettles said. “She’s done it all, and she’s still so vibrant, still so relevant. I look at her, and we should all be so lucky, I think, to be able to have that kind of career and that kind of impact.”
“Those waters run really deep for her,” added Nettles. “You hear all of that depth and all of that gravitas in the stories that she tells, but then she has all this buoyancy on top that really draws us in.”
“I truly, I truly can feel the love in this house tonight — either that or my telephone’s on vibrate,” Parton cracked, telling the crowd she endured the career retrospective with a mix of dismay — “I really thought my hair looked good, back then. Can you believe that hair? Now that’s country music at its finest” — and wry reflection. “Watching them is sort of like watching porn. You’re not personally involved, but you still get off on it. So really got off on this show, tonight. Hey now, don’t blame me. At my age, you’ll take anything you can get. And I’m still hoping that I live long enough to get the Betty White longevity award. I’m working on it.”
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Dolly Parton, America’s Queen of HeartsPost + Comments (167)