Today, Dolly Parton is a member of the country music royal class.
But over 60 years ago, she was just an aspiring singer performing in a parking lot. And for the first time, we get a glimpse of what that looked like.
Archivist Bradley Reeves appeared on WBIR in Knoxville to present recently uncovered footage of 14-year-old Dolly Parton.
The incredible video, shot in 1961 by Haroldine Worthington on a silent 8mm home video camera, shows the future country music legend strumming a guitar in a gas station parking lot in Fountain City, Tennessee, at an event hosted by television and radio personality (and former Knoxville mayor) Cas Walker.
Walker, whose Farm and home hour The variety show, which ran on radio and television from 1928 to 1983, helped the future megastar launch her career when she first appeared on his show at the age of 10.
The footage is accompanied by a studio recording of Dolly singing “Making Believe,” a 1955 chart hit by Kitty Wells that was later recorded by other country legends such as Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris and Merle Haggard.
Dolly’s version was included on Hits made famous by country queens, her 1963 compilation album with Faye Tucker.
It’s pretty amazing that this footage has survived all these years, but even more amazing is seeing a young Dolly Parton playing country music in a gas station parking lot three years before she moved to Nashville and six years before she got a chance to appear on Porter Wagoner’s television show.
If only people knew what a legend this little high school girl with the big hair and the angelic voice would become…
Kicked out of a New York hotel
Oh, Dolly…
The country queen never lacks great stories, no matter what show she appears on, and in 2005 she was a guest on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
And apparently there is more to the story we have already told when Dolly was Prostitutes in New York City and ended up having to point a gun at some creep. Not only did a man on the street think Dolly was a hooker, but apparently so did the hotel she was staying in during the trip.
In the late ’60s or early ’70s, Dolly and her childhood best friend, Judy, decided they wanted to take a trip to the Big Apple. Dolly was new to the music business and came from a remote part of the Great Smokey Mountains in East Tennessee. She had never been to such a big city before.
After settling into their hotel room and refreshing themselves from the trip, they decided to hit the town and explore New York:
“I think the first time I was here was in the late ’60s, early ’70s, and I had just started to make a name for myself in country music.
Of course, all country girls want to go to the city, so my friend Judy Ogle and I thought, well, we’ll just go to New York. So we came here. We had no money at the time, I was just starting to make it.”
But when they returned, they got a really nasty surprise…
“So we checked into a hotel. We’ve been friends since childhood and we only took one room. Of course, I looked cheaper then than I do now… and Judy didn’t look any better!
So we checked into this hotel and they thought we were hookers.
So we went and looked around the city. When we got back to our room, our luggage was outside in the hallway and they had locked us out because they thought we were doing business up there. They kicked us out! “
Some hotel in New York City seriously kicked Dolly Parton out…that doesn’t even sound real. I guess maybe they weren’t used to the big hair and over-the-top makeup of a hillbilly southern girl or something, but how funny is it to hear them talk about the whole situation now?
At least Dolly and Judy were allowed to leave their luggage at the hotel while they thought about what to do next:
“And then we were waiting to get out. We didn’t have any reservations at home, so we had our luggage with us. We asked if we could please at least bring it to the lobby.”
I mean, I know she might look a little different than most people who live in New York City, but a prostitute? Come on, people…
Dolly, of course, took the more elegant route and didn’t mention the hotel she was talking about, but it’s still a great story and you can always count on it to provide a good laugh:
Dolly never calls her husband by his name
Dolly Parton always makes me laugh.
She is just incredibly funny and always has a few good one-liners ready for every interview she gives.
I am sure that is part of what they Marriage with her husband for over 55 yearsCarl Dean, fresh and exciting. Although Carl deliberately stays out of the spotlight, Dolly often mentions him and what a solid marriage they have built over the years.
And she once told The Ladies Home Journal that they don’t even call each other by their first names.
Apparently Carl hates it when Dolly calls him by his name and prefers something more playful:
“He gets really weird when I call him Carl. I always call him Papa.”
I’m 99 percent sure Dolly probably doesn’t intend to call him that the way most people use the word these days, but it’s pretty damn funny to think of her calling him “Daddy” all the time, even when they’re just at church or the grocery store.
I mean, I’ve heard a lot of people with small children call each other the pet names “Mommy” and “Daddy,” but Carl and Dolly never had children of their own.
But honestly, Dolly is not really that sensitive, so maybe she means it in a sexual way, who knows… she has a pretty dirty sense of humor for being America’s Southern Belle.
But the thing is, Carl never calls her Dolly either:
“He calls me Mama or Little Kid or Angel Cakes. Sometimes he calls me Dotty for fun: ‘Okay, Lil Dotty.’ Maybe once a year I call him Carl and he seems so cold that it really upsets him.
Then he counters by calling me Dolly, and that hits me hard.”
Of course, if you’ve been married long enough, you probably come up with a lot of funny nicknames for your partner, but hearing Dolly call Carly just “Daddy” is probably the best thing that’s happened to me today.
And in the spirit of their playful relationship, we should not forget one of the most iconic internet videos of all time, in which Dolly legendary Playboy magazine cover of 1978 and gave her almost Husband suffered a heart attack… it will forever be a national treasure:
