Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S10 Ep 12: Dolly Parton

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

This is a BIG one!!! Straight out of Nashville, the one and only Country ICON Dolly Parton joins us on Table Manners.We chatted to Dolly - dressed head to toe in festive gear - back in October, before her beautiful book Storyteller had reached these shores and before we knew she had potentially helped cure covid with her generous donation to help fund a covid vaccine. As well as telling us all about cosying up with Michael Buble on her new christmas record ‘A Holly Dolly Christmas’ she talks to us about her upbringing in the mountains, being one of 12 children, her speciality of Chicken and Dumplings, that Glastonbury show and the very first time she heard Whitney Houston sing her song on the radio. This was a total pleasure and a real pinch yourself moment (hence my over talking).Hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed chatting to everyone's favourite storyteller. X Link in bio Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here on Zoom with my mum. Hi mum. Hi darling. This could be the biggest Table Manners guest we've ever had in our life. Definitely. The smallest, the most petite probably. I don't know, do you think Kylie would give a run for her money? I think she's quite small in stature. But big in love and philanthropy and music and country and... And heart.

And heart! I wonder if she can line dance. Maybe. Do you think they do that where she came from? I don't know, Mum. I don't know. You can ask her all these questions. Do you think she wears a hat, a cowboy hat and boots? No, I don't.

When she's at home? No, Mum. She does. I've seen her with those tassel things, darling, on her sleeves. Don't think so. But we have Dolly Parton on Table Manners tuning in from who knows where, but celebrating her Christmas record.

A Holly Dolly Christmas is out already. It's October. She knows that we need a little bit of Christmas cheer. And we're going to talk to her and talk to her about food and Christmas and being able to get cosy with Michael Bublé on the track. That sounds like heaven to me. Dolly, do you think she's one of those people that puts her Christmas tree up in November?

Who really loves Christmas? Well, she puts a Christmas album out in October, so probably. We've got Dolly Parton coming up on Table Manners. I'm not going to lie. I'm a bit nervous. Why? Because I don't want to mess this one up. Well, just don't talk, darling.

Let her do the talking. Okay, I will. I mean, there's so much to talk to her about and so little time, but we will try and cram it all in. Shit, shit, shit all in okay here we go hello dolly can you hear us she's not connected yet working on it i can hear you can you hear me yeah yeah well hi there hi dolly how are you i am good i understand we're going to be sitting around the table talking yeah talking about food and christmas okay how are you you're

with a crit you buy a christmas tree well of course i am because i'm doing a whole lot of promotion for my christmas album and a whole bunch of other stuff i got going on but you can't see that right you're on a podcast right right? You're just on the radio. But we can paint the picture, Dolly. You know, there's a Christmas tree, there's a wreath. Dolly is in a beautiful red outfit. And I feel like it's Christmas Eve and I've got the best present of all. Well, thank you. I'm happy sitting here on Christmas Eve by my fireplace with my Christmas tree and my wreath and all that. So I am in the Christmas spirit.

How about you? Well, you know what? For October the 2nd or 3rd, I'm feeling pretty jubilant. I'm well up for it. I'm thankful that you have given Christmas to us so early. Thank you. We need some Christmas. I wish I had recorded that in my new album.

We need a little Christmas. But I didn't. But we certainly do, and I've got it. I started it early on in the summer, so I've been doing Christmas since July. Oh, wow. So you started recording the record in July? Yeah, you usually have to start early in order to get things done. And we also decorate. We decorate the studios and everything to where we feel like we're in the Christmas spirit.

So where are you right now, Dolly? I am in Nashville. I'm at one of our studios that we do our work in. So we kind of work in a small circle in our own little personal private areas. And we try to do our social distancing and try to be smart and all that. So I'm sitting here right in the middle of Nashville. Did you actually get to get cosy with Michael or did it have to be kind of socially distanced cosying up with Michael Bublé? Well I wanted to cosy up and cuddle down and cosy up with him but I couldn't very well do that not this year anyway so maybe next year I'll get to do a

Christmas special of the same album and then maybe I'll get to cuddle up with him then but we actually all the guests that we had on on we kind of had to do it where they were in their studios and uh we had uh you know we had to kind of do it uh with all the you know the social distancing and all the stuff that we had to do but thank god technology we pulled it off do you like Christmasmas dolly well i love christmas don't everybody i think that's probably my favorite time of the year i mean i enjoy all of it but christmas is just so much about the like he's talking about the the trees the glitter the the glamour the presents the streets being all decorated and getting a chance to party and to sing and to eat too much and not feel too bad about it till the first of the year. So who does the cooking, Dolly,

in your house on Christmas? Well, everybody in my house, I like to do a lot of my own cooking and my sisters and I love to cook the same things that we grew up serving at Christmas with a lot of mom's old recipes. But we do the traditional stuff, the turkey, whether it's chicken or turkey, and hams and the stuffings and the mashed potatoes and the yams and the pumpkin pies, all the stuff that we eat at Thanksgiving we eat again at Christmas. So it's kind of like it's a whole eat at Thanksgiving, we eat again at Christmas. So it's kind of like it's a whole continuous thing. But we all love to cook. And my sisters and I make our own special little things. Mine is chicken and dumplings that taste like mama's. So we try to keep mommy in Christmas all the time. So was your mama good cook then? Oh, of course she had to cook for that big house full of young'uns so mama everything

mama cooked you know you'd think there wouldn't be a thing to eat in the house and mama would just start cooking and before you know it there was always something that always was always good. There's a lot of you there's you've got a lot of brothers and sisters there were was there 12 of you? Yeah there's 12 of us in all. There's six girls and six boys. I have a sister and two brothers older, and they're very kids younger. But we had a lot of mouths to feed. My sister and I had to learn to cook early. So we cook a lot like Mama and my aunts and my grandmas.

Mama was always having a baby, so when Mama was out with the baby, my sister Willard and I had to do the cooking, you know, in those early days. So we know how to do it. You're one of the oldest in the family. Yes. I have a sister and two brothers older than me. And so you had to take a lot of responsibility for the little ones. Well, yeah.

That was just the rule of the house. Every time Mama had a baby, we all had to help take care of it. So I think that's why she kept having kids kids just so she'd have somebody to babysit. But we would, we did it, you know, it was just a natural way of life. We were always excited when we heard mama was having a new baby, which was all the time. I always make a joke that mama had one on her, on her hip, or one in her at all times. On her inner. Yeah. But we loved them all, and Mom and Daddy loved us all, so that was just the way it is.

Just horny hillbillies up there in the mountains. At Christmas, will you all get together with your family? Is that how you normally spend Christmas? Well, we try to get as many of us together as we can at Christmas. A lot of my family still live in East Tennessee, and that's 200 miles east of Nashville. So it's a four or five hour drive up there. But the ones that live in Nashville, we try to get together as much as we can. And then sometime between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day, we make our trips back and forth to see the ones in East Tennessee. And the ones from East Tennessee that want to get out and drive, well, they usually come down, you know, to my house or whatever. So we just kind of do it, you know, different ways now.

And we just love to have Christmas. We just get together as much as we can as many of us as we can and uh but through the course of the holidays we try to connect with everybody and Dolly am I right in thinking your brother is on this um Holly Dolly Christmas album doing a duet with you yeah talking about all those kids and us growing up in the mountains uh we used to always want one of those walking talking dogs that we used to see in the in the catalogs that used to come to our house the wish book daddy called it we're just wishing for it we weren't going to get it but anyway we used to see these walking talking dogs that you put water in a little bottle and it would pee and it would have real tears and all that and then sometimes they'd walk and talk.

And so we never could have that at that time. And some of our cousins living in the city, they did. So my brother Randy was born around Christmas. So mom said, come over here. You got to see your own walking, talking doll. He really be, he's real be and cries real tears and all that. So he was our Christmas baby. So I wrote a song in this album called You Are My Christmas.

And I wrote it for my brother, Randy. So he's singing with me on it and his daughter, my niece, Heidi, singing that third part, Harmony. And so it's real, real special, you know, to me, that particular song with them. Oh, that's so lovely. Dolly, I'm a singer when i'm not talking to you on zoom and and doing a podcast i'm actually a singer and so i love to know how you tour and

whether you have anything particular on your rider that i should be putting on my rider because mine is very boring well actually um i love to to travel i really kind of miss touring during this time because we all kind of took off but i i spend a lot of time on my bus and i take a lot of the things i like with me the things i like to eat but in the dressing room i usually just they usually just put fruits and crackers and cheeses and uh like water i don't drink the sparkling water if i'm singing i like the flat water and i have tea and we have coffees and you know I like potato chips so I always ask for those kind of junky things mostly but when we do tour

we have a caterer that usually prepares a dinner for us after our rehearsal so anyway we have everything we need and what we don't get there I have on my bus. I wanted to know because I watched the documentary on Netflix and I saw that you did you you did 50 it was your 50th anniversary at the Grand Old Opry at which I you know I've heard about I haven't ever been to but this is a huge huge deal in country music and you were doing and I wanted to know whether there was a particular like a culinary celebration after that gig when you did it. Was there somewhere that you'd go? Is there anywhere that you recommend in Nashville that you can get the best?

I know that you like pork. You love a pork chop, is it? I do. Well, pork is my favorite meat, of course. One of the places we go all the time, and the one that I'm giving them an appetite, it's called Arnold's. And they make the best stuff. So we love their food, and they do the best food of anything.

And of course, everybody loves Cracker Barrel. You know, everybody goes to that. They have country food, but they're just always you can always find good food in Tennessee for good barbecue and for all meat and threes. And so I still cook a lot of that kind of stuff myself. So, but at least I know where to go. So if you come to Nashville, you won't have any trouble finding a good place to eat. God, I love that place. It's so brilliant. I watched a chef's table on this very famous chef called Sean. I can't remember his surname, but he has this very famous restaurant called Husk, where he's kind of brought Southern food back and he's really celebrating the foraging

what kind of real authentic southern cuisine and kind of it looks fantastic and I wanted to know whether you did you used to forage in the mountains like would you go and pick in the mountains and go and find things to eat in the mountains? Well when you grow up in the mountains like we did we lived on a farm so we grew you a lot of our own vegetables, and we raised our own pigs, and we did all that in those days. So mama just knew how to put anything together, but we also did a lot of wild foods like rabbit hunting and squirrels and all the things. A lot of people, oh, you eat squirrel, you eat rabbit, some of the best eating in the world if you know how to fix it. And when you live in the mountains,

you learn to eat and fix everything that's edible. And even the greens, you know, that grow in the fields, you know, the wild stuff that makes really tasty things, like whether it's like watercress or whether it's something we call poke salad. It's like the poke bush, P-O-L-K. I guess we call it poke, poke salad. But anyway, it's a wild green that grows.

So there's a lot of wonderful things that you can cook from the mountains and that run wild in the woods and the stuff you grow domestic on your farm, around your barn, in your barnyard. I wanted to know, watching that documentary and Jane Fonda talking about how you all got to know each other on 9 to 5 when you were kind of, you were making this film together. And you do these sleepovers, she said. And you do these sleepovers and you talk and you get to know each other. And I wanted to know, what were you ordering on room service?

I need to know these things. Well well I would imagine whatever was good I guess we we ordered a lot of I guess club sandwiches and soups that sort of thing but if you you know I stayed at a really nice hotel there the Balazs hotel when I was staying living there and they had the best things on the menu whether it be like uh like, I love liver and onions. That seems to be a delicacy, too, in the city. And so I would order that kind of stuff. Anything that I could order that was close to country. They had also great steaks and great fish.

And Jane, she used to eat a little better than I did because she was working out at the time. So I'm sure she and Lily were eating better and more like a baked fish and baked chicken. I was getting chicken with gravy or whatever I could get that, you know, had something on it that was a little more tasty to me. But anyhow, we would just order whatever we felt like when we would chat and talk. And pizza is always great you know to order always order that that in i can't believe that you eat junk food you're wearing leather trousers well i'm glad i wouldn't be sitting like this if i was on camera oh no but they're gorgeous i'm so jealous oh well thank you uh i really have to watch what I eat because I have that country girl's appetite. I can't eat everything I'd like to all the time, nor in the amount that I'd like to.

I had to learn pretty early on. I had to pull back from some of that. But that doesn't mean that I don't still like that and that I don't still eat it. I do try to eat as much good food as I can. And then when I have a big project coming up, I just have to go on a diet because I love carbs. And then I have to go on a low-carb diet to kind of get where I need to go because I have a tendency to gain weight, and I'm a very small person. Yeah, I wondered how small you are. I'm only 5'1", without my shoes and my hair,

but I'm 6'7". But anyhow, I just kind of have to watch it to not let it get too out of hand because I've been fat and I've been skinny and I may be that again. So I just have to keep an eye on it because I do love to eat. I love to cook. I love restaurants. Everything about food I love. and don't we all love our kitchen yeah like you don't we just live in it but dolly you have one of the best quotes about food

i mean it's like an iconic quote it was like my my my true loves you say it because you're going to say it better than me i guess i guess somebody said my my weaknesses have always been men, sex, and food, and not necessarily in that order. Something on that order. You've got one of the longest marriages in history. I do. My husband and I have been together for 57 years, been married 54. Congratulations.

And I'm sick of him, and I'm sure he's sick of me. Oh, no, he's not. Does he come from a big family too? No, he has one brother and one sister. So he's had to kind of get used to my big family because I've always had my family around me. The Partons are overwhelming. Yeah, he loves them all and they love him.

So, but no, he's from a very small family. Dolly, what would be, you're about to go, you're about to go to a desert island and your final meal before you're about to go and you're not going to eat this food for a very long time. You've got a starter, a main and a dessert and a drink of choice. What would it be? I would probably have a big carb dinner for sure. I'd probably have some of my own chicken and dumplings, which I love. I'd probably have a side order of mashed potatoes, which I love. I'd probably have a big old bowl of coleslaw and a big old piece of either cornbread or a big old biscuit with that. And then for dessert, I would probably have something either like a pumpkin pie

or some homemade something I love. There's a rhubarb pie. Are you familiar with that? And you never can find it anywhere, but Mama used to make it. And there's a pie place here called Marie Callender's that has it. And so anyway, if I had my choice and I had to get my hands on a piece of rhubarb or the whole pie before I went to that island, I guess that's probably what I'd have. We used to grow rhubarb, and that's why we always had it.

So we don't grow that anymore. We don't use that much of a garden, you know, around anymore. It's just usually like the herbs and tomatoes and cucumbers and, you know, a few little, you know, things, salad garden. But anyhow, but anything, I would eat pork. You're talking about me eating pork. I love the chicken and dumplings. But I might want a big slab of pork roast too before I head it out for the autumn.

And then what's the drink of choice I hear you like red wine I don't drink much I only drink wine if I'm out to dinner I never drink at home even I don't even drink wine at home you know with dinner because I don't usually have guests over I usually do any drink and I do if I'm going out to some special thing because I'm not much of a drinker but I do love red wine if I if I go out at my choice between red or white I choose the red uh but I'm I really would rather have a big old jug of or a glass of sweet tea that's a very southern thing that's not good for you either but um anyway that's probably what I'd have with that meal before I went to that island I have to say Dolly um I I watched you at Glastonbury when you performed on the Pyramid stage.

And it was the most beautiful concert. I loved it so much. And I think you filled everyone with joy. And I feel like everyone was just hugging each other throughout the concert. It was so gorgeous. And I wondered, do you have an affinity with the UK? I mean, did you like the food? I don't know, you were talking about gravies and chickens and stuff.

So I'm wondering, like, is there anywhere that you'd love to go in London or the UK? Oh, I love the UK. And when we did the Glastonbury show, I was just so, I felt so loved too. I felt back from then what I was trying to give out and it worked, didn't it? So it was really a special show. I was kind of nervous about doing the show. I was kind of apprehensive because I didn't know. I knew it was a festival that was very famous and I knew everybody loved to party and like to drink, smoke their weed and whatever. And so I thought, well, they're not going to, you know, pay attention because my stuff is so many stories and I thought I didn't know if I would fit

in that and then when I went out there and I did it was just made me feel so happy and good and so I gave it everything I had I think that was one of the reasons I was just so grateful that they were you know really appreciative of me and so that was great but anyway getting back to the food, the thing I love the most about the UK, I order it always in room service, is the cream, the scones and the jellies and jams. Oh, and I have the tea, the afternoon tea. Oh, yeah. And I have it all brought to my room. And Lord, I can just die over all of the scones and that heavy cream or the cream that you have there that you spread all over that.

And I usually gain, and I try to stay in my show clothes because I don't have time to change them. So it's really hard when I come there not to really put on the pounds just eating all that great butter and that cream and milk. It's just so good. The cream is different, isn't it, to the steak? Yes, it is. Because we can't get it here.

The scones are not the same. We can't get it like that. I wanted to try to make them, but it's not the same. We cannot get that kind of cream. We cannot get that kind of. It's just something about the soil, I guess, about the taste of the butter, the cream. Whatever. It's good and it's fattening.

Dolly, are you a great reader? Oh, I love to read. I've been reading since I was a little kid. That's always taken me anywhere I wanted to go. And I love books. I just order anything off of the New York Times bestseller list. And, you know, just anything from Oprah's and Reese Witherspoon's book club. But mostly I just swap books with friends. What inspired you to start the Imagination Library besides wanting to promote literacy?

Well, I've always loved books, as I said, but the reason I started that little program was because of my own father. My dad couldn't read and write, and he was from a very big, poor family because a lot of mountain people don't get a chance to go to school. Because usually their schools are so far away or there's a one-room school and you can't get there because of the weather. If the roads are washed out or snowed out. But most of them just have to go to work to help support a poor family. And my dad couldn't read and write and that just always bothered him. And it always bothered me that that bothered him. And so I wanted to start something for, you know, for little kids to learn to read early in their most impressionable years.

So I started that little imagination library just for our home county and for my dad, got daddy involved to help me with it. And then it started taking on and the governor at that time, Governor Phil Bredesen, he got a hold of that little program. He thought it was great. So we went statewide with it in Tennessee. Next thing know it's in Canada next thing you know it's in places all over the world and by the UK I know by the end of this year we're hoping to have given out 150 million books 150 million yeah that's a lot of books it's incredible yeah well we've been going at it for 25 years and my daddy got to live long enough to see it doing really well and he took such pride in it and I tried to keep him as involved in it as I could to make it feel like that I could not have done it without him and I never would have thought to do it without him so

he'd be right about that there was this one that um I came across the imagination library because a friend of mine uses it and uh and I borrowed a book and it was uh the train that can I think it's called or the train the little engine that could yeah yeah and it's like the train that goes up and I think I can I think I can I think I can and it was so brilliant they're such brilliant stories so yeah thank you but that's actually uh that's the first book that's uh that the kids get uh from the Imagination Library from the start and that's probably the one they'll always get because to me, that little book, it just builds your confidence.

And I remember reading that myself as a child. And I remember thinking that too. And I'll often say that I am a little engine that did. So I thought I could, I thought I could, and danged if I didn't. What are you reading at the moment? I'm reading a book called The Keeper of Lost Things. It's just a sweet little book about an old man that found things and he would write on it where he found it and how he found it.

And he had this great house and then he left all his house to this girl that came to help him keep his things together. But part of her deal was she had to find all those people, you know, to return their lost things. And it's a real interesting little book. My favorite writer of all time is a Southern writer named Lee Smith. And she writes a lot of Southern stories. And I really relate to that.

And she just has such a beautiful way of saying it. When we initially had to lock down down i found it really hard to read and i don't know why i just couldn't concentrate on anything i don't know whether you found that as well it but i read as much lately as i usually do because i needed to i needed to do different things i needed to do more writing i needed to do more self-analysis and then be able to put that down and to really realize that all the different feelings that other people were going through that weren't able to write those feelings down. So I felt that it was my duty and my job to try to do things that I could get out there in the world to kind of help lift the mood and the

spirit and the burdens of everybody else. So you're right I couldn't I can't concentrate as much right now even still uh normally because if you know something's okay you've got your relaxing time then you can go into that that book but I've had this little book I've been reading on this for weeks normally I can read a book if it's good in a day a day and a half yeah I wanted to know because you were saying you were writing were you writing a lot of the album during lockdown that this Christmas album and was that quite a nice escapism from what was going on it was and I really felt like that it was just the perfect time because I've been wanting to do a Christmas album for a while but it just timing is everything and and I and I've always been lucky, you know, with timing. And so it's like, uh,

it was a good time, but yes, I did write a lot of the new stuff while we were kind of when this whole thing started. And so I wrote some of the original things that's on the album then. And I also have been writing a lot of other things. I just have to write what comes to me. I'm writing some things that don't have to do with anything other than just an idea will come to me if it's a love song or if it's a happy song or if it's a sad song. I think because I've been so emotional and been so in tune with people and their sorrows and just what's going on, and I'm a very emotional, sensitive person. So I just write all the time.

And it's been great therapy for me, though. It's been a great release for me, feeling like that I'm also being productive. So it's worked really well for me to be able to just express myself and hopefully express feelings for other people. You are the most prolific songwriter. I think I've read that

you've written 3,000 songs. Well, I don't count them. I have at least that many. At least. But they're also so beautiful. I mean, one of my favourites is I Will Always Love You. What prompted you to write that song? Was it about anything in particular? Yes. Thank you for asking. Of course, that has become probably well two songs jolene and that one have yeah the biggest song well nine to five they're big but i will always love you is is a very personal favorite of mine because it's a simple song that fits so many people about so many things but for me it was a song that I wrote that was born out of a heartache that I was going through of trying to separate myself from a man that had given me a great opportunity,

a man named Porter Wagoner. He had the number one syndicated television show, and he gave me my first really big break. I was in Nashville Nashville and I had a couple of chart records and was beginning to come in and he had seen me, you know, around the new girl in town. And so he had a vacant spot to fill the girl that had been on the show. She was leaving. So he put me on. And so I said, I had no intentions or hadn't planned to come to Nashville to be part of someone else's group just to be the girl singer.

So I said, I can stay for five years and then I'm going to go out on my own. It's too big of a job not to take. So we had several big duets and we really were so interwoven and we we didn't always get along. And so I was wanting to leave and go out on my own because I couldn't stay there forever when my five years came up and so he just was not having it and he was pitching a fit and we were having a lot of trouble and so he wouldn't listen to any any reasoning from me why I needed to go and why now was perfect time it's to him like, you're going to shatter the whole show and all. So I went home and said, you're not going to communicate with him

any other way than what you do best, write a song. So I wrote the song, I Will Always Love You, took it back to his office and said, Porter, sit down, I need to sing you a song. And so I started to sing the song and he started to cry. And he said, that's the best song you ever wrote. And you can go. So that was kind of a, it was a sad thing, but it, you know,

we still had trouble after that, but it was still, but years later, we mended all of that. And, you know, we became best of friends and worked together again and in many different ways, but that's, that was born out of a very serious place, something I had and needed to say, and it did the trick. And did Whitney ask you if she could sing that song directly? The way that that came about, when Whitney got a hold of the song, they had done the movie The Bodyguard, and they had chosen a different song

for that and just before they were starting to get ready to put it out someone else covered that song that they were planning to use so they didn't want to use that so they were looking for another song and uh kevin costner and his uh girl in his office, they knew about my song. And one of them said, well, what about Dolly Parton's song, I Will Always Love You? I've always loved that song. It's perfect. So then they asked me if they could use it. And I said, yes, but no matter what, make sure they use that last verse because I recited that verse.

And other people that had recorded it left that out altogether. I said it's in the same melody as the other verses so make sure if you use it to uh you know to make that part of it and so I never heard anything more about it they had my permission to do it and then I was heading home from my office one day and I had the radio on and I heard that sound you know if I should stay and it's like and it rang a bell but it didn't you know it wasn't it's like she was kind of talking yet and then it went into like the and I about died I thought my heart was gonna stop I about wrecked and I just kind of pulled off to like hear it. And it was the most overwhelming. I mean, it was just such an overwhelming feeling.

I've never had that before in a sense with a song. When my first little record played on the radio about killing myself, jumping off the cabinet to get to that. But other than that, this was like such a big thing to hear my little song done in such a big fashion like that. It was just it just just really overwhelmed me and I cried and I laughed and I thought oh my I mean it's so great she did such a great job on that she did is it hard because you have I mean you're so successful and you are so loved and you have had so much success I mean do you still get the same buzz that you got when you were younger

and you starting out or is it kind of a different kind of feeling now? No, I love to write songs. I love to sing songs. I love the music business. I love doing the business end of the music business. I love the creative part. It's just who I am. This is a way with me.

It's just who I am. It was what I feel I was born creative part. It's just who I am. This is a way with me. It's just who I am. It was what I feel I was born to do. And I still get as excited now when things happen. If I start writing a good song, I'm as excited about that as when I started years ago. Even more excited now because I feel I can get more done with it. You know, because I'm popular. Right when you're younger, you're thinking, oh, I hope somebody likes it well enough to record it and and all that but no I get excited about every single award anytime I'm recognized or acknowledged for something it it means a lot I

don't work for awards as much as I work for the rewards because it's very rewarding to me you know to just see things happen and to make things happen. Dolly I mean well you're amazing but I do need to know do you think you've got good table manners? I feel like you must. I don't know that I have I have good table manners there's a lot of stuff I don't know about the table you know like how to which dish to use which which fork and spoon. I still go through that because growing up like we did, you know, we never eaten out in a, in a restaurant. And I sort of like my daddy, you get embarrassed to ask somebody after. So, you know,

cause he couldn't read and write, he wasn't going to do it. So I kind of feel that way. So I just try to watch people if I'm out somewhere, but yeah, I'm certainly not, you know, I'm not a pig, you know, at the table. But I don't know what you girls do probably because you're not as proper as the English. How did your parents keep track on 12 children and to make sure they all had their elbows off the table and were holding their knife and fork? The grown kids had a fork and the little kids had a spoon. And, you know, we had, it was a whole different thing back then.

I don't think anybody's thinking about who put elbows on the table. Could you all sit down at one table? Yeah, yeah, we did. Did you have a very big table? We did have a big table that my daddy built. And we had a bench, we had like a church bench on the backside and the little kids would stand up on that bench to eat. And the other, you know, the bigger ones had, you know, around the table.

But seriously, we didn't have matching dishes. We didn't have, you know, silverware drawers. And you're talking about country people here. So but we were not I mean, we were we certainly, you know, we had to mind our manners as far as we're eating now. We're not going to be, you know, doing this or doing that. But we didn't, you know, it's a whole different thing when you're and how you grow up. But for now, you know, I still kind of watch people on each side of me, you know, what they're using. Should I use this?

I don't think you need to. But I don't think you need to but I don't worry about it anymore I figure you know they don't like it they can move to the next table do you like getting glammed up to go out for dinner or to any of these ceremonies you know one of the most my favorite things in the world to do is to dress up really fancy, really pretty, and go out to the best restaurant in Nashville, in California, in New York, to where, and I love that. I love being in that surrounding. That's just one of my favorite things, and I've missed that a lot during this lockdown that you can't go anywhere. You can't go anywhere. And I really miss that a lot, dressing up and going out to dinner

and using bad table manners. I wanted to know, because we're all having to cook so much and you like cooking, do you listen to music when you're cooking? Well, actually, I'm always so involved in what I'm doing. I do some of my best writing and my best cooking at the same time. I always get very creative. The more creative I am with my songs, the better my food's going to taste and vice versa.

I usually don't listen to radio much because I'm so involved in either a project I need to do or I just like the peace and quiet or I just work on my own things. But at Christmas, Christmas though I play everybody's Christmas albums that I like and hopefully this year I'll have one that other people will you know enjoy listening to while they cook. We ask everybody this question but as a singer I don't particularly enjoy doing karaoke I just kind of find it a bit I feel like it's for my friends that aren't singers but we have to ask you what your karaoke song is. If you do like karaoke, what is it? I don't necessarily get a

chance to do that because I don't go out where they have that, but I can take great pride in the fact that I have several songs on the karaoke list. Yeah, a nine to five, a big one, Jolene, a big one. I Will Always Love You is a real big one. So I have several songs that other people like to sing and I hear more about how they make fools of themselves singing my songs. But I love that kind of stuff though. My kids, my little nieces and nephews, they have their little karaoke machines and when we're together, we sing along with stuff, but I don't go out to do it. Have they ever tried your songs? Oh yeah, they love my songs anyway. They know all my songs by heart.

When you go, do you do line dancing? No, I never did do that. I don't really go out to the clubs like that. I really take pride in other people doing line dancing. Like my song, Why'd You Come In Here Looking Like That, was a really big popular song with the line dancers. Oh, yes. I love that song.

So, no, I don't go out to clubs. I don't really. If I'm around home, I like to stay home. But I'm not much of a dancer anyway. I just don't have that type of rhythm. We never do much of that. Oh, there's always that stuff that you do when you're having your jamborees and your pie suppers and your little things. Everybody dances, but there's no real particular type of dancing.

We never did it. It wasn't structured. Anybody just get up and just move and be happy doing it. Dolly, I was going to say, I really enjoyed Dolly Parton's America, which is this amazing podcast that you were involved in, and there was really candid interviews with you on it. And it was, I mean, it was very, it was incredibly interesting. And was that kind of your first foray into podcasts?

Yes. Yes, it was. In fact, the guy that did that, Jada Boomerod, he's just wonderful. He has that huge podcast. He goes out to millions of people, as you know, weekly. But his father is one of my doctors in Nashville at Vanderbilt. And it came about through him. I didn't even know his son was even in the business. I've known him for years.

He never mentioned it. And then one day he said, well, you know, my son, dad you know has a podcast and he'd love to interview you and I said well sure so it because of that that's how I got to know him and then I got to know dad and he was absolutely fantastic he won you know several awards on that it's a phenomenal podcast series it's so substantial I mean I found the bit about listening about a Nelson Mandela and in in Robben Island and Jolene coming over the Tannoy's and that kind of how Jolene's very I mean, Jolene's huge everywhere. But that song became this kind of anthem for the prisoners on Robben Island. I mean, all this stuff. I mean, you must have discovered things, too, through this podcast. on Robben Island.

I mean, all this stuff. I mean, you must have discovered things too through this podcast. I have to honestly tell you, I learned more about myself through that than I knew my whole career. Honestly, I didn't know. But you know, Dad did not know me that well until he started working on this podcast.

He's such a thorough person. He did it, but he did all that research and it was just amazing. I was just floored with all the the stuff that he had had gathered up but he should have won an award just for his own hard work without me but I was very very proud for him and of myself and of that whole situation so that that was really well done. Dolly it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you this is honestly a pinch yourself moment for us and I feel like Christmas has come early and I'm so thankful for you doing this when you are

probably very very busy doing promotion for this record and it's been so lovely to talk to you and thank you and um I just want to know what's next you know the Christmas record is out now um and then are you doing any more acting? I mean, I'm sure you're writing songs left, right and center. You've got an autobiography. Is it coming out soon? Am I right in thinking that? Oh, are you talking about the Songteller book?

Yes, Songteller book. Yeah, that's actually that's out now. And that's that's yeah, that's called Songteller. And it's got 170 some songs I've written and stories about them. But I'm going to be doing more things. It's so hard to know what's going to come next year. I've been working on my life story as a musical, and so that's going to be something that I'm hoping to get on his feet at some point in time. And I've just signed a new branding deal where I'm going to actually have my own cosmetics and my own perfume and that sort of stuff.

So as I've often said, I wake up with new dreams every day, and hopefully I'll live long enough to see the rest of them come true. But I've been very blessed. If I die tomorrow, I can honestly say that I've had a great life, a wonderful life, and I couldn't ask for more. But, of course, knowing me, there's going to be more if I keep living. So there's going to be more. More is more with me. Wow, that just happened.

I tried to be professional. I don't think I said one swear word. I did really well. Dolly Parton on Table Manners talking about chicken and dumplings and listening to Whitney Houston in the car for the first time and scones. Scones. Cream, she likes our cream. Yeah, scones and cream.

I love her. She is the biggest pro. She is like beyond. I could learn a thing or two. She was so warm, Jessie. She was so warm. She was just so warm and kind of interested and interesting. It doesn't surprise me she's this huge philanthropist

because she really likes people and cares about them. The record has Billy Ray Cyrus on, Miley Cyrus, Michael Bublé, her brother, Randy. Jimmy Fallon's on it. I mean, she's just like, you'd want to be on a Dolly Parton record, wouldn't you? Singing with her. You'd want to just spend more time with her. I could have done another hour. Jessie, I did want to try and get a word in to see if you could play the part of Dolly,

her life story, the musical. I don't think I've got the chest. Little tall, darling. And the flat chest may just not do it. Do you think? And not glamorous enough at all. No. I just have my nails done.

She plays the guitar with those acrylic nails. And I've got little stumps. Does she play that funny thing as well that they play, like the xylophone-y thing? She plays everything. She's so talented. Anyway, Dolly Parton on Table Manners.

That just happened. Can I just mention one thing? What? It was going to be my Smeasant Nerf Party next week and I can't bloody have it. I'm sorry about that, Mum. But you just did get to speak

to Dolly Parton instead. I did speak to Dolly Parton. Thank you for listening. This has been a bit of a blur to me, I'm not about that mum but you just did get to speak to Dolly Parton instead I did speak to Dolly Parton thank you for listening this has been a bit of a blur to me I'm not gonna lie we just had Dolly Parton on Table Manners and I can't speak so I didn't actually know what to say

it was kind of just sit looking at her with a Christmas tree she looked like the sexiest Mrs Claus I've ever seen in my life anyway thank you for listening to Table Manners thank you Dolly Parton for taking a chance on two enthusiastic women on Zoom. Table Manners is produced by Alice Williams.