I love the music.
I not only love to see things happen, I love to make things happen, and so I hope to continue to do that. There's an old saying, I'd rather wear out than to rust out, and that's kind of my philosophy too.
I'll start and I thank you so so very much for allowing us to do this and to review your beautiful new book. It's really a fun book, wonderful photographs, really really great and I can't wait to start to try some of the recipes. I am so pleased to welcome to my podcast today to talented beautiful ladies. Dolly Parton is one of the most celebrated female singer songwriters, a performer who crosses the genres of country, bluegrass, gospel, and rock. She has written three thousand songs and earned
eleven Grammy Awards. She made her mark in film with her iconic roles in Nine to five and Steele Magnolia's two of My Favorite movies. Her sister Rachel has had success in music and acting as well, performing in her band Honey Creek and acting in the television version of Nine to Five. And they share a love of cooking and have published a cookbook Together, Good Looking Cooking. Welcome to my podcast, Dolly and Rachel. Where are you right this minute?
We are in Nashville, Tennessee, at our studios over here in Antioch, a little town not far from Nashville, and we have been so.
Excited to get to talk to you. We both love you.
Thank you so much. And you're beautifully dressed in pink. Is that your favorite color, Dolly?
Well, actually all of all colors, but we're actually kind of dressed to match the cover of our cookbook.
Yes.
Indeed, is that trifle that you're holding on the cover?
Yes? Is banana pudding.
Yeah, you're just gorgeous. And I think that it is so iconic for two sisters to be able to work together like this, be photographed page after page in the book, and every single image is just delightful and tasting, and the two of you are equally so. The foods, the food's great. Now, there are a couple guys in this book. Who's at the barbecue?
That's my husband Eric George.
Oh, is he a performer too?
No, he is not, Ella And I asked him to be in the book and if he would if he would do the grill work the grill and he said, well, I'd love to, and he had such a good time. He doesn't know much about music business or show business, so he was quite taken with it.
All.
His ribs and steaks look really good.
Yes, very good.
So you're both performers in music and acting. What made you decide to work on a cookbook together? Is there a backstory?
Well, actually, we both loved cook Rachel is a very good cook, and she's loved doing it all of her life, and so the fact that we both lived close together and we're all often getting together to cook, one day we thought, well, why don't we just put out a cookbook together? And it just seemed to be the perfect thing to do. And there's an old Hank Williams song called Hey.
Good Looking, why don't you got cooking hounds? About cooking something up with me?
So anytime anybody would go in our house, we'd say, hey, good looking, what.
You got cook? So we just thought that would be a cute name for the book.
Well, it's a perfect name coming from both of you.
By the way, Rachel is truly the best cook.
Well, you talk about coming from a long line of cooks. Tell me what Neils you remember that your mom made for you is it was MoMA an equally fabulous cook.
Her mother was a great cook. She could make anything taste good. She made everything that and she would create a story to go with it, kind of like Dolly does.
She was a great storyteller.
And our mother could cook a lot of chicken and dublin. She would make for us fried chicken, one of our favorites, and it was just a joy to be in her kitchen.
She was a singer also.
She used to all my mom's people are mom's people are musicals. So there was a lot of music going on, and MoMA knew all those old songs from the old world that were brought over, uh you know when people came over here to settle, and so the cooking is a lot like the old world too.
I think, well, what part of what part of the old world, Dolly? Where are you talking about in Europe?
Yes, And my mother's people were from Wales and descended from there. My dad, the partner, mostly from England, so we had people scattered all around.
So the old world.
Of those old songs Irish and the Scottish songs brought over.
Mama would sing and she.
Would cook, and we would cry when she'd sing some of those old songs.
We would laugh when she sing the fun ones.
So we really, I think just music and cooking is kind of embedded in us. And we had a good time singing along when we were putting our cookbook together as well.
Well.
When both of you were growing up, where did the food come from? Did you go to grocery stores for it? Did you grow it?
We grew our food.
We would have a garden and Mama would can and then that would be our food through the winter. And we had a farm and we would grow everything that we needed.
Did you have chickens for eggs?
We had chicken. We had eggs. We had a cow milk and cow we had milk.
Yes, I've done everything, but the cows I've had I've had. I have donkeys and horses and chickens and geese and turkeys and grow all my vegetables. But I never had a milk. I really loved to have a milking cow. But there are a lot of work, aren't they. Did you learn how to milk Dolly?
Well, we all had to learn how to milk because we all had to do our personal chores around the house and living on a small farm, like a forty acre farm, and more than just a garden, we often raised real crops, you know, just kind of fields of tomatoes and fields of corn. And that's how we kind of, as Rachel mentioned that, we'd put away the food, and we had fruit trees, and we had our you know, we can the fruits, and we raised our hogs, and so we had a lot of you know, that's all
country people were like that. That's how you kind of make your living. And mom and you how to cook everything. Plus our dad and our brothers were big hunters, so we often had a lot of game and knew how to prepare all that as well. So we just grew up eating good and having good food all around all the time. So that's just a big deal for us to have those great recipes from our aunts and our.
Cousins and a lot of the men.
We had a brother that was a really good cook. He loved cooking all the same things that we actually cooked. We lost him a few years back, but we thought he was just one of the best cooks ever. So it's not just confined to the women in the family. A lot of the boys liked to cook as well.
Well.
I would have loved to seeing you milk and cows, the two of you. We know how we oh, I know how I've milt, I've milk cows also. But I'd like to see Dolly part in Milk and the Cow. I think you should do a film. You should do a little House on the prairie.
Dolly and I don't think any cow.
Would we need to milk them? Now with these nails?
No? No, was there always enough food for twelve children? Really? You had twelve siblings altogether?
Yeah, there's six girls and six boys.
Wow, I thought I was from a big family. I had three boys and three girls in our family. So you had double what we had. And over what period of time did your mom have all those twelve kids?
Twenty years? Yeah, yeah, she was thirty five.
Mom got married when she was fifteen and daddy was seventeen. And by the time mom was thirty five and daddy was thirty seven, they had had all of us twelve kids.
We got one set of toy and so she was busy.
She was. It was eighteen months and two years different in all our ages.
Wow, Mom was still a young woman and we were still you know growing up.
Well, what a fantastic story. How long did she live? Your mom?
She passed away when she was about eighty uh huh.
So she lived a good life life with the success of all her fabulous children. How wonderful she must have been. So proud of you. So you have a recipe in the book for corn bread which I cannot wait to try because I love cornbread and it was inspired by your mom. It says, what's the secret of good corn bread?
Well, I think it's an iron skillet.
I think the skillet has to be really hot when you put the batter in, and your oven needs to be hot.
And where'd you get your corn meal?
Well, we would grow corn when we were younger, and Beatty would take it to the mill and they would make the corn meal.
Oh great must be Did you use cream or milk in your corn bread?
Mostly? I use buttermilk.
Now, Oh delicious, I can't wait. So when you started writing the cookbook together, did you each make a list of what you wanted to include? Were they recipe similar or do you have a lot of a a lot of discussion about what to put in the book?
We were writing list of all the things that we loved, and then I would say I really love this reciped all I would say, I love that. Let's see if we can't combine these. So we had enough for two cookbooks, and then we had to condense it down, and then it started getting like, okay, now I really like this one and I really like that one. So that came to be what is in our book now, which is a little over.
Eighty recipes bout eighty two I think eighty two.
Yeah, it's a generous book. There's a lot of stuff in this book.
One of the things I was most impressed with, which is really was Rachel's complete idea, is how she wanted to do instead of just having recipes, she wanted to plan complete meals because a lot of people don't know how to put together a meal. You're great at doing that sort of thing. I'm showing people how to start from scratching and do it. But I thought that was a wonderful way to do it month by month like that, and to have great things.
And you celebrate special occasions throughout the year, which is very very nice. And yet you were growing up in a one room cabin in Tennessee, and how did you make holidays special in a one room cabin, where'd you keep the decorations?
But actually we lived in different places when we were very when our family was small, we lived in the one room. Of course, that had to start, you know, we had to start expanding from that because we had to have place put all them kids, and we would move to different places in the community after so many years, but we always had a house full, and MoMA knew how to take care of a house full, and we
kind of it was just a lifestyle with us. We never thought about whether or not we were cramped or crowded. We were just a family and that's just how we lived. Food was good, and mom and Daddy were good, and we just were proud to be together.
What did your dad do farmed?
Well, farming was his full time job and he you know, of course he had to do that because they had so many children. And then I remember Dad mostly when he was working away from home, he worked on construction.
Yeah, he had to have some way to bring in some money.
But Daddy, after he started having a house, little kids that could kind of take care of the crops and a daddy went to work on construction, you know, to bring in more money. Our money crop was tobacco, and that's kind of how at the end of each year we all worked the tobacco fields. But at the end of each year that was you know, that was we often lived on just the money brought in from the tobacco crops. But as I mentioned, as we started to grow, we needed to have more money coming in.
So Dad would get up.
Early, start as farming, do what he needed to do there, go to work, work all day on construction, come back, still work in the fields, still way after dark. So that's just kind of how you do it when you live in the mountains and when you're just country people.
It sounds like it's a movie.
Oh, it's been a few movies. We've done a few movies of my life and that involved the whole family and our dad and all.
And what's your favorite holiday memory? Do you have one each of you?
Well, one of my favorite holiday memories I was working in La on nine to five. I was so homesick I could hardly stand it, and I could not leave because we were still working. And Dully went to our parents' home and of course a lot of our brothers and sisters were there and could they all got on the phone high we miss you and all this, and of course it should have made me feel better, but it
made me even sadder at that moment. So everybody packed up the giar that were for me, and Dolly flew to la and I picked her up at the airport and she said, Okay, you didn't miss dinner after all. And guess what I was wearing, Martha, my Santa Claus outfit, all across the country in a Santa suit with Rachel's presence, and and there was just a few people on the plane that night, and we were singing Christmas songs and everything.
And then when Rachel came to pick me up at the airport, and here I walk out dressed like Santa.
But that was yeah, that was that was a good memory for me as wellcial special Christmas.
How fantastic. So, Rachel, you are a collector of cookbooks. I've read. Which do you rely on most?
Well, right now I'm relying on good looking cooking.
Go back to that. You are one of my favorite cooks. I love your show, I love.
Your books, Thank you.
I love all books. I love Trisha Yearwood.
I love her family and her stories a lot like us to me, A cookbook is my favorite read. That's how I relax. That's what I read when I'm traveling. And I have people to say, don't you ever get tired of reading cookbooks?
I never have gotten tired of it.
I have a book coming out. It's my hundredth cookbook. One hundredth book, not nine hundredths cook my hundredth book. And uh, I'm getting like you, Dolly, I'm gonna you have hundreds and hundreds of records and three thousand songs. I only I only have one hundred books, So I'm way I'm way behind you, my dear.
Well, no, you're pretty pretty popular, gal. You're not known as a great cook. You're you're known as a great person.
And thank you.
He's a friend of mine.
But the but it was really hard to find. It was really hard to choose the hundred of my favorite recipes. That's what this book is with all the little stories, the stories to go with those recipes. So lots of Big Martha, my mom and uh and various and sundry friends. And it's a fun it's a fun project to do a book like this. I admire you for getting together and and really doing the whole thing. Are any of these recipes the inspiration for some of your your Duncan Hines products, Dolly.
No, not really, we were actually involved in thinking about the cookbook.
But the Duncan Hins.
We do have a lot of good desserts in our book, but they're mainly handed down through family and friends. But the Duncan Heins, they do have great products, as.
You well know.
Oh yeah, you probably used that through the years too for handy stuff, not that you couldn't start from scratch, which I'm sure you do most times.
Well, when when you have a big when you have a big family, you sometimes rely on those delicious mixes.
Absolutely, yes you do so uh, But we have great things in that. We have a lot of wonderful Southern recipes, but the book is not all Southern recipes. We have collected a lot of other wonderful things. And as Rachel says, she collects recipes and she loves cookbooks, and we have lots of friends that cook, And that's.
Rachel's I have to answer to say.
I'm a good cook, and I cook because I love to eat and I love to cook through my mom and my aunts and my grandma's did. But Rachel just she really loves cooking like you. She reminds me a lot of you, and how devoted she is to it, and how much she loves it, and how much time and effort she puts into it, the studying of it, the science of it, I guess, so to speak, not just to put it all together. And Rachel's food always looks really good, and that's one of the reasons I
thought good looking cooking would also fit with that. Not that she ain't good looking, because she is, but she can make food look good and taste good in the same way.
That you do.
You know, I love your Thanksgiving. The whole chapter on Thanksgiving is so enticing. The turkey looks amazing, the mashed potatoes look amazing. The corn bread stuffing that's the kind of Thanksgiving I like, and it looks delicious. I can't wait to try your corn bread stuffing and your pumpkin pie and your cranberry mold. A very nice Thanksgiving chapter in this book. And you both look amazing in these pictures. Who does your hair and makeup? Ladies?
Different ones?
Well, I come, I'll make up, and then I have a girl shore riddle that's been doing my hair for years. I'm handy because I wear a lot of wigs and I'll stay so busy.
That's worked out well for me. Oh yeah, but your ma, your makeup is always impeccable. You always look great. I have hard time doing makeup. I don't know why I have. I have a very nice makeup artist who who comes and you know, fixes my face, but I don't. I don't like doing makeup very much. But you you are always impeccably made up.
Oh well, we like looking pretty, Yeah, you do.
And you've looked You've looked pretty for all really long time, ladies. It's really nice.
Well, actually, you've been looking pretty good. I might bring up your swimsuit cover. I think it's amazing that you and I are older women and I'm doing Dallas cowgirl outfit and you're on the cover of the swim suit. I think, wow, you go girls.
I should say, yay.
That's what I said. That's what that's what I say. I think. I think. I think we're really good role models, don't you.
I hope. So I know we're lucking our pump pumps.
So I understand there was a Martha in your family who is Martha.
Well, Martha Williams probably Aunt Martha, we called her. She was the lady that that was my first memory. We lived my dad was sharecropper for many years and was when I was born, and we lived on her farm, and my first memory was of an old lady named Martha Williams. We called her Aunt Martha, and she would set me on her knee and say tiptoe tiptoe lit a Dillyparton, tiptoe tiptoe. And she's got a red dress. She's got nine she's got a red.
Dress just like mine.
And I was so amazed as a little kid how she knew a song with my name in it. So she was my favorite Martha.
It's so enjoyable talking to you. I can help believe I'm talking to Dolly Parton, so amazing. Rachel Day was thirteen years old when you were born. Can you talk about what your relationship was like? Was she really a good big sister? She was she friendly? Was she a little haughty? What was what goes on in a family.
I remember as a child that Dolly was one of my favorite sisters, favorite people. I was one of those kids sisters that every time she turned around it's like, oh they were again. Oh, aren't you going to go home? Oh?
She was wonderful.
I know that she'd let me play in the makeup, all her makeup. She would let me get anything out of the closet of hers to wear. Well, I think she would say, we just put it back so I know where it is.
But you can wear anything you have. And no, Dolly was a wonderful sister and still is.
And Rachel was the hugest little thing when actually I was in I started high school and Regil started to grow up, and I rode the school bus. We lived back in the country and the school boys had to come way up there in the mountains, and I would she would cry when out leaving in the morning, and she'd be waiting on the porch when the bus would drop me off, and she'd just, you know, she was just excuse a little thing. I just remember sweeping her
up in my arms and just hugging on her. And so we've been close all all of her life.
And we still are a close with your other four sisters too.
Yes, we are very close.
Yeah, we're close. Rachel and I live close to each other. A lot of my sisters live in East Tennessee, and so Rachel and I live here in Nashville, so we get to be usy See, I told you I was the kid's sister that is always reappearing.
We live close together, our homes are close together, so it's really easy to go to each other's house.
Where are you in the lineup of siblings? A, Dolly, where are you are you? Number two? Three?
I have a sister and two brothers older than me. I was fourth one down, and then there's eight kids younger.
Wow, and where were you? Rachel?
I'm twelve?
You're Oh, you're the last, You're the baby. Ah ho fun, so, Dolly. When you're writing a cookbook, there's a lot of testing and tasting recipes. Who did all the cooking for the tasting and the testing?
We both did.
Rachel, like I said, it is the better cook, and I was happier to get to.
Do the tasting.
But I would do whatever she told me to do, because she she would make me have to, you know, do some of the dirty work. So while she really cooked the big meal, and she'd call it me, say.
You're not doing it right, and to do it?
I said, I know, I said, you want to do the good looking cooking. Mine's not always pretty, but it tastes good. So we kind of swapped it out and we really tried the recipes. But as I mentioned, Rachel is this serious one.
Now, I will have to say, Dolly is a fantastic cook, a great cook.
Dolla is very creative in the kitchen.
I tend to follow recipes and Dolly tends not to follow rest It's goods, always delicious.
I cogot Mama always always are you sure? Always delicious? I don't know.
It is always delicious, is the way I like it.
So it's usually tastes good because I'm the bigger.
Yeah, but you keep saying you're a big eater, Dolly, you're what size is your waist?
Well, right now it's not big, but it's been every size it has.
I have never seen your waist bigger than like twenty inches.
Well, even when I was better, my waist was smaller.
I know, how do you do that? I'm thin, but I have a fat waist. How are you, Rachel? Do you do you have a tiny waist? Rachel?
Well, I have a small waist.
It's not as small as it used to be. What you have children it's all right.
Oh you're beautiful. But do you wear Do you wear a corset? Dolly?
No?
No, I don't. You should see Dolly. Dolly is sitting in a stand up. Can you stand up? Can I see what you're wearing? She has this amazing pink Oh you have a bustie on. Yeah, and her waist is about twenty is it twenty or eighteen?
I don't even know what it is now.
Carolina, Carolina Herrera came to my house one day for lunch, you know, Carolina Herrera, the designer. We were all laughing about eating too many popovers, and she said, you know, your waist is supposed to be the circumference of your head. Now have you ever done that? Have you ever measured your head and to see if your waist is the same number of inches?
No, I just know that my waist is small and my feet are small because nothing grows in the shade.
Unbelievable. But try it.
Try it.
Measure your head and measure your waist and let me know if they're the same mine. I'm way off.
Yeah, I'll have sister night.
Why when I when I was nineteen, when I when I got married, my head was my waist was smaller than than my head, but now it's not. It's not small in my head.
That would that be without my wig or with this. I mean, we'll try that. We're not drinking wine, we'll measure our heads.
So what's what is your what's your glam routine? Everybody wants to know because Dolly Parton is how old are you? Dolly?
Well, I'm seventy eight.
She is seventy eight years young. She looks amazing. What's your glamor what's your routine? What do you What do you do to keep so utterly beautiful?
I say, just good lighting, good makeup, and good doctors.
How do you do it?
See? I always say good doctors. Also just nice doctors who just take care of my general health and a and a very good dermatologist, very good skincare, and good diet. Did you smoke that tobacco that your dad grew No?
I never did smoke.
That's good. And what about you, Rachel, did you ever smoke?
Well, I'll have to say I have smoked, yeah, many years ago.
But I was just curious because tobacco was such a huge thing when you were growing up.
Me too.
I mean everybody's. Everybody around me smoke. My dad smoked a pipe. My mother had one cigarette at night, sitting at the kitchen table after she'd washed all the dishes and put the kids to bed. She would sit very glamorously at the kitchen table with a cigarette and her fingers. And I always thought that that was so sexy, you know, it was such a beautiful image because my mom was real pretty and I always just remember that image of her. But she lived in ninety four and she was healthy
as could be. But she always said, you know, eat well, don't smoke, don't drink, and do you drink anything? Do you ever drink alcohol?
Oh yeah, on occasion, no special occasions.
But it's like the old man that went to the doctor said, doctor, I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't run around with women, and I expect to live to be a hundred. And the doctor said, well, if you don't, it's gonna damn sure seem like it.
See, TOLLI has all these stories, so she raised all these songs. She is a poet, and I mean, here you are. It's just like we're recording this at about one o'clock in the afternoon, and she is dressed like she's going on stage, with her fabulous makeup, her fabulous hair, the fabulous corset top, she's boosted a top. Do you have pants on her skirt?
I have little pants, little pedal pushers.
Uh huh, pedal pushers. Very very very very cute. And so when are you not? Oh naturelle? I mean, just do you go to bed with your Do you wash your face completely when you go to bed?
It depends on why I am.
If I'm in la I do not because I don't want to have an earthquake and have to run out in the streets. So then I'll clean it in the morning and put it on fresh. But I mean, I can tear down, but I just do it when I need to, when I have to. I'm like dressing up, but I'm like everybody else. I can be slouchy slashy when I need to.
So do you how do you control your image? Do you have that final say on every picture that is published of you? Well?
I try to. You don't always.
It depends on who's taking it anymore. If I actually published the shots and uh things from magazine covers. We try to have control of that because you want to look your best.
Everybody does, of course, Yeah.
Just like on our Good Look and Cook. And we took so many pictures and we had so much fun doing it. We were laughing and so many and so how many days?
How many days of photography? Was this in your book? Because there's really there are lots and lots of images and lots of outfits.
We had two full days of photography.
That's all. Yes, you should see the Valentine's one. Oh my gosh, it is so cute. Where'd you get that heart apron? From Rachel.
Well?
Our friend and wardrobe person, Steve Summers had made that for me.
I was saying that Dolly had a tiny waiste. Your waist is tiny, also, was your mother like that? Was your mother a tiny waisted woman.
With twelve kids? No hers like this like a watermelon mostome?
But actually I think that did run in Mama's side of the family and dad is I remember my dad's sisters having very small waists, and our aunts, you know, when they weren't bring it, had small waist lines.
Well, gorgeous, Dolly, you worked with many legendary people in show business. What did you learn from I'm working with my friend and your friend, Sandy Gallon. He was such an impresario.
Oh, I know, Sandy was great. As you mentioned, he always threw the best parties. We talked earlier, and he was always had so many celebrities that would come to his parties. But I just loved meeting all the different people, and Sandy was one of my dearest and best friends ever and I miss him greatly. I'm often seeing things that remind me of Sandy, But I just like knowing all kinds of different people, whether they're celebrities or not.
But I know that knowing Martha Stewart has been a big deal to me, and a lot of people love you. You have a huge following and a lot of friends as well. I'm not just saying that because we're on your show. I've said it before.
You've been such a phenomenal business woman in addition to aazingly prolific and wonderful performer, vocalist, songwriter. You famously negotiated your career out of the hands of your mentor and manager, Porter Wagoner. Why do you think you were able to do that when so many other women have struggled to control their own careers.
Well, I think at the time I started with Porter, I had actually come to Nashville to be my own star, and I looked up that I got to start a big time with Porter because he had the number one syndicated show at the time.
And when you offered me the job, I'd already had.
A couple of chart records and I was kind of on my way, and so I told him that I would stay for five years. I wound up staying seven. But we had a lot of duets together. But we just kind of we were like oil and water, so to speak. And I never really figured out if we were so much alike we couldn't get along, or that we were so different, but we were friends. We just kind of bashed heads, and he had his dreams and I had mine, and I just felt that I had to.
Go and keep no climbing on that.
Ladder of success, as they say, And didn't go over well.
With him, and we had our problems.
He sued me a couple of times, but at the end before he passed, we had become friends again and I had done some shows with him, had him on my variety show, and I was with Porter, you know, the day he died, so we made full circle and that was all good.
But I just had to stand my grounds.
Getting back to your original question, I just wasn't going to take somebody else's idea of who I was and lived, you know, under their rule. I had my own identity and I had to fight to keep it and I'm still doing that.
Yeah, well, good for you. And during that time, is that when you wrote two of your most famous songs, Jolene and I Will Always Love You?
Yeah, well I was love your song was kind of my leaving song. Port or Not had so many problems and so he was never listening to me. So I went home and wrote the song, went back the next morning and said, sit down, I've got a song to sing for you.
And so I sang.
The song and he started crying and said, that's the best song you ever wrote, and you can leave if I can produce it. I said, it's a deal. So I was out there. And the Jolene song, though, that was that was about my husband. That was about a good looking gal working at the bank that I just got a little jealous of, without I guess any real good reason. He was just flirting with her, and it just gave me that idea she was a redhead and her name wasn't Joline. I made that up to protect the guilty.
So so real life emerged as fantastic popular music. Yes, that's how you write your songs. You write the music, you write the words to all three all those three thousand songs is of both your your words and your music.
Yes, I write all the things.
And actually, at the time I said I wrote three thousand songs, that was three.
Thousand years ago. That was a long time ago.
I'm sure I have many I've written a thousand more since I said that at that time.
So, Rachel, what kind of advice did Dolly give you about your own singing and acting career as the baby in the family.
Wonderful advice. She said, you be yourself and you be who you are. You can't be me, you can't be anyone but you, and I have always tried to be me. I know we look alike, but we are different people. And I always admire that advice, and I think about it often and thank you.
And you're welcome, and I still mean that.
We have another person in common, Dolly. We have Charles Koppleman, who produced your big hit that brought you from country to more mainstream radio play Here You Come Again. How separate were those music worlds at the time that you made that crossover.
Well, they were completely different. And Sandy Gallen had just come on as my manager. I was just leaving Porter and so I got with Sandy and Charles Kappelman is a man that he just has a great ear for hit records, and everybody knew that, and he was a friend of Sandy's.
So Charles brought Gary Klein had produced.
The song, actually the arrangements and all that on Here You Come Again.
So they sent me these songs.
And I heard that one. Actually, my husband picked that song. My husband, also, like Charles, has a great ear for music. And I was listened to all these songs out in the den, and when I started playing the here You Come Again song, Carl had walked down the hall. He said, well, there's your hit right there, and then he just walked back in the kitchen and I thought, well, that's the
one I'm picking. So sure enough, Charles and Carl were the ones that made me decide to do that particular song, and that was really the change in my life that really started my career off on a larger scale into the pop field.
Amazing, amazing. Can we talk about the importance of owning your own work? Is your entire library in your hands?
It is now when I think, anytime you're young and in the business, you have to make certain sacrifices, You have to compromise, You have to do things in order to get ahead. Nobody can just start demanding things, you know, before you've even made it.
So I had a few songs.
Scattered around here and there in the early days with Combine Music and Tree Publishing Company, the people that I started with. But then after I became started to become famous, I started trying to find ways to get my songs back, and I started my own poishing company, Velvet Apple, like
the fruits of my labor. In fact, I named it that because I was in Beverly Hills one time and I saw these apples laying on velvet and these apples were like, gully, I don't know, like ten dollars an apple or some ridiculous things, and I thought, well, boy, those MUCKs be velvet apples. So I got the idea
to have my to name my poshing company that. But since then I've owned my own songs through the years, I've managed to get them back, and so there's I have very few things scattered, and I liked the idea of having such at children, you know, being scattered, you just kind of want to bring them home. I always said my songs were like my children, and I expect them to support me when I'm old, and they are they are.
Indeed. Did you have any advice for Taylor Swift when she was buying back her music or catalog.
I don't have any advice. I just had admiration for her for doing it. I mean that Gal is something else I love and respect how she's handled her career, her life, and how smart she has been about it. So I have nothing but admiration for her in every way.
And your godmother to Miley Cyrus, how she is as as a godchild.
Well, I love Molly. She's like one of my own.
She's like a child or a sister or I don't know. She's very close. I've known her since before she was born, and Billy Ray, her dad, and I were friends all through the years, and of course Molly and I are very very close to this day. She calls me to talk about things and sometimes I call her. She was very helped full When I did my rock album, she gave me like a little TIBs and you know, tell me about clothes and suggested the photographer.
So we're just good buddies too. But I really love Milly.
I don't think anybody in this world is more talented and more beautiful.
Amazing, And she's wearing fewer clothes every day. Every time I see her, she has less clothes on. Did you notice.
Oh?
I never know what Miley's going to do next. She may be dressed, she may not be. But she's special to me.
So you and your sister both played the same same character, Dora le Rhodes in the movie and television version of nine to five. I loved that movie so much. I didn't see the TV version. How many how many episodes did you do?
Well?
It was a total of about six seasons. They were not full seasons, but it was a span of six.
Wow, that's a lot. What made the character and the storyline hit such a chord with audiences. It's about the working woman, Yeah, I.
Think that's It was really about the equal pay for equal work and the harassment in the workplace.
Old mister Hart, the main character.
But the Doorley character was a country girl from Texas and rachel and now totally related to the southern girl part of sexual harassment and all that. And then when we did the musical, Megan Hilty played the Doorley part and made that all come to life. So I just felt like that that was a character that kind of she was kind of abused because she was pretty and the male character the male chauviness, and she was just saying, look, this character said, I'm not taking that off of you.
I got my own strength, I am my own person. And that's kind of I think what the Doorley character was great because she just kind of took trow of herself and said, you're not treating me like that because I ain't having it. And of course the whole movie was about women in the workplace.
So my friend Bronson van Wick, he is a big fan of yours. He said, Dolly climbed the ultimate ladder and she didn't pull it up behind her. What do you think of that statement? Isn't that interesting?
Well? I like that statement.
I love it when people say, you know, fun things and a fun way to make a point.
That's good.
Yeah, I love that too. Can we talk about the evolution of a fan base? Dolly Partons America says, your fan base has flipped from being eighty percent over fifty five to being eighty percent under fifty five. What do you do to connect with your fans as they grow and change. I think that that kind of evolution is so interesting to me.
Well, I have been at this a long time, and getting back to my god daughter Molly, I think one of the reasons that I resonated to a much younger crowd in that particular way was when she was doing Hannah Montana and I played her aunt Dolly, and I did several episodes on the show. So then people got to looking at me. Then in that younger generation, then they started to follow my music, and then a lot of the people coming up today because they take me
serious as a songwriter. And I've lived long enough like you to have been in the same business to where people look to you like you must know what you're talking about, and then they admire the way you've handled
your business and how you go about it. So I think the fact that a lot of young women they want to know how to be and what to do and what not to do and they kind of look to me for that, and I've always been touched by that and glad that I can be and have been an inspiration to the younger women in the business.
Well, both of you are amazing role models, and I think to continue to be a role model the younger generations is so terribly important. And you know, I did the Justin Bieber roast that changed my demographic following tremendously hanging out with the rappers and being a little bit naughty doing a roast and then doing a program with Snoop Dogg. It really does bring in a whole different audience of both students and admirers. So you are the experts, Allie. I look up to you for that. I think it's
just amazing to keep evolving. And I have a little model that I always say, when you're through changing, you're through. You just keep evolving, and evolution to me is change. It's just amazing.
I hope to continue to do that, and to you as well, I think, as we mentioned before, you kind of have that that following. You don't let yourself, you know, get old, and it's a'm fun to watch you sell dirt.
Yeah, oh you saw that did you. Yeah, I love dirt. I love dirt. I think I think it's an incredible way to grow a garden. You can if you don't have the right dirt. You know about that you were a farmer. Now we do.
We just don't want to let you let Snoop Dogg smoke any of that much.
Oh, don't worry. So you made a rock and roll album called rock Starter last year that went gold on the Billboard charts. Now that is also an incredible achievement. What is the thing you most appreciated about your career today compared to where you started.
Well, I just appreciate and am humbled by the fact that I have got to do of what I wanted to do, and to make a living at what I love to do, and that I have seen so many of my childhood dreams come true. And it goes back to what you mentioned earlier about having the fans, having that fan base that follow you through the years, and it never gets old to me.
It's just a way of life with me. I love the music.
I not only love to see things happen, I love to make things happen. And so, as you said earlier, I hope to continue to do that, because I don't think I'd ever want to stop working, because I think there's no saying I'd rather wear out than to rust out. And that's kind of my philosophy too.
I'm going to make that the title of one of my chapters in my autobiography. That would be great. Did you learn anything new about each other when you were writing this book?
Well, I do think we learned anything new, but I think we really treasured just our love, our true love, and how.
Much we do love each other.
And now that we're both getting older and just thinking, what a wonderful gift this was that we got to do something like this together.
Now, Rachel, how many kids? How many children do you have? Rachel daughter?
And then my husband has three boys his grandkids ever, yes, I did.
In your family, are there one or two kids that are following in your footsteps in music?
Yeah?
Bunches of them. Yeah.
Well, in fact, we have an album coming out called Smoking Mountain DNA. And as I mentioned earlier, our parents, my partners and Owens Is, they were very musical, especially the Owen's side. And now we've got all these little young cousins, nieces, nephews that are growing and we're doing a whole album called Smoking Mountain, DNA, Family, Faith and Fables, and then there's going to be a doctor series for our doctor series of our family and the history of our music.
I look forward to seeing that that is going to be great. Where is that going to be?
Well, actually, we haven't sold it yet.
The album has come out in September, and yeah, and it's got about thirty six songs on even some of the older people back through the years.
That'll be amazing, amazing. This has been such a pleasure to talk to you. I could go on forever. You are both so engaging and so pleasant and so lovely to speak to. I wish you the best with this book. I look forward to trying as many as I can. Thank you, Dolly and Rachel, and be sure to pick up Good Looking Cooking with the two most beautiful blonde performers, beautiful women you have ever seen on the cover and best of luck.
Thank you, Thank you Mark.
I hope to see you in person soon. Thank you, thank you, you might Bye.