September 25, 2024 • 49 mins
In today’s episode, Martha sits down with two sisters from a multi-talented family, the incomparable Dolly Parton and her sister Rachel Parton, a successful musician, actress, and the co-author of “Good Lookin’ Cookin” with Dolly. Martha, Dolly and Rachel share a mutual admiration, a love for cooking, and a wealth of knowledge about carving out success as a woman in the public eye. Listen here as Dolly and Rachel share memories of the family cooks who inspired the book, plus Rachel’s secrets for delicious cornbread. From Thanksgiving menu planning to wigs, waist size, and advocating for your own career, Martha covers the gamut with these powerhouse sisters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I love the music.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
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
(00:44):
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
(01:07):
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
(01:30):
this minute?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We are in Nashville, Tennessee, at our studios over here
in Antioch, a little town not far from Nashville, and
we have been so.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Excited to get to talk to you. We both love you.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you so much. And you're beautifully dressed in pink.
Is that your favorite color, Dolly?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, actually all of all colors, but we're actually kind
of dressed to match the cover of our cookbook.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Indeed, is that trifle that you're holding on the cover?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yes? Is banana pudding.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
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.
(02:22):
Who's at the barbecue?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's my husband Eric George.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh, is he a performer too?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
All.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
His ribs and steaks look really good.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yes, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So you're both performers in music and acting. What made
you decide to work on a cookbook together? Is there
a backstory?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
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
(03:23):
thing to do. And there's an old Hank Williams song
called Hey.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Good Looking, why don't you got cooking hounds? About cooking
something up with me?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So anytime anybody would go in our house, we'd say, hey,
good looking, what.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You got cook? So we just thought that would be
a cute name for the book.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Well, it's a perfect name coming from both of you.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
By the way, Rachel is truly the best cook.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
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.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
She was a great storyteller.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
She was a singer also.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I think, well, what part of what part of the
old world, Dolly? Where are you talking about in Europe?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So the old world.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Of those old songs Irish and the Scottish songs brought over.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Mama would sing and she.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Would cook, and we would cry when she'd sing some
of those old songs.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We would laugh when she sing the fun ones.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
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?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
We grew our food.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Did you have chickens for eggs?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
We had chicken. We had eggs. We had a cow
milk and cow we had milk.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
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?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
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
(06:39):
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
(07:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Cousins and a lot of the men.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Dolly and I don't think any cow.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would we need to milk them? Now with these nails?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
No? No, was there always enough food for twelve children? Really?
You had twelve siblings altogether?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, there's six girls and six boys.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
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?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Twenty years? Yeah, yeah, she was thirty five.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We got one set of toy and so she was busy.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
She was. It was eighteen months and two years different
in all our ages.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Wow, Mom was still a young woman and we were
still you know growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, what a fantastic story. How long did she live?
Your mom?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
She passed away when she was about eighty uh huh.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
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?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, I think it's an iron skillet.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I think the skillet has to be really hot when
you put the batter in, and your oven needs to
be hot.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And where'd you get your corn meal?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Well, we would grow corn when we were younger, and
Beatty would take it to the mill and they would
make the corn meal.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Oh great must be Did you use cream or milk
in your corn bread?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Mostly? I use buttermilk.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
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?
Speaker 4 (10:03):
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
(10:24):
one and I really like that one. So that came
to be what is in our book now, which is
a little over.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Eighty recipes bout eighty two I think eighty two.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, it's a generous book. There's a lot of stuff
in this book.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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
(10:58):
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.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
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?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
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
(11:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
What did your dad do farmed?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah, he had to have some way to bring in
some money.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
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
(12:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So Dad would get up.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It sounds like it's a movie.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And what's your favorite holiday memory? Do you have one
each of you?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
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
(13:47):
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.
(14:12):
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.
(14:34):
And then when Rachel came to pick me up at
the airport, and here I walk out dressed like Santa.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But that was yeah, that was that was a good
memory for me as wellcial special Christmas.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
How fantastic. So, Rachel, you are a collector of cookbooks.
I've read. Which do you rely on most?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well, right now I'm relying on good looking cooking.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Go back to that. You are one of my favorite cooks.
I love your show, I love.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Your books, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I love all books. I love Trisha Yearwood.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
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?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I never have gotten tired of it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
And thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
He's a friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
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
(16:23):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
No, not really, we were actually involved in thinking about
the cookbook.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But the Duncan Hins.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You well know.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Well, when when you have a big when you have
a big family, you sometimes rely on those delicious mixes.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Rachel's I have to answer to say.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
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,
(17:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That you do.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
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
(18:43):
in this book. And you both look amazing in these pictures.
Who does your hair and makeup? Ladies?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Different ones?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
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.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Oh well, we like looking pretty, Yeah, you do.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
And you've looked You've looked pretty for all really long time, ladies.
It's really nice.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I should say, yay.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I hope. So I know we're lucking our pump pumps.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So I understand there was a Martha in your family
who is Martha.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
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
(20:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Dress just like mine.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
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.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
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?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
She was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But you can wear anything you have. And no, Dolly
was a wonderful sister and still is.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
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
(22:07):
up in my arms and just hugging on her. And
so we've been close all all of her life.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And we still are a close with your other four
sisters too.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes, we are very close.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
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.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We live close together, our homes are close together, so
it's really easy to go to each other's house.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Where are you in the lineup of siblings? A, Dolly,
where are you are you? Number two? Three?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I have a sister and two brothers older than me.
I was fourth one down, and then there's eight kids younger.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Wow, and where were you? Rachel?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I'm twelve?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
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?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
We both did.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Rachel, like I said, it is the better cook, and
I was happier to get to.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Do the tasting.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You're not doing it right, and to do it?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
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.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Now, I will have to say, Dolly is a fantastic cook,
a great cook.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Dolla is very creative in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
I tend to follow recipes and Dolly tends not to
follow rest It's goods, always delicious.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I cogot Mama always always are you sure? Always delicious?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It is always delicious, is the way I like it.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So it's usually tastes good because I'm the bigger.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, but you keep saying you're a big eater, Dolly,
you're what size is your waist?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, right now it's not big, but it's been every
size it has.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I have never seen your waist bigger than like twenty inches.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, even when I was better, my waist was smaller.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
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?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Well, I have a small waist.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
It's not as small as it used to be. What
you have children it's all right.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Oh you're beautiful. But do you wear Do you wear
a corset? Dolly?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
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?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I don't even know what it is now.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
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
(25:38):
same number of inches?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
No, I just know that my waist is small and
my feet are small because nothing grows in the shade.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Unbelievable. But try it.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Try it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Measure your head and measure your waist and let me
know if they're the same mine. I'm way off.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I'll have sister night.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
So what's what is your what's your glam routine? Everybody
wants to know because Dolly Parton is how old are you? Dolly?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Well, I'm seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
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?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I say, just good lighting, good makeup, and good doctors.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
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?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I never did smoke.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
That's good. And what about you, Rachel, did you ever smoke?
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Well, I'll have to say I have smoked, yeah, many
years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
But I was just curious because tobacco was such a
huge thing when you were growing up.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
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
(27:44):
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?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Oh yeah, on occasion, no special occasions.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
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
(28:41):
have pants on her skirt?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I have little pants, little pedal pushers.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
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?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It depends on why I am.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
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
(29:21):
when I need to.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So do you how do you control your image? Do
you have that final say on every picture that is
published of you? Well?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I try to. You don't always.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Everybody does, of course, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
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?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
We had two full days of photography.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Our friend and wardrobe person, Steve Summers had made that
for me.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
With twelve kids? No hers like this like a watermelon mostome?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
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
(31:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
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
(32:16):
control their own careers.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
And when you offered me the job, I'd already had.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
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
(33:00):
kind of bashed heads, and he had his dreams and
I had mine, and I just felt that I had to.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Go and keep no climbing on that.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Ladder of success, as they say, And didn't go over well.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
With him, and we had our problems.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
But I just had to stand my grounds.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
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?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And so I sang.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
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
(34:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yes, I write all the things.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
And actually, at the time I said I wrote three
thousand songs, that was three.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Thousand years ago. That was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I'm sure I have many I've written a thousand more
since I said that at that time.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So, Rachel, what kind of advice did Dolly give you
about your own singing and acting career as the baby
in the family.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
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
(35:57):
it often and thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And you're welcome, and I still mean that.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So Charles brought Gary Klein had produced.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
The song, actually the arrangements and all that on Here
You Come Again.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
So they sent me these songs.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
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
(37:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Amazing, amazing. Can we talk about the importance of owning
your own work? Is your entire library in your hands?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So I had a few songs.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
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
(38:20):
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,
(38:42):
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
(39:03):
they are.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Indeed. Did you have any advice for Taylor Swift when
she was buying back her music or catalog.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
And your godmother to Miley Cyrus, how she is as
as a godchild.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Well, I love Molly. She's like one of my own.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
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
(40:03):
gave me like a little TIBs and you know, tell
me about clothes and suggested the photographer.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So we're just good buddies too. But I really love Milly.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
I don't think anybody in this world is more talented
and more beautiful.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Amazing, And she's wearing fewer clothes every day. Every time
I see her, she has less clothes on. Did you notice.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I never know what Miley's going to do next. She
may be dressed, she may not be. But she's special
to me.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
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?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well?
Speaker 4 (40:51):
It was a total of about six seasons. They were
not full seasons, but it was a span of six.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Think that's It was really about the equal pay for
equal work and the harassment in the workplace.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Old mister Hart, the main character.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
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
(41:40):
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
(42:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
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?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Well? I like that statement.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I love it when people say, you know, fun things
and a fun way to make a point.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
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
(42:54):
so interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
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
(43:19):
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
(43:41):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
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
(44:22):
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.
(44:44):
It's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
We just don't want to let you let Snoop Dogg
smoke any of that much.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
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
(46:00):
it never gets old to me.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's just a way of life with me. I love
the music.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
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.
(46:26):
And that's kind of my philosophy too.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
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?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Well, I do think we learned anything new, but I
think we really treasured just our love, our true love,
and how.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Much we do love each other.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Now, Rachel, how many kids? How many children do you have?
Rachel daughter?
Speaker 4 (47:01):
And then my husband has three boys his grandkids ever, yes,
I did.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
In your family, are there one or two kids that
are following in your footsteps in music?
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Bunches of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
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
(47:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I look forward to seeing that that is going to
be great. Where is that going to be?
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Well, actually, we haven't sold it yet.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
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
(48:28):
up Good Looking Cooking with the two most beautiful blonde performers,
beautiful women you have ever seen on the cover and
best of luck.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Thank you, Thank you Mark.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
I hope to see you in person soon. Thank you,
thank you, you might Bye.
I love the music.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
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
(00:44):
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
(01:07):
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
(01:30):
this minute?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
We are in Nashville, Tennessee, at our studios over here
in Antioch, a little town not far from Nashville, and
we have been so.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Excited to get to talk to you. We both love you.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Thank you so much. And you're beautifully dressed in pink.
Is that your favorite color, Dolly?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, actually all of all colors, but we're actually kind
of dressed to match the cover of our cookbook.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Indeed, is that trifle that you're holding on the cover?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yes? Is banana pudding.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
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.
(02:22):
Who's at the barbecue?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
That's my husband Eric George.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh, is he a performer too?
Speaker 4 (02:29):
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.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
All.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
His ribs and steaks look really good.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yes, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
So you're both performers in music and acting. What made
you decide to work on a cookbook together? Is there
a backstory?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
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
(03:23):
thing to do. And there's an old Hank Williams song
called Hey.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Good Looking, why don't you got cooking hounds? About cooking
something up with me?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So anytime anybody would go in our house, we'd say, hey,
good looking, what.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You got cook? So we just thought that would be
a cute name for the book.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Well, it's a perfect name coming from both of you.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
By the way, Rachel is truly the best cook.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
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.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
She was a great storyteller.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
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.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
She was a singer also.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
I think, well, what part of what part of the
old world, Dolly? Where are you talking about in Europe?
Speaker 2 (04:54):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
So the old world.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Of those old songs Irish and the Scottish songs brought over.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Mama would sing and she.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Would cook, and we would cry when she'd sing some
of those old songs.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
We would laugh when she sing the fun ones.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Well.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
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?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
We grew our food.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Did you have chickens for eggs?
Speaker 4 (05:54):
We had chicken. We had eggs. We had a cow
milk and cow we had milk.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
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?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
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
(06:39):
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
(07:01):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Cousins and a lot of the men.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
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.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Well.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Dolly and I don't think any cow.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Would we need to milk them? Now with these nails?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
No? No, was there always enough food for twelve children? Really?
You had twelve siblings altogether?
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, there's six girls and six boys.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
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?
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Twenty years? Yeah, yeah, she was thirty five.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We got one set of toy and so she was busy.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
She was. It was eighteen months and two years different
in all our ages.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Wow, Mom was still a young woman and we were
still you know growing up.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, what a fantastic story. How long did she live?
Your mom?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
She passed away when she was about eighty uh huh.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
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?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Well, I think it's an iron skillet.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
I think the skillet has to be really hot when
you put the batter in, and your oven needs to
be hot.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
And where'd you get your corn meal?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Well, we would grow corn when we were younger, and
Beatty would take it to the mill and they would
make the corn meal.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Oh great must be Did you use cream or milk
in your corn bread?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Mostly? I use buttermilk.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
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?
Speaker 4 (10:03):
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
(10:24):
one and I really like that one. So that came
to be what is in our book now, which is
a little over.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Eighty recipes bout eighty two I think eighty two.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, it's a generous book. There's a lot of stuff
in this book.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
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
(10:58):
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.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
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?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
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
(11:46):
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.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
What did your dad do farmed?
Speaker 4 (12:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Yeah, he had to have some way to bring in
some money.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
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
(12:46):
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.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
So Dad would get up.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It sounds like it's a movie.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And what's your favorite holiday memory? Do you have one
each of you?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
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
(13:47):
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.
(14:12):
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.
(14:34):
And then when Rachel came to pick me up at
the airport, and here I walk out dressed like Santa.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But that was yeah, that was that was a good
memory for me as wellcial special Christmas.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
How fantastic. So, Rachel, you are a collector of cookbooks.
I've read. Which do you rely on most?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well, right now I'm relying on good looking cooking.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Go back to that. You are one of my favorite cooks.
I love your show, I love.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Your books, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I love all books. I love Trisha Yearwood.
Speaker 4 (15:11):
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?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I never have gotten tired of it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
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.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
And thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
He's a friend of mine.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
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
(16:23):
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.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
No, not really, we were actually involved in thinking about
the cookbook.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
But the Duncan Hins.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
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.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
You well know.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Well, when when you have a big when you have
a big family, you sometimes rely on those delicious mixes.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Rachel's I have to answer to say.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
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,
(17:51):
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.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
That you do.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
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
(18:43):
in this book. And you both look amazing in these pictures.
Who does your hair and makeup? Ladies?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Different ones?
Speaker 2 (18:51):
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.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Oh well, we like looking pretty, Yeah, you do.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
And you've looked You've looked pretty for all really long time, ladies.
It's really nice.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I should say, yay.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
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.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
I hope. So I know we're lucking our pump pumps.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
So I understand there was a Martha in your family
who is Martha.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
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
(20:27):
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.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Dress just like mine.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
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.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
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.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
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?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
She was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But you can wear anything you have. And no, Dolly
was a wonderful sister and still is.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
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
(22:07):
up in my arms and just hugging on her. And
so we've been close all all of her life.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And we still are a close with your other four
sisters too.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yes, we are very close.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
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.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We live close together, our homes are close together, so
it's really easy to go to each other's house.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Where are you in the lineup of siblings? A, Dolly,
where are you are you? Number two? Three?
Speaker 2 (22:49):
I have a sister and two brothers older than me.
I was fourth one down, and then there's eight kids younger.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Wow, and where were you? Rachel?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I'm twelve?
Speaker 3 (22:58):
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?
Speaker 1 (23:14):
We both did.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Rachel, like I said, it is the better cook, and
I was happier to get to.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Do the tasting.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
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.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
You're not doing it right, and to do it?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
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.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
Now, I will have to say, Dolly is a fantastic cook,
a great cook.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Dolla is very creative in the kitchen.
Speaker 4 (23:55):
I tend to follow recipes and Dolly tends not to
follow rest It's goods, always delicious.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
I cogot Mama always always are you sure? Always delicious?
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
It is always delicious, is the way I like it.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
So it's usually tastes good because I'm the bigger.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, but you keep saying you're a big eater, Dolly,
you're what size is your waist?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, right now it's not big, but it's been every
size it has.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I have never seen your waist bigger than like twenty inches.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, even when I was better, my waist was smaller.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
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?
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Well, I have a small waist.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
It's not as small as it used to be. What
you have children it's all right.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Oh you're beautiful. But do you wear Do you wear
a corset? Dolly?
Speaker 1 (24:56):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:57):
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?
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I don't even know what it is now.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
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
(25:38):
same number of inches?
Speaker 2 (25:40):
No, I just know that my waist is small and
my feet are small because nothing grows in the shade.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Unbelievable. But try it.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Try it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Measure your head and measure your waist and let me
know if they're the same mine. I'm way off.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I'll have sister night.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
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.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
So what's what is your what's your glam routine? Everybody
wants to know because Dolly Parton is how old are you? Dolly?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Well, I'm seventy eight.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
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?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I say, just good lighting, good makeup, and good doctors.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
How do you do it?
Speaker 3 (26:49):
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?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
I never did smoke.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
That's good. And what about you, Rachel, did you ever smoke?
Speaker 4 (27:12):
Well, I'll have to say I have smoked, yeah, many
years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
But I was just curious because tobacco was such a
huge thing when you were growing up.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
Me too.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
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
(27:44):
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?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Oh yeah, on occasion, no special occasions.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
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
(28:41):
have pants on her skirt?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
I have little pants, little pedal pushers.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
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?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
It depends on why I am.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
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
(29:21):
when I need to.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
So do you how do you control your image? Do
you have that final say on every picture that is
published of you? Well?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
I try to. You don't always.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
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.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Everybody does, of course, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
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?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
We had two full days of photography.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well?
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Our friend and wardrobe person, Steve Summers had made that
for me.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
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.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
With twelve kids? No hers like this like a watermelon mostome?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
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.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
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
(31:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
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
(32:16):
control their own careers.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
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.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
And when you offered me the job, I'd already had.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
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
(33:00):
kind of bashed heads, and he had his dreams and
I had mine, and I just felt that I had to.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Go and keep no climbing on that.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Ladder of success, as they say, And didn't go over well.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
With him, and we had our problems.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
But I just had to stand my grounds.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
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?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
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.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And so I sang.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
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
(34:39):
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.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
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.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yes, I write all the things.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
And actually, at the time I said I wrote three
thousand songs, that was three.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Thousand years ago. That was a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
I'm sure I have many I've written a thousand more
since I said that at that time.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
So, Rachel, what kind of advice did Dolly give you
about your own singing and acting career as the baby
in the family.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
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
(35:57):
it often and thank you.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And you're welcome, and I still mean that.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
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.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
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.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
So Charles brought Gary Klein had produced.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
The song, actually the arrangements and all that on Here
You Come Again.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
So they sent me these songs.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
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
(37:14):
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.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Amazing, amazing. Can we talk about the importance of owning
your own work? Is your entire library in your hands?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
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.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
So I had a few songs.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
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
(38:20):
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,
(38:42):
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
(39:03):
they are.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Indeed. Did you have any advice for Taylor Swift when
she was buying back her music or catalog.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
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.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
And your godmother to Miley Cyrus, how she is as
as a godchild.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Well, I love Molly. She's like one of my own.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
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
(40:03):
gave me like a little TIBs and you know, tell
me about clothes and suggested the photographer.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
So we're just good buddies too. But I really love Milly.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
I don't think anybody in this world is more talented
and more beautiful.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Amazing, And she's wearing fewer clothes every day. Every time
I see her, she has less clothes on. Did you notice.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
I never know what Miley's going to do next. She
may be dressed, she may not be. But she's special
to me.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
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?
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Well?
Speaker 4 (40:51):
It was a total of about six seasons. They were
not full seasons, but it was a span of six.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
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.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
Think that's It was really about the equal pay for
equal work and the harassment in the workplace.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Old mister Hart, the main character.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
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
(41:40):
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
(42:01):
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.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
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?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Well? I like that statement.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
I love it when people say, you know, fun things
and a fun way to make a point.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
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
(42:54):
so interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
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
(43:19):
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
(43:41):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
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
(44:22):
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.
(44:44):
It's just amazing.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
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.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
We just don't want to let you let Snoop Dogg
smoke any of that much.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
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.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
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
(46:00):
it never gets old to me.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
It's just a way of life with me. I love
the music.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
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.
(46:26):
And that's kind of my philosophy too.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
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?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Well, I do think we learned anything new, but I
think we really treasured just our love, our true love,
and how.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Much we do love each other.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
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.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Now, Rachel, how many kids? How many children do you have?
Rachel daughter?
Speaker 4 (47:01):
And then my husband has three boys his grandkids ever, yes,
I did.
Speaker 3 (47:07):
In your family, are there one or two kids that
are following in your footsteps in music?
Speaker 4 (47:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (47:14):
Bunches of them. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
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
(47:38):
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.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
I look forward to seeing that that is going to
be great. Where is that going to be?
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Well, actually, we haven't sold it yet.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
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.
Speaker 3 (48:07):
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
(48:28):
up Good Looking Cooking with the two most beautiful blonde performers,
beautiful women you have ever seen on the cover and
best of luck.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Thank you, Thank you Mark.
Speaker 3 (48:41):
I hope to see you in person soon. Thank you,
thank you, you might Bye.
Host
Martha Stewart
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com