My guess is that many if not most of us in the Southern Appalachians — most of us in the nation — have a recollection within our music memories of when Miss Dolly Parton entered our consciousness.
Photo Above: My Tennessee Mountain Home album cover
Mine is the album “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” released in 1973, when my esteemed age peer was 27. It was, perhaps not surprising for the young lady who knew early on she was going to be a star, her 11th studio album. “Tennesseee Mountain Home” differed from her previous work in its autobiographical nature, offering in a concept album stories and remembrances of her childhood, complete with an album-cover image of her family’s Tennessee mountain home.
The two songs that jumped into my head forever were the title song and “I Remember,” about her parents, and with its soaring intro and finish, a musical precursor of sorts to “I Will Always Love You,” which would follow within a year.
The album finishes with “Down on Music Row,” about her move, at age 18 and the day after she graduated from Sevier County High School, to Nashville. The little girl (long an accomplished and regularly performing singer) in the other songs has grown up and is ready to go out and conquer the world.And conquer the world she has — in music, in business, in entertainment more broadly and with her magical charm.
Of the many moments of her lifetime of manifesting that charm, my favorite remains the gleeful expression of, “It takes a lot of time and money to look this cheap, honey!”
We are pleased and honored to have a little collection of more serious thoughts from Dolly Parton in Mary Leidig’s interview at the back of the issue.
The story above first appeared in our September / October 2025 issue.
