The song that got Dolly Parton her first big break: “A real soul inside”
Many dub Dolly Parton, the singer-songwriter and widely loved personality, as the ‘Queen of Country Music’. Her songs are equal parts catchy and captivating, wielding stories of broken hearts and wild dreams. But even a queen must rise through the ranks in one way or another, and there was one song that sent Parton thoroughly on her way.
As a child, Parton wrote songs with a wisdom way beyond her years, always edging toward something larger than her small hometown. She left for Nashville, Tennessee, to chase her dreams at the tender age of 18, adamant that something was waiting out there for her beyond her “dirt poor” life.
Eventually, she began appearing on The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967, which would soon afford her the big break destined for her powerhouse vocals. But things began shakily for the pair, as Wagoner harboured early reservations about the future star. Though those opening bars of ‘Jolene’ jostle through speakers all over the world and make even the glummest music lover try their hand at a warbled country vocal, Wagoner believed Parton wasn’t “country enough”. Even worse…she was betraying her genre by singing pop songs.
By this point, Parton was taking the town by storm. The definition of a busybody, she’d have lunch with any pleasant stranger who might offer her an unencumbered smile in the street. Naturally, her name was brought up to the rhinestone-studded star, Wagoner. However, a former employee of his suggested he was adamant to have no part in the Parton storm.
“Someone had brought up her name to him as a singer, and he just wasn’t gonna have anything to do with Dolly. It was also before he met her,” they said, as per Alanna Nash’s book Dolly.
Parton would have to prove her talent the way she knew best: by song. Wagoner’s steely opinion slowly shifted as he heard tunes like ‘Dumb Blonde’ and ‘Something Fishy’. In a turn of fate, his singer, Norma Jean, soon needed replacing, and Parton’s flashy smile and preppy personality slowly seemed like the best option. Better yet, there was one song in particular that allowed Wagoner a glimpse into Parton’s soul.
Parton’s ‘Everything Beautiful (In Its Own Way)’ poetically ponders the world in all its mundanity, all mountains and leaves of clover, all May flowers and heavy showers. The song has an internal rhyme that breathes comfort into the reflective rumination, one that posits the determined positivity as modest, not overbearing. “In the midst of such anger, destruction and danger, the storm’s even beautiful in its own way,” Parton sings on the track.
Wagoner was immediately impressed. “This song told me so much about her,” he said, as per Nash, in awe of the soul-searching and the happy reflections on life’s biggest uncertainties. “I knew that if a person could sit down and write a song like that, they’d have to have a real soul inside them.”
Part of the reason Wagoner loved the song so much was that her infectious, happy-go-lucky personality shone through. She sings, “Words can’t describe what I feel inside, when I see the beauty in each coming day, what my eyes behold can’t be bought or sold.” Her early realisation that some things are priceless, and should stay that way, would work wonders in such a competitive, capitalist industry.
Wagoner also revealed that he factored this in, too, before he presented her with what would be her first big break. “There was a lot that sold me on Dolly but I think the deciding factor was Dolly’s personality — her warmth, her sincerity, her bein’ a real person,” he mused. “She’s the kind of girl you can take anywhere under any conditions to meet anyone, and they’d like her… She has the type of personality I could sell to people on television and in person.”
He couldn’t have been more right.
