The “wonderful” singer Dolly Parton called her musical sister
Dolly Parton had a natural habit of making every single member of the country world feel like family.
Even when she wasn’t on top of the charts any more and riding the momentum of being a legacy artist, she seemed to be like the fun aunt that everyone wanted to hang out with whenever she got up onstage to sing tunes like ‘Jolene’. Every single piece of her career was like watching one of the most wholesome singers of all time rise to the top, but she knew that she had more than a few friends who were just as important as she was in the world of country music.
First of all, Parton was going to be forever grateful for what people like Porter Wagoner had done for her career. She didn’t want to be living under his wing for the rest of her days by any means, but her duets with him at the beginning of her career were going to be much less interesting than her seeing what else was out there every single time she made one of her own records.
She was born to be a star on her own, and it wasn’t like she was the only woman trying to assert her independence around that time. Because as much as country music has been known for its beloved patriarchs of the genre like George Jones and Johnny Cash, Parton was proud to be in the same conversation as people like Kitty Wells and Patsy Cline whenever she sang one of her songs.
But it wasn’t only about women getting their foot in the door at the time. Anyone could have been able to be a pinup star for a few years and then disappear, but the real mark of a great artist was being able to have their own distinctive voice on every song. Parton had gone back to her roots plenty of times on tunes like ‘Coat of Many Colors’, but no one seemed to be more interested in tearing down gender stereotypes than Loretta Lynn.
Lynn wasn’t trying to be a revolutionary songwriter when making tunes like ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’, but if you look at some of her confrontational songs, she was ready to get blunt at every opportunity. ‘Fist City’ is one of the most threatening songs that any country star had ever made up until that point, and ‘The Pill’ was revolutionary at a time when people didn’t even think about talking about birth control on Music Row.
So when Lynn passed away, Parton felt like she had lost a member of her musical family when she heard the news, saying, “We’ve been like sisters all the years we’ve been in Nashville, and she was a wonderful human being, wonderful talent, had millions of fans, and I’m one of them. I miss her dearly as we all will.” But that doesn’t diminish the footprint that Lynn has left behind over the years, either.
There are plenty of female country artists who have tried to stretch themselves solely based on what she had done for the culture. It’s easy to paint a clear line between Lynn and what Reba McEntire would eventually do when making her own versions of tunes like ‘Fancy’ by Bobbie Gentry, and acts like The Chicks are practically indebted to what Lynn had done, only filtered through the rootsy sounds of someone like Stevie Nicks.
Parton was already a power player in the industry when Lynn was cutting her teeth, but the ‘Jolene’ singer didn’t just see another songwriter in her when she made it big. She saw someone who was willing to speak up for what she believed in, and no one could really touch someone when they set themselves free like that.
