DOLLY PARTON: A Holly Dolly Christmas

Published Nov 10, 2020, 12:30 PM

Please excuse my excited squealing! Dolly's been beloved by my grandparents, parents, myself and siblings, as well as my children and grandchildren. She's defied circumstances, stereotypes, gender bias... and age! She is so well known, and so well loved, this guest really needs no introduction.

Ms. Dolly Parton is my guest today, here to talk about life, how she's kept busy during COVID, how she handles stress and negativity (hint, she doesn't - she prays and gives it to GOD) and how her mission in life is to spread joy, and love, and music! We'll talk about her new holiday album, "A Holly Dolly Christmas", all the guests collaborations, and so so so much more! Come on in! ~ Delilah

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Love Someone With Hello, my friend, and welcome back to Love Someone with Delilah. One of the things I love hearing from my listeners is how many generations have tuned into my radio show. After doing this little radio thang for over forty years now, it's not uncommon to hear my mom used to listen to you, and I'd go to sleep as a kid hearing your voice. Now now my kids go to bed listening to you. Today's guest on Love Someone With Delilah can also boast of entertaining multiple generations of fans. I fell in love with her when I was curled up on the floor next to my grandparents' woodstove after weekend family dinners. She was on a number of variety shows. She was a regular guest on he Remember that show? It was on TV. He hauw was my grandparent's favorite show, and they were so thrilled when she guest starred. My dad, Dick Luke, played guitar in a country Western band himself, and he was one of her biggest fans. She has remained active and irrelevant decade after decade, and is loved by my children. After her recent collaboration with the duo known as for King and Country. She had a huge hit last year called God only Knows Now. Even my grandchildren adore her, So think about that. My grandparents loved her, My parents loved her, I love her, my kids love her, and my grandkids love her. That's five generations. If her amazing talent wasn't enough to endear her to millions, her beautiful, warm, authentic personality, her eyes that out sparkle even her most lavish rhinestone goss dooms. Her unfailing sense of humor, Mostly her kind and generous heart would have done the trick anyway. I am so privileged to welcome quote the most honored and revered female country singer songwriter of all time to my podcast today. She has achieved twenty five gold, platinum and multi platinum awards. She's had twenty six songs reach number one on the Billboard Charts, a record for any female artist. I will be back with the One the Only Miss Dolly Rebecca parton right after we spend a little time talking about the folks who make this podcast possible, The home Depot. If you are listening to this podcast on your smartphone, take a minute and download the home Depot app, It opens up the whole Home Depot store to you. One of my favorite parts of the app how simple they make picking a new appliance needed for my home and imagining how it will fit into your home. Once you choose the appliance you'd like, you can use the same app and the phone camera to see just how it will look in your kitchen or your laundry room, wherever it's going. The Home Depot. How doers get more done? Hia, it's Delilah, Oh, Delilah. Hello, are you taking? Oh my gosh, Dollie, you have no idea how much I adore you. Oh? Well, good, thank you. I'm such a fan girl. I'm geeking out here. My heart is racing a million miles a minute. I love you. Don't give me the big head now, I'll get to thinking. You are something, Honey. God has blessed you, and you have blessed so many people. My sister, who is the producer of my podcast, she's an even bigger fan than I am. And we were talking about how when we were growing up, my grandparents loved you, and my parents loved you, and you were on the Porter Wagner Show and hehu and when you were on both shows in a week. It was like we had won the lottery. Well, those are fun shows that goes back a long time. But yeah, I've got a huge following. It's always fun. I have all these older fans and then their kids, like you said, your grandpa and your parents and now even some little kids. When I got to be on the Hannah Montannah Show with Molly, then I had a whole new little group of people. So I feel so blessed that I've been able to decade after decades, have these little fans coming along. So that makes me real proud. I was counting up with my sister, my grandparents, my parents, us, our kids, and now my grandkids they've discovered you, and it's it's amazing how you have the same impact on all of us in our heart. You know, it's that heart connection. Oh that's a sweet way of saying it. Well, I do love people, and I always talk about, you know, being brought up with such a big family, and all of my people had big family. So I see somebody in my family and everybody I meet, so I just feel like we're I'm always at a family reunion when I go to concerts, so when I meet people, I kind of connect with every person I did. Somebody already know when I just I just enjoyed my life, and I enjoy people, and I like things to be good if I make them good and try to make people happy. So how are you? Are you happy? What have you been doing dear ring the coronavirus slow down, shut down pandemic. Well, I've been working like usual. I've just been very creative because I'm the kind of person that I can't just sit around worry about things. I try to make things as right as I can. So I figured the best way that I can make the most of the downtime would be to write songs about it and create things. And so I've been writing a lot, and I wrote a lot of my Christmas album and did most of my whole new Christmas album that's coming out. You know, while we were kind of locked down, and we were very smart and very cautious in how we worked with wearing our mask and doing our social distancing. And I work in a very small circle. But I've just been working the whole time. I haven't missed a beat. So you touched on two things there that I get to talk about one is your new song, which is about what we're going through when life is good again. Yeah, that's one of the first songs I wrote when we were all going through this, and I realized people were just panicking and they were scared to death and needed a little bit of hope and a little bit of light, you know. And I just, you know, I just feel like life we'll be good again, and hopefully we'll be better people, be it deeper and smarter, and maybe have a little more love and a little more acceptance. That's what I'm hoping if there's something good to come out of this, and there will be that. But I did write that in several other songs about it. But that's what I do. That's how I kind of that's my therapy for myself is to write, and so I never let anything get me down. I just pray about things and ask for a direction and just kind of go with the flow. Like a hard candy Christmas, you don't let anything gets you down. Yeah, I have to tell you. Even though I know it's been hard on the world, hard on our country, hard on the economy, life for me and my kids was and is so good because I've never got to spend this much time with them before. Well, there's something good and everything, and that's why I think people should really look at all the positive things. I know, it's really hard to have to just be whole up all the time with kids and not being able to go to work yourself because you've got to take care of your kids and all. But you still, like you said, people have spent more time with their families than ever before. So there's a lot of good. There's a reason and a season for everything, and I think this is just a season we're supposed to be going through, and hopefully we'll all recognize what all the reasons are supposed to be. So I heard that back in early April, right after this hit, you donated a substantial sum a large sum of money to Vanderbilt University for research on treating and preventing coronavirus. I'm trying to do my part out of way, and they're looking for a vaccination of course, pure for it, and I thought, well, I'll just get in early on it and just don't put my money where my mouth is, and you know, try to be of help. So I was happy that I was able to do that and Hopefully they're going to find a vaccine before long, and we will have to go through this forever, and you get back to some sort of a normal for all of us, and get back to where we can get out and sing our music and be in concert again, and get out and do whatever we want to do. But for now, we'll just be smart and do our best and hope for the best. And like I say, if things get harder, just pray. If it gets harder, pray harder. I read while I was doing research to get to talk to you, and by the way, Winona, who I love and who helped me through the hardest times of my life, said about you. She said, when you get to talk to Dolly, you're going to feel like you're meeting an old friend for the first time. I love that, I said, I can't wait. I hope I get to talk to her soon. So, uh, Whyona is your number one fan, tied with my sister and I great great singer. She is right, She's wonderful. What a voice, what a late what a heart? What I know? I appreciate that. And you never know what people say about you too. Somebody tells you what they said. But I've always loved her too, and you sound like a very personable person. I feel like I've known you too. Some people are like that, you feel like you've always known. That's what I was saying earlier about everybody being like somebody in my family. I think people relate to me because I think they feel like I'm like a sister or an aunt or somebody that they've always known. Because I just love people, and I just like to kind of reach out and you know, just kind of touch people with love if I can. And really, you know, I'm a big, old, big male person. I just I just love people, so I just try to get in there and make people feel comfortable. I think the thing that I loved most about you when I was when I was, you know, first getting into the radio business and following your career is that you have the tenacity to say what we're all thinking. But because you say it with that sweet voice and that beautiful smile, you get away with it. You get away Nobody else could have done Nine to five back in the day that that movie was a hit. Facing the discrimination we face, you girls hit it head on the nail on the head, and you got away with it because of who you are and the love that you put into everything. Well, I just love people. I think everybody should have the right to be who they are exactly, and I think they should be ready, nuge, appreciated, love, paid, and everything about that. I just think we're all God's children and we're all equal in his eyes. And I think God must be a rainbow because he said he created us in his image, So we're all colors, grow all styles, grow who we are, and I think we should be allowed to do that. And I just try to rule with love. I let my love go first and everything I try to always, you know, Like I said, I don't mean to sound religious. I'm not religious. I'm very spiritual. I grew up in the church. But I just I just kind of draw on that higher wisdom in myself and I try to, you know, to think how I want to be treated, how I want to be loved. I want to be able to be myself, and I think people should be able to be free and to be appreciated, no matter who, what, or how they are. You collaborated last year with such a great group for King and Country. I have played them and promoted them for several years now and now you have a holiday album coming out. I think we should just have Christmas like for the next three months. What do you think I think we will. I think we're going to have it here. We've been. I've been having it since the right after the first of the year and writing all these song shoes and is always and then recording them. So I've been having Christmas. In fact, it is so funny. We kind of decorate the areas where we're working with Christmas trees and make it feel like Christmas when we're when we're working, and we've been doing a lot of interviews where they've got Christmas trees and presents and everything sitting around. I keep wanting for presidents see what I go for Christmas, all the other roof boxes. I think we need to just with with this crazy year we've had. I think we need to start Christmas now and put up the put up the sparkle and the tinsil and the lights and focus on that and play a Holly Dolly Christmas. A Hillway Dolly Christmas would be good. I think that's fun. And I thought I always loved the song Holly Jolly Christmas with Girl ives and years ago when I had a TV show on my own. He was a special guest and I got to sing that song. He's the one that made that song famous. And when I got ready to do my Christmas album, I thought, oh, Holly Dolly Christmas would be clever, clever. Yah. So tell me some of the artists that are on your Holly Dolly Christmas with you. Well, actually we have six special duets on the album We've Got. I wrote a song called Cozy Down, Cuddle Up, Cozy Down Christmas with Michael Bublez, and that's going to be a single. I think the first song off the album. I did wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Don't I know that you've been married forever to your husband, but don't you just want to cozy down and cuddle up with Michael Bubley. He is such a love bug. I love him. Okay, go on, Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt, But he not only is all that, he is such a nice person. So we really had some nice conversations and some fun and so I think people are gonna love this little song. It is a very sexy song. It's about two people snowbound and all they got to do is all nothing else to do but love on you kind of thing and figuring their wine and all that. So it's a very cute. We kind of flirt and play in the song. But that was fun. And then of course I got to do another special friend of mine, Jimmy Fallon. We sang the Mariah Carey song All I Want for Christmas's Youth. And then Billy Ray Cyrus and I did a duet. Molly and I did a duet on the album. Willie Nelson and I did a duet. He wrote a classic Christmas song many years ago called Pretty Paper. Roy Robson had the big record on it, but I thought, well, since he wrote it and it's one of my favorites, he played us a guitar and we sang on it is great. I did a duet with my brother Randy, who we sang great together. We had a big hit years ago called Old Flames Can't hold a Candle to You. A lot of people don't realize that was my brother, but anyway, he was born in December. He was our Christmas baby. So I wrote a song called You Are My Christmas. It's a doe. It like a love song, and so then we did all those special people, and then we did some classes front I saw Mama Kiss and Santa Claus and Holly Jolly Christmas is some of those wonderful old Christmas songs as well. You're amazing, You're amazing. I wish this weren't a phone interview because I so want to hug you and just pour my love into you. See it. One last thing before you go that I want to talk about, because I heard you have hit one hundred and forty million your nonprofit Imagination Library. You give a book to anybody who wants to sign up for your literacy program. Books are donated to kids, and there was a big celebration when you hit one hundred million. Now what are you at giving books away? Yeah, well we are looking to be. One of these days maybe we'll give a billion books around the world. But we started this whole program twenty four years ago and now we're just in different places all over the world, and we do give books to children from the Condra born They get a book once a month, it comes to the mail with their name on it. But anyway, so we give books to children until let's start school. And so it's a wonderful, wonderful program. I'm so proud of it. And now that we've you know, got that many books in the hands of children, all we can do is hope to get more books there. So that's a program I'm very very proud of. You're augmenting that with Goodnight with Dolly, where you're reading a different children's book live. And I heard you've got over a million streams of kids watching good Night with Dolly. Well, that was just a one time thing. That was during the COVID, you know, when that first started and everybody was holding up for house. I just read about nine books from the Imagination Library. But everybody's saying, you gotta do this all the time. You got to do this all the time. But maybe I'll be doing some more. But that we just did like eight eight I think we did eight at that time. So those eight books have been watched over a million times. So thank you, but you're welcome. I enjoyed doing all that. I love the kids, and the kids relate to me. I'm like mother gooch Er, I'm like a cartoon character to the kids. Well, weren't you, weren't you on the school bus? I remember watching the Magic school Bus with some of my kids. And hearing your voice. Yes, I was on that years and years ago. I've been on almost all those kind of things, Alvin and the Chips. I've lending my voice many of those cartoons up things. But anyway, we're so excited about the Christmas album, Holiday Dollary, Christmas and all these wonderful guests, and I'm just hoping, like you said that people going to really be uplifted. They're gonna have to pretty much stay at home anyway, not totally at home, but they're won't be spending more time at home than usual. So maybe they can play My Tell a woman enjoy that because I do a lot of talking on it too, and kind of you know, during the turnaround the instruments, you know, when they play the instruments do breaks, they call it. So I talk to people and kind of have a little fun. So it's kind of like I'm there in your house having Christmas with you. So I could like put on a really pretty dress and pretend I'm at a Christmas concert with you. Yeah, you could, or like you're at my house for Christmas. See you how many kids there were twelve in your family? Yeah, there are six boys and six girls in my family. But I have all these nieces and nephews and cousins. And when you were growing up, didn't I read that you lived at one time your family in a one room cabin. Well, we had two rooms and a pant outdoor toilet. So so I said, most people grew up in four rooms and a bath. We had two rooms and paths and running water when we'd run and get it. I went to my great grandma's house in Arkansas, and she had she had two rooms in a path. And I was like, what are you talking about? And my grandma handed me a hoe and she said, you got to take the hoe with you when you when you go out the path. I'm like, I'm not going to be working in the garden at night. And she said, Sissy, you got to take the hope for the snakes. I'm like, oh, hell no, no, no, no, no, take me home like that for the biggest part of my life in the mountains, you know. So did you have the hope for the snakes? Did you have did you have cotton mouths? You had to work? Well, we didn't have cotton mouse in the toilet that was in the river. No, I'm saying on the path to the to the outhouse. My grandma had snakes. Yeah, we had snakes, but not cotton mouth usually out in the water. But there were snakes all around, rattlesnake's, copperheaded, black snakes, garden snakes, green snakes, all kind of snakes in the mountains. But you gotta grow you know, you know that's their home too, so you just kind of have to have a hole to scoot all away. Yeah, when my grandma said take the hoe, I was like, oh, I and I grew up on a farm. It's not like I was a city girl. But that was taking it a little too far way. Ho. You do what you gotta do when you gotta go. When you gotta go, you gotta go. Dolly, thank you for spending this time with us. I am so glad I get to play when Life Is Good again on my radio show. And I can't wait for Christmas. Holly Dolly Christmas is available now wherever you buy your music, so I can play have a Holly Dolly Christmas and let everybody else hears your beautiful voice. And Billy Ray and Michael Boublay and your brother and Jimmy. It's going to be wonderful. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I can tell you're going to be one. I'm going to want to hug when we can hug again, when we can hug again, I'm going to give you the biggest squeeze and just think. I thank God for you. I thank God for you and your talent and your gift of love. Well, thank you so much. What Merry Christmas? Do you? Merry Christmas? Dolly? Thank you? She's an American icon known for her musical acting talents, her unapologetic flambuoyant hair, her clothing styles, her bling bling bling, her theme park Dollywood, and her tremendous generosity towards children, which has earned her the nickname the book Lady. She defies stereotype, she defies the aging process, and for her entire life, she has defied the odds. Dolly Rebecca Pardon, the fourth of twelve children born into extreme poverty, has known some bad times. She continues to share her unfailing hope with the world through her philanthropy and always, always, always her music, letting us know that life will be good again. Whatever struggles you may be facing, do Dolly and eye crowd, keep up your faith your hope and keep changing the world from one heart at a time. Dear

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