Au revoir to Dolly

The translation for the French phrase ‘Au revoir’ is that it's not a final goodbye. It’s only a polite farewell until people see or meet a person again. Even if the late Dolly Parton has moved on, it’s not a final farewell as her songs and humanitarian work will live on.

Dolly is most famous for her own songs, sometimes for her hourglass figure too. She recorded a version of the 1983 US Pop hit The Salt in My Tears and millions of fans have shed salty tears since her passing last week aged 80.

She was a superstar in the music world but a salt-of-the-earth person, as were so many of her family in Tennessee who were just humble country folk.

In many ways the Parton and Owens families are so like rural Irish families - friendly, welcoming to all wayfaring strangers, unassuming and sincere.

Those were Dolly’s traits too and even if her wigs, make-up and some of the additions to her body were fake, she was very real behind that façade!

She even joked at one of her last concerts in Dublin about not standing too close to the fire because of the danger of her melting! Another of her many self-effacing quips was that “it cost a lot of money to look this cheap!”

Dolly's humble background

Coming from a poor family of 12 in the Smoky Mountains she never shied away from talking about her humble background. She never forgot the people back home either as her Dollywood theme park there has provided employment for thousands.

During my only visit there the members of the Parton and Owens families were all so welcoming.

Indeed, her youngest singing brother, Randy Parton, now sadly deceased, gifted me a video of a Hollywood-made film about her life that was being shown at one of the theatres in Dollywood just because I said that I liked it!

Another true Southern gentleman was her uncle, the late Bill Owens, himself a singer and songwriter, who took her to Nashville at 18. They knocked on many record company doors and Dolly babysat for him and his wife’s young kids until she got her first recording contract.

“We’re part Irish, plus a mixture of others. We have a lot of bloodlines in us. A sort of a mixture similar to Heinz 57,” laughed Bill Owens when I asked him if he knew of any Irish ancestry.

Both Bill and her other uncle Louis Owens, and their daughters, who sang in the family group known as The Kinfolks at Dollywood, were all cut from the same cloth as Dolly who coincidentally wrote her huge hit about her impoverished childhood, The Coat of Many Colours.

Dolly was easy on the eye and easy to interview too with her witty remarks about everything. She accommodated cub reporters, such as this one, with the same respect that she would give to the top-rated TV presenters.

Glitz and glamour

Behind all the glitz, the glamour and the fame, was a hugely talented woman who was grateful to God, family, friends, and of course fans for the fame that she achieved.

Apart from attracting capacity crowds, including 200,000 at Glastonbury, Dolly was equally at ease performing in Nowlan Park, Kilkenny (on a cold September day) to singing at an impromptu session with local musicians in Paidi O’Se’s pub near Dingle while on holidays in Kerry. Her photo singing there still fills a sidewall at the famous Ventry venue.

Her songs such as I Will Always Love You, 9 to 5, Jolene, Coat of Many Colours, Tennessee Mountain Home, Two Doors Down and Applejack paint sound pictures, often of scenes in those mountains in the ears and eyes of her multitudes of fans all around the world.

Dolly is understood to have recorded an unreleased song called “My Place in History” in 2015 and put it in a locked “Dream Box” at Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort. She intended it to remain sealed until her 100th birthday, January 19, 2046. The box reportedly contains the recording and a CD player so it can still be played decades later.

Dolly’s songs, films and friendly persona along with the millions of dollars she donated to charitable groups, educational books for the disadvantaged and to the medical sector have all made this planet a better place for so many.

Sadly, and almost suddenly, this world said “Au revoir” to this little, big lady of music from the Smoky Mountains.

Dolly’s legacy of songs will remain etched in the hearts of her millions of worldwide fans who will always love her, probably even in 100 years from now.