Dolly Parton, with her big personality, big hair, big bust, and sweet voice has captured the hearts of millions everywhere. She’s one of the most powerful women in music to date, even if she’s not played on radio as often as some of todays younger stars. When you’ve been playing the game as long as Dolly has, radio play doesn’t make much of a difference.
Dolly wasn’t always such a mega-watt star, although she always had a mega-watt smile and personality. Her body developed rapidly, and by the age of 15 or 16 she’d learned to use her femininity to her advantage. She claims that while she’s had many invitations to various casting couches (presumably while trying to get her career going) “I’ve never slept with anybody to advance my career. If I slept with anybody, it was only because I wanted to.”
Taken from an interview with the Daily Mail:
“When starting out in the business, I looked easy and people didn’t take me seriously,’ she admits. ‘I always looked like I could be had and I still do!’ she giggles. ‘But the truth was, I couldn’t.
‘The casting couch was very much present in country music when I got started and, Lord, I couldn’t even name all the times I’ve been come on to.
‘I’d be offered jobs and then before the deal was done, they’d say “Would you like to come up to my room?” and I’d say: “I don’t need the job that bad, and I’ll never do that to get ahead.”
‘People still thought I was cheap and though it was painful at times, I knew that that talk would be shortlived.’
Being aware of the power she wielded over men, thanks to her looks, imbued Dolly with an early confidence. ‘I was always at ease with myself, and coming from a family of 12 with six brothers, I understood men and loved them.
‘But I was also confident about who I was and my talent, so when I went into meetings, I never crumbled under a man’s power. I’d tell them “I have something to offer which I think could make us both a lot of money, if you want to take a gamble”, and leave it at that.”
She was first exposed to the public eye by Porter Wagoner when he hired her at the age of 21 as a “girl singer” in 1967 on his hit variety show, The Porter Wagoner Show.
Dolly has said to the Los Angeles Times of the man who gave her career a kick-start “I don’t mean this in a bad way… but he was very much a male chauvinist pig. Certainly a male chauvinist. He was in charge, and it was his show, but he was also very strong willed. That’s why we fought like crazy, because I wouldn’t put up with a bunch of stuff. Out of respect for him, I knew he was the boss, and I would go along to where I felt this was reasonable for me. But once it passed points where it was like, your way or my way, to prove to you that I can do it, then I would just pitch a damn fit. I wouldn’t care if it killed me.”
For seven years she sang duets with Porter on his show. Behind the scenes, they didn’t get along as well as they appeared to on camera, often butting heads when the cameras weren’t rolling. They released several albums together. In the entertainment industry, they were packaged as a musical power couple. One album cover even has her looking very much the bride. Another has framed pictures set side by side, making them appear as pictures in a locket. The title of that is Say Forever You’ll Be Mine.
Nearly every album has a romantic theme, with the two appearing as a couple. You could say he was her original handler. By 1974 Dolly broke free to pursue a solo career. Wagoner was pissed and sued her. Dolly must have been plotting her leave for a while, as she wrote the song I Will Always Love you in 1973 as a farewell to Porter, then released it in 1974.
She’s also said that Porter Wagoner was her inspiration for her role as Doralee in the movie 9-5.
She and Wagoner made amends before his death. The day he died, she claims she had a premonition that told her to go to his bedside, where she sat and sang to him for hours. She’s said a part of her died with him.
Dolly’s solo career doesn’t really need much explanation. She’s recorded many albums which have spawned numerous hit singles. She continues to gain new fans with every generation. Her music is timeless, although there is far more to her career than music. We’ll get to that later.
Dolly’s solo career skyrocketed. She continued to use her stunning looks and stellar talent to her advantage while publicly maintaining her dignity. Even when in Playboy, she left things to the public’s imagination.
(Hints of Alice conditioning with the white rabbit. A rather evil looking white rabbit, at that!)
While Dolly has indisputably made a formidable career for herself as a solo artist, she also gained a musical second husband. Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton have frequently worked together over the years, and fans to this day can’t get enough of the pairs duets. Their relationship together is definitely filled with chemistry, although I suspect Kenny of having been Dolly’s second handler.
She’s wearing a golden bridal veil in part of this early performance with him. When I saw the video on YouTube, she’s acting silly singing in a Spanish accent at the beginning of the song. I can’t seem to find the video now, so I’m guessing it’s been removed from YouTube.
bridal veil gone
Over the years, Dolly and Kenny have appeared together time after time after time. They have incredibly strong ties together. With todays stars, you don’t tend to see such a thing. Singers will record a track together, and that’s usually that. Heck, even for their time Dolly and Kenny’s relationship with eachother isn’t typical.
The two have literally grown old together. Publicly, they seem more like a married couple than Dolly and her actual husband, Carl Dean (with whom she maintains a relationship that strikes many as odd, she’s even addressed that people have questioned whether or not Carl’s even real.) On the rumours of having had an affair together, Kenny has said “[We] worked together for two years on the road. Everybody always thought we were having an affair. We just flirted together for 30 years, you know. But it keeps the tension.” further elaborating, in reference to their latest duet (You Can’t Make Old Friends), he added “She really is an old friend. The song was written for the two of us. We sang it on the stage of the war memorial in Nashville and both of us were really choked up, because it’s kind of a poignantly sad song. It’s about what am I going to do when you’re gone.”
Dolly also denies rumours of affairs “I love to flirt and I’ve never met a man I didn’t like. Men are my weakness. Short, fat, bald or skinny-I’ve had crushes on some very unusual men but Carl knows I’ll always come home and I’m not having sex with these people-I’m just flirtin’ and having fun.”
Rumours aside, over the years Dolly has made a name for herself outside of the music industry as quite the entrepreneur. From opening her very own theme park, Dollywood, plus a water park Splash Country, two dinner theatre type things (Dixie Stampede and Pirates Voyage), owning her own record label (Dolly Records), and starting up her own Imagination Library, to creating her own cosmetics line, to writing books, not to mention her acting, Dolly has dipped her hands into just about everything.
Theme parks are said to be breeding grounds for conditioning. The butterfly standing in for the W is another hint that things may not be as they appear.
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Apparently she even inspired a pinball machine game
I know the above image is from Joyful Noise. But it looks like it could be taken from an infomercial. “Why honey, aren’t you just gorgeous in my make-up products!”
Dolly’s book, I Am A Rainbow, is reminiscent of Oz programming, although to most people the book itself seems innocent enough. There’s a video on YouTube of a little girl reading the book aloud. The book compares colours to our emotions; blue when we are sad, red when angry, you get the idea.
In 1987 Dolly released an album titled Rainbow. A purely pop album which didn’t do very well commercially. That was also the same year she was to have a prime-time variety show, which was cancelled after only one season.
Rainbows and butterflies seem to be recurring themes with Dolly. Dolly has famously said “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!”
Another album that seems ripe with conditioning is Backwoods Barbie. It may be full of catchy tunes and trademark Dolly-isms, but that’s just the point of MK.
Barbies, and dolls in general, are signs of programming. Especially when it comes to leopard print and hot pink. Just look at Nicki Minaj:
(Need I say more?)
She’s the god-mother of troubled teen sensation Miley Cyrus. When she came to Miley’s defense, she said “It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do. You’ve almost got to sacrifice your damn soul just to get anything done. I’ve loved her through the years and watched her grow up, and I’ve seen just how smart she is and talented she is… …She’s just trying to find her own place and wings and learn to fly… …I know that she has thought this all through. We’ll just let her go and do her own thing.”
(There’s Dolly with Kenny again)
Poor Miley. Gaining a terrible image and name for herself when that’s really her Beta Programming at work. (Worse still, if this is the “entertainment” of concerts today, what are they going to be 10 years from now? Sure, Marilyn Manson has raunchy fellating acts on stage-but it wasn’t that long ago that Miley was considered family friendly. She still has young fans, although I doubt any parent in their right mind would take their kids to go see her in concert these days.)
It is my opinion that Dolly moved up the ladder from slave to master/handler. Like Madonna. Dolly is at the top of her game in every sense of the word. She may not be on the front pages of the tabloids or all over the airwaves, yet Dolly is still everywhere. She soon will be on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury this June. And she is probably one of Miley’s handlers, but she has such a sweet down-home image that most people would never make the connection.
Sources: Star Pulse
Thy Unveiling 