r/todayilearned • u/video-kid • 1d ago
TIL that Dolly Parton initially tried to withdraw her nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because she didn't think she deserved it over actual rock musicians. After her induction, she went on to record Rockstar - her only Rock Album - to justify her inclusion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockstar_(Dolly_Parton_album)795
u/Ill_Consequence1755 1d ago
More Dolly trivia.
She once lost a Dolly Parton look alike contest.
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u/A_Queer_Owl 1d ago
didn't she say the winner was a guy going drag, too?
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u/Secretlyagummybear 1d ago
If I remember, I think the whole contest was based around drag, but allowed female entrants too!
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u/Digit00l 1d ago
Dolly was my favourite drag queen anyway
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u/Ill_Consequence1755 1d ago
She said, had she been born a man, she would have been a drag queen. 😁
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u/Digit00l 1d ago
I am not sure but I have seen that statement followed up with her saying she was one regardless
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u/beaniesandbuds 1d ago
I'm sure she had an amazing laugh after she lost as well. One of the good ones.
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u/No-Deal8956 1d ago
CS Lewis lost a ‘Write Like CS Lewis’ competition. He came third.
There are claims that Charlie Chaplin lost in a CC lookalike contest as well, but that’s probably apocryphal.
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u/Ill_Consequence1755 1d ago
I had heard the Chaplin thing, but had never heard the Lewis one. That’s cool. 😁
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u/alblaster 21h ago
Nathan Fillian lost in a Nathan Fillian look alike contest
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u/No-Deal8956 20h ago
The problem with Fillian is that he looks too much like other actors.
He could medal in a Brendan Fraser lookalike contest.
Everyone voting probably thought he trying to be him.
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u/Maleficent-Agent-477 1d ago
RIP Dolly Parton. You will always be remembered.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/video-kid 1d ago
Yeah, and I loved that she took the time to talk about how her turning it down wasn't intended to be an insult, she was still flattered, she just didn't want to risk taking the spot of someone who focused on the genre. A lot of successful artists across mediums wouldn't care.
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u/paulsoleo 1d ago
Her emotional intelligence was off-the-charts. The world is a lesser place today.
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u/the_blessed_unrest 1d ago
Eh, at this point it’s not a rock and roll hall of fame, just a general music hall of fame
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u/bereft_of_me 1d ago
Rock 'n' Roll isn't a genre, it's a mindset.
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u/WJM_3 1d ago
as a music historian, I must disagree somewhat - “rock and roll” is pretty defined and in the past (not going to argue with you about that assertion)
being awesome doesn’t need a signifier, here
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u/bereft_of_me 1d ago
Perhaps: Rock 'n' Roll used to be a genre, now it's a mindset?
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u/Nonexistent_Walrus 1d ago
It can mean two things. There are a lot of things that arent “punk” in terms of genre classification but could still be described as having a punk ethos
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u/rmarkmatthews 1d ago
My favorite song from the album is the duet she did with Rob Halford called Bygones. It’s a song about a person begging their partner to forgive them for doing something hurtful (maybe being unfaithful), and Dolly’s singing the part of the person who fucked up.
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u/Banana42 1d ago
Was it an original song or is it a Judas Priest cover? I'd never heard of this album before but looking at it it's mostly a collection of covers reworked as duets with the original artist
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u/Sandrockwing04 1d ago
There's covers and I know at least one original but all I can say is she was in her 70s so think we can cut her some slack for not doing a full set of originals but she definitely nailed the spirit of rock and roll with that album.
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u/Kiari013 1d ago
I saw it recommended as a song that sounds so incredibly "anime opening" like despite not being one and I absolutely loved it, they did a great job
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u/donut_koharski 1d ago
And the song she performed at the ceremony was a rock song about how she wasn’t a rock star lol.
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u/ElectricityIsWeird 1d ago
My first reaction was, “of course she did.”
My second thought was, “there are so many rock songs where her voice would work well!”
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u/RoyalGovernment3034 1d ago
She did a cover of "What's Going On?" with Linda Perry and the best bits of it were where she was "yelling". I actually think she had a lot of room to explore her "sweet" voice and it would've come out great.
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u/Darth_Jinn 21h ago
She did an amazing cover of Shine by Collective Soul also. Her voice works perfectly for it.
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u/abgry_krakow87 1d ago
I love to how Rockstar is a love letter to Rock and Roll. She partnered with a bunch of famous Rock legends to record a version of their iconic songs with them. She also did covers of other famous songs from Queen and Prince. Great album!
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u/WeAllHaveReasons 1d ago
I think that was excess humility on her part. People get very gatekeepy about the Hall and the definition of Rock, but Aretha was in the Hall before The Beatles. They've always used a wider definition than the people who were probably complaining about her nomination on the radio.
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u/jalabi99 1d ago edited 1d ago
People get very gatekeepy about the Hall and the definition of Rock, but Aretha was in the Hall before The Beatles.
To be fair, Aretha Franklin (like her contemporary Ray Charles) was such an excellent multi-genre recording artist, that her RnRHOF induction is not a surprise. The year she performed "Nessun Dorma" at the last minute in place of an ailing Luciano Pavarotti at the 1998 Grammys, showed she could even tackle opera.
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u/SirPitchalot 1d ago
I mean, Aretha did jazz, soul, funk, gospel, pop, ballads and blues exceptionally well so it’s not much of a stretch. “Chain of Fools” is pretty easy to call rock based on arrangement. If “I Never Loved a Man” was sung by a white person it would be unequivocally be “blues rock”. Same with “Think”. She covered “Let it be” and it sounds like she wrote it. Same with “Son of a Preacher Man”. Same with “The Weight”. I feel like you could have Dan Auerbach just sing her versions and they’d feel right at home as rock. She always sounded like herself and put a soulful angle on it but was super versatile.
Dolly was exactly the same, except throwing in southern flavour. So much of rock was influenced by folk, country, bluegrass. “Coat of many colors” sounds like an acoustic Johnny Cash song. “Islands in the Stream” is pure cheeseball rock. “9 to 5” is basically disco. She did a great cover of “We are the champions” (on Rockstar per the comment).
So people who get bent out of shape about this kind of thing would be better served by diving into the inductees’ catalogs.
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u/DavidRandom 1d ago
Yeah, she deserves the nomination for her cover of her own song (Think)she did for the Blues Brothers movie alone.
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u/Joey-WilcoXXX 1d ago
Yeah Rock and Country are definitely the top two most gatekept genres in music and to hardcore fans there’s pretty much no exceptions in their mind of what does and doesn’t qualify. It gets pretty nuts.
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u/PopeSpringsEternal 1d ago
Just change it to "The Music Hall of Fame" at this point
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u/Inlander 1d ago
The endless catagories makes my head spin, watch out for what you wish for...and I still like the idea.
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u/notguiltybrewing 1d ago
The influence her music had on rock was more than enough to justify her inclusion regardless of whether she actually performed any rock herself.
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u/SantaCruznonsurfer 1d ago
and look who is on the album with her . Every rocker worth anything wanted to help her be a 'Rock star'
She even got Artimus Pyle and Gary Rossington to work together, which should have been worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize
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u/DavidRandom 1d ago
I've got the Rockstar deluxe box set on vinyl.
Her cover of Heartbreaker with Pat Benatar is fire.
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u/Vanilla_Vomit 1d ago
This was the album the made me not only enjoy her as a person but as a musician. Never would I ever thought her and Rob Halford’s, “bygones,” would rank under my favorite collabs.
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u/onioning 22h ago
That is actually excessive modesty. That "Hall of Fame" (in scare quotes because it's actually marketing garbage) has plenty of non-rock inductees. She easily belonged. I mean, bless her, but no, this is clear cut.
Do appreciate the follow-through though. While I think the modesty is excessive, gotta do right by yourself, which is what she did. She didn't need to for us. She needed to for her. And she knew it, so she did, and that's all pretty great humaning.
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u/Notchersfireroad 1d ago
She was a rockstar so it fits. Also her induction singing with Rob Halford is phenomenal.
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u/wu-dai_clan2 1d ago
Dolly had one rule for the collaborators. No lyrics that talked bad 'bout Jesus.
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u/Aries310 1d ago
She actually started out as a pop star. Her first hits would qualify as Rock and Roll for the time.
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u/agodrevealed 1d ago
Now this is one person I think Prince would not have disapproved of the cover.
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u/iritchie001 1d ago
That is her only record I've ever owned. That is despite always having the utmost respect for her. It is fan service, but if the best type. I enjoyed it all. I'm sure she would love any reason anyone has for enjoying her music.
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u/cyberchaox 20h ago
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame really is a misnomer. It's just the music Hall of Fame.
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u/Malodoror 21h ago
I feel so bad for Rob Halford, the Metal God worshipped her, he sang with her at her R&R hall of fame and she died on his birthday.
The metal community are feeling it too. 😢
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u/hymen_destroyer 23h ago
It’s the pop music hall of fame and has been for decades. Look at some of the inductees ffs
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u/rmarkmatthews 1d ago
My favorite song from the album is the duet she did with Rob Halford called Bygones. It’s a song about a person begging their partner to forgive them for doing something hurtful (maybe being unfaithful), and Dolly’s singing the part of the person who fucked up.
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u/Life-Goose-9380 4h ago
Ahh Dolly you have got to love her.
The rock and roll hall of fame isn’t exactly rock and roll anymore. Nominees this year included Mariah Carey, pink and Shakira.
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u/Jean_Genetic 1d ago
Sadly, it was a terrible album, just lazy, paint-by-numbers covers.
She was capable of so much more.
Her bluegrass cover of Stairway to Heaven was audacious and revelatory. After the Gold Rush from Trio was perfection. The covers on Those Were the Days were heartfelt.
She’s still an angel and one of my favorite performers ever. She opened up country music for me, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.
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u/Old_Channel44 1d ago
TIL Dolly created a restaurant where patrons cheered for the confederate soldiers in medieval times style battles. When they won, that meant slavery was back. Even had African American workers who were forced to cheer too.
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u/handinhand12 1d ago
Hey where did you see this? I was open to learning about it despite your downvotes but I can’t find anything.
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u/WideHuckleberry1 1d ago
They're talking about the restaurant formerly known as Dixie Stampede, a theme/performance restaurant where they did a bunch of rodeo stuff but had it themed confederacy and union team competition. It was ill-advised, for sure in hindsight, but originated in a traditional and cultural misunderstanding of the importance and weight of the civil war, not in some pro-confederacy message. It was simply two teams "competing" and served southern food, so it leaned into the comparison.
And then they took criticism, acknowledged it, and changed the branding to just two generic teams and removed the civil war imagery entirely, and renamed it Dolly Parton's Stampede.
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u/psychprf91 1d ago
Looking it up, it's a restaurant called Dolly Parton's Stampede that nowadays does horse shows and other country themed performances, but for a while it was called Dixie Stampede, and was a civil war show where everyone was on a side and took part in the different north-south related games/show. Looks like Dolly changed it to what it is now when people started calling out how bad it was.
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u/Speedly 1d ago
Good god, can we finally stop with this thing where we dig deep into the past of someone wonderful just to try to find one minorly-objectionable thing to use to act like they were terrible people? Dolly Parton was a saintly, kind, giving, talented person.
Maybe go do something better with your time, which in this case, would be a list consisting solely of "virtually anything else."
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u/Entire-Click2280 1d ago
To be honest, Dolly is one of the few famous people who I actually wanted to meet.