Dolly Parton
On Friday night, Dolly Parton returned to the Mother Church of Country Music for the first show of a two-night double header. It was her first performance on the Ryman’s stage — and, in fact, her first show in her adopted hometown of Nashville — since July 2002. For 100 straight minutes, one of the world’s most prolific and iconic performers, clad in a dazzling white jumpsuit adorned with shimmering sequins, delighted a sold-out crowd with a bevy of hits, an array of sparkling instruments and the trademark candid banter by which the world has come to know her.
With minimal production — at least, compared to the pyrotechnical bombast of Shania Twain’s show, which was going on a couple of blocks away at Bridgestone Arena — and a backing band pared down to just three players, Parton’s set was both mesmerizing and campy, full of the singer’s anecdotes about her humble beginnings and life in show business. The audience was eating from the palm of her hand start to finish. At least, almost all of us were. Country bigwig John Rich, who was seated a few rows in front of The Spin, left about an hour in. But who’s counting.
Downtown was seething with excitable country music fans on Friday night — even more than usual, that is, thanks to Eric Church playing his second of two nights at Ascend Amphitheater, Shania’s Bridgestone blowout and, for our money, the hottest ticket of the night: Dolly Parton Pure and Simple, a show hosted by the Dustin Wells Foundation and benefiting Nashville’s own W.O. Smith School of Music.
And well before Dolly even took the stage, she was tugging at everyone’s heartstrings. After a five-minute countdown, a series of videos played on a projection screen that hung in front of the stage — a video about Nashville’s May 2010 flood, another about Dustin Wells (the young man who died in a car wreck 10 years ago and is the inspiration for the foundation that bears his name), and another about the W.O. Smith School. Kent Wells, uncle of Dustin and brother of Wells Foundation head Dennis Wells, played a song inspired by his nephew (“See You Soon”), and then a band assembled from young W.O. Smith students played a couple of covers, Pink’s “Just Give Me a Reason” being one of them.
Dolly Parton
It was sweet, wonderfully endearing stuff, to be sure. But after an hour or so of introductory fanfare, the crowd seemed primed and beyond ready for the woman of the hour. WSM’s golden-voiced disc jockey Bill Cody introduced Dolly — “irrepressible, iconic and known the world over,” said the deejay — who took the stage back-lit to the sounds of “Light of a Clear Blue Morning.” From there it was straight into onetime chart-toppers and latter-day singles, from “Backwoods Barbie” to “Jolene,” “Applejack,” “The Grass Is Blue” and “Blue Smoke.”
Just as crowd-pleasing as the hits, though, were Dolly’s one-liners and digressions. “It costs a fortune to make somebody look this cheap,” she said in regard to giving the night’s proceeds to charity instead of keeping them, which she’d “normally” do. Why does she go to her dentist, the aforementioned Dr. Dennis Wells? “For the gas. … Whatta they call that, nitrous?” And just as there was talk of her “boob job” and being inspired as a child by the fashion sense of the town streetwalker, there were also heartrending stories from her upbringing. She spoke of her mother’s dedication before “Coat of Many Colors,” and of her father’s wisdom and loyalty before “Smoky Mountain Memories.” She called the Ryman “sacred ground,” and she spoke kindly of her frequent collaborator, the late great Porter Wagoner, before singing her crossover hit “Here You Come Again.”
“Pure and Simple” though the night’s theme may have been, Parton’s performance was not without its glamor and frequent bursts of theatricality. Throughout the set, creative director Steve Summers would bring out instruments that matched Dolly’s sparkling outfit: lap steel for “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” banjo for “Applejack,” autoharp for “Coat of Many Colors,” a recorder for “Smoky Mountain Memories” and so on. Now, whether or not she was playing the instruments or just pantomiming for effect — and we strongly suspect it was the latter — is hardly the point. Dolly is a sensei of the highest order in the dojo of showmanship, and she can handily bring the audience to tears with a gut-wrenching a cappella rendition of “Little Sparrow” (probably the night’s emotional zenith), croon from a church pew for “The Seeker” or bop along to a rather goofy, um, rag by the name of “PMS Blues.”
“Do I Ever Cross Your Mind” was done gospel style, and as the set stretched toward its close just shy of 11 p.m., the entire audience stood for “Islands in the Stream” and “9 to 5.” Parton ended the night with, what else, “I Will Always Love You” delivered in perfect voice, inspiring a standing ovation as the house lights were brought up and the singer made her exit. Parton returned to the Ryman on Saturday — the proceeds of that one went toward the Opry Trust Fund — and as we understand it, her set was nearly identical on both nights. Don’t get us wrong: The Spin likely would have nevertheless taken in back-to-back Dolly shows had we managed to secure tickets to both. But we were content to leave it at one, bowled over by the chops, modesty, stamina, philanthropic spirit and honest-to-God star power that the singer still manages to display at 69 years old.
Dolly is so far ahead of her time we’re still not certain the rest of the world has caught up, pure and simple.
Dolly Parton
