I’m probably not the only guy like me to say the Material Girl and the Backwoods Barbie were two of the most inspirational, formative figures growing up.
As a Tennessee millennial, I came of age in a state where Dolly Parton occupied a tier of divinity otherwise reserved for who we went to church for on Sundays (and SEC football), especially when Whitney Houston covered “I Will Always Love You” for “The Bodyguard” soundtrack. Everyone from the Volunteer State wanted folks to know who really was behind that song. The Madonna era of my early childhood was known more for tabloid fodder and “Evita” than radio play, but then came her latest reinvention arc that begat “Ray of Light” and “Beautiful Stranger,” and suddenly she, too, was in heavy rotation on Southern stations that never would’ve touched her. I couldn’t get enough of either.
Dolly was always more a source of über home state pride — yes, did you know we can be kind and witty as Southerners? — but I put her on the back burner (save for the occasional listen of “Jolene” and “9 to 5”) as we do most of our religious deities. Meanwhile, Madonna was stirring some realization of the world beyond — often thanks to each reinvention nodding to dance floors in far away parts of the world like Japan, India, and the UK. She toured the globe, taught us to boogie-woogie with “Music,” came from Michigan but doled out a New York or British accent depending on the interview, and wasn’t afraid to share the good and the bad (perhaps her “Truth or Dare” and “I’m Going to Tell You a Secret” documentaries are why so many of us millennials are eager to share so much of ourselves on social media?).
My eagerness to get out and see the world stems a lot from key mentors in my life but also from watching so much Madonna. She’s also how I discovered other patron saints of mine — when she showed up to London's Brixton Academy in a “Kylie Minogue” T-shirt, I was suddenly down the LimeWire and Napster rabbit hole discovering my favorite Australian import. When she was bopping around the world in “I’m Going to Tell You a Secret,” I began to wonder when I’d ever get my first passport and see the world.
I was even testing out my accents during church, working my darndest to mute my Southern accent into something more neutral, even testing my British lilts a la early 2000s Madge during church liturgies when it wouldn’t be so obvious I was trying to get my vowels to sound more Windsor than West Tennessee.
Madonna’s star atop the Billboard charts faded a bit over the years, but it’s been a joy to watch it return this summer with “Confessions II,” her first studio album in seven years.
But last week’s passing of Dolly Parton has me thinking about the reverse migration of my own identity. Now that I’ve spent the last few years traveling full time for work — a joy! I swear! — I’ve also been thinking of home a lot more and why it, too, is something to yearn for. While I’ve now lived more of my life in Boston than Tennessee, I’ve also felt like I’m doing the reverse of my accent experiments from a church pew so many years ago.
“Y’all” is peppered into work emails and in my speech. I’ve made it a point of personal pride and labor to master the art of smoked meat so my New England neighbors know what “real” barbecue is versus what is sold in restaurants up here. My Dolly reawakening came during the pandemic when she helped fund the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and we discovered the excellent “Dolly Parton’s America” podcast on road trips to see our parents. Yes, her songbook now plays often on Spotify or vinyl — and, yes, it’s the OG version of “I Will Always Love You” that I play most (no offense, Whitney. You’re still a close second!).
But there’s also pride in the grittier and wittier parts of home, too. While I’ve watched certain parts of my home state get more polished and shiny, I’m always unabashedly proud to say I come from Memphis, where nobody seemed to take themselves seriously and enjoyed a self-deprecating joke or two. Dolly was living proof they were doing the same over in East Tennessee, too.
Dolly taught us to embrace kindness and homemade pride in “Coat of Many Colors,” and it’s abundantly clear in her return to, and immense investment in, her home state over the years that she saw the world and realized there’s no place like home. Of course, there’s Dollywood in Pigeon Forge and the soon-to-open SongTeller Hotel in Nashville — her self-described love letter to Music City, which will now welcome its first guests as a memorial, too, just weeks after her passing. But there’s also her immense charitable giving like the My People Fund after the Gatlinburg wildfires in 2016 and Dolly Parton's Imagination Library literacy program. She also used some of the royalties made from the Houston cover of “I Will Always Love You” to invest in a Black community in Nashville. West Tennessee me may originally hail from 430 miles west of Dolly’s Locust Ridge, but Tennesseans all over mourn the loss of this home state legend.
Her kindness and hometown reverence are worth packing on every trip, no matter how fabulous the turndown service might be.
Dolly, we will always love you.
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