Some people manage to carve larger than life spaces in our psyche. It makes it much harder to accept when they are no longer with us.
Dolly was the essence of the American dream. She came from nothing, was entirely self created, hard working, hard selling – always heavily made up but made up with warmth, wit and compassion and a wonderful musical talent that could reach and touch anyone who heard her.
It’s easy now to forget she was the butt of so many jokes, so many ignorant and sexist jokes, but with her extraordinary repartee they all bounced off her like water off a duck’s back putting her right back in the driver’s seat. It left her always looking out and defending others being targeted, like her longtime support for the LBGTQ community.
I was lucky enough to see her in the seventies in the Roxy on Sunset Blvd. She hadn’t broken much outside of country music and I went partly out of curiosity. I was blown away, not only by the emotional power of the songs but by the whole Dolly package – I had become a lifelong fan.
A world without Dolly feels empty. Maybe the Smoky Mountains should now have their own giant Rushmore-like carving of their own daughter, Dolly – the little girl who grew up to become the Queen of America.
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RCA Records, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images