hi! send us a note! LL+JJ “If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” “Storms make trees take deeper roots.” And then there’s our personal favorite: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb, and I’m not blonde either.” There really is nobody quite like Dolly Parton. This week on Married to Radio, we’re celebrating the songs, the stories, the rhinestones, the one-liners and, most importantly, the heart behind one of the most beloved people in music. Lois also takes us back to December 2004, when she got to see Dolly herself at Dodge Theatre in downtown Phoenix. More than 20 years later, the details may be a little fuzzy, but the memory of seeing that unmistakable voice, personality and presence in person certainly isn’t. We go all the way back to Dolly’s childhood in the mountains of East Tennessee, one of 12 children growing up with very little except a whole lot of love, music and imagination. We talk about her father and how his inability to read and write would eventually help inspire Dolly’s Imagination Library, which has now put more than 300 million books into the hands of children around the world. Through the songwriting and some of the incredible numbers attached to a career that has spanned more than six decades - including Grammys, milestones and the almost unbelievable list of accomplishments that come with the name Dolly Parton - we kept coming back to something that really can’t be measured. How she makes people feel. Story after story about Dolly seems to end the same way. People talk about her kindness. Her generosity. Her humor. How she remembers people. How she treats them. How she makes someone feel important whether there are 20,000 people in the room or just two. For someone with so many songs, awards, records and accolades attached to her name, maybe Dolly Parton’s greatest legacy has nothing to do with any of them. Maybe it’s simply this: People feel better for having crossed her path. Dolly the icon, yes, but even more, Dolly the human being. And if that isn’t something worth aspiring to, we don’t know what is. Come hang out with Lois & Jeremiah for 27 minutes of Dolly Parton stories, music memories, laughs and a whole lotta love for a woman who has spent a lifetime reminding us that sometimes you need a little rain to get the rainbow. It’s a brand-new episode of Married to Radio.
