Dolly Parton is among the seventeen nominees for the 2022 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
If inducted, she would join the very small ranks of inductees primarily known for their work in country music. She’d also be the second woman, after Brenda Lee, to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame.
The Hall is slowly making up for its ridiculous lack of female inductees. Parton is joined on the ballot this year by Pat Benatar, Kate Bush, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, and the Annie Lennox-fronted Eurythmics.
I’d sign off on all seventeen of this year’s nominees going in together, and I’m really, really pulling for Kate Bush to finally get in.
But country music’s place in the big tent of Rock and Roll hasn’t been acknowledged nearly enough over the years, and I can’t think of a better artist to represent it than Dolly Parton.
Amen!
The sad truth is that country music has often been downplayed in the birth of rock and roll during the early 1950’s, despite the fact that it was precisely the ability of white country musicians and black blues musicians to find musical common cause that gave birth to rock and roll as a musical entity in the first place. Johnny Cash’s driving “train sound”, for instance, was every bit as rock and roll as it was country; and how would most non-country fans really have been able to appreciate Bill Monroe’s mega bluegrass classic “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” had Elvis not had the nerve of a riverboat gambler to rock it up in his own inimitable way in 1954?
I suppose one could wonder how much Dolly has in her repertoire that could be considered “rock and roll” in the way her Trio pal Linda Ronstadt, who got in there in 2014, indisputably does, though Linda was the first to cover Dolly’s “I Will Always Love You”. But I wouldn’t mind seeing her in there, alongside Pat Benatar and Carly Simon. As much as, if not more so than, the country music aspect, the lack of womenfolk in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is more than just a little bit embarrassing (IMHO).
I don’t think Dolly belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, at least not before Janis Martin, Irma Thomas, Carla Thomas, Tracy Nelson, Bonnie Guitar (she could be nominated under several categories) Marcia Ball and Rose Maddox are inducted. After them, well sure.
I would love to see Dolly in the RRHOF. She topped the Hot 100 twice and her music is universal.
Not meaning to hijack this subject, but speaking of Parton, can we get a tribute feature of Hargus Pig Robbins who died at the end of January. Robbins played on numerous Parton albums. She had asked him to play on a recent collection she was working on but he had to refuse due to health reasons.
Robbins also played on albums by Patsy Cline, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Rich,Tanya Tucker, Ronnie Milsap, and Vince Gill among many others.
I will always hold a special place in my heart for him for his beautiful piano playing on Crystal Gayle’s Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue. She always credited him for the success of that record.
On the topic of Dolly Parton… Today, it was announced that Dollywood will be covering expenses for any employee who wants to pursue higher education: https://www.wate.com/news/smoky-mountains/dollywood-offering-free-tuition-books-to-all-employees-through-pilot-program/
While I think the tendency toward literal canonization of Dolly that has become a trend in how she’s talked about is problematic for a whole lot of reasons, this is an immediate and obvious good. When I wrote about moral clarity in country music, this is the exact kind of thing I’m always going to celebrate. And it’s a hell of a contrast– and a telling one– to Country Radio Seminar’s decision to give Blackface Aldean their “Humanitarian of the Year” award.