BY CORINNE BOYER
DOLLY PARTON
RELEASES
ANTI-BULLYING
CHILDREN’S
ALBUM
The country singer discusses her
career in music and the idea of giving
back
D
olly Parton is a national treasure.
The country singer released her first album 50
years ago. Since then, Parton has starred in mov-
ies and been nominated for two Academy Awards,
both nominations in the Best Original Song cat-
egory — one for the hit “9 to 5.”
Her accolades don’t stop there. Parton has also earned
Emmy and Tony nominations; she’s a National Medal of the
Arts recipient and one of the most successful country singers
of all time.
A new first for the 71-year-old singer-songwriter came
earlier this month with the release of her first children’s
album, I Believe in You. All proceeds from the album will
benefit Parton’s Imagination Library, a nonprofit she started
20 years ago that mails free books to children from birth to
age 5.
To date, the Imagination Library has served one million
children in four countries. In 2013, the Eugene Imagination
Library program began.
Recently, this reporter participated in a phone press
conference with Dolly Parton in which all reporters were
allowed to ask only one question — with the added sugges-
tion that we refrain from small talk.
Despite the strict guidelines, each reporter said, “Hello,
how are you,” and Parton took time to say, “Hi,” and return
the question.
Parton’s inspiration behind the new album? Bullies.
“Well, all the bullies in this world, which I do not like
at all,” she said. Parton and her siblings were poor growing
up. “We always had to wear ragged clothes,” she said. “We
often got made fun of and it was never funny.”
“Especially now,” Parton continued, “people are trying
to teach children not to be bullies; that it hurts, and it don’t
feel good. And how would you feel if it happened to you?”
In the song “Makin Fun Ain’t Funny,” the singer’s lyrics
spell out right and wrong, with children accompanying her
during the chorus. The song’s first verse — “Don’t do this /
making someone else feel small to make yourself look big/
if you can’t be big / don’t belittle someone else/ that’s not the
thing to do” — along with its overall anti-bullying message,
is “for little kids,” Parton said, “but it’s also for grown-ups,
too.”
Parton started the Imagination Library 20 years ago, fu-
eled by her belief in the empowerment of literacy. “I actually
did it in honor of my father who was never able to read or
write,” Parton said. Her dad was proud to be involved and
“lived long enough to see it doing well, and he got such a
kick out of people calling me the book lady.”
She continued: “I think it’s important because if you can
learn how to read, you can educate yourself about any sub-
ject. You don’t have to have money if you can’t afford to go
to school.”
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October 19, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
Parton’s generosity has made it possible for Eugene to
establish a local Imagine Library program. It’s the largest
in Oregon, Eugene Public Library Director Connie Ben-
nett said. “Literacy is one of the most important skills for
a preschool child to learn for success in their life, and the
American Pediatric Association has come out with that as
one of the crucial things for young children to have,” she
said.
One of the biggest reason children don’t read is because
they don’t have access to books, Bennett said. “So by mail-
ing something directly to their home with their own name
on it is incredibly powerful at breaking that barrier down
so that the busy caregiver or parent has something right
there. They don’t have to make a trip to the library. They
don’t have to wait for grandma to send a package.”
Started in 2013, Eugene’s Imagination Library Program
has reached nearly 4,000 children — but 8,000 children are
eligible to sign up for the program, according to Eugene
Public Library Foundation Executive Director Monica
Wilton. The foundation provides local funding for the Eu-
gene Imagination Library program; the Dollywood Foun-
dation requires a local nonprofit funding source.
“One of the reasons they found that people don’t sign
up is they think it's too good to be true,” Wilton said. “Peo-
ple understand that there’s no catch. It’s really good and
it’s really true.”
To sign up for the Eugene program, children have to
live within the Eugene Public Library service area, they
need a mailing address, and they need to be under age
5.
Parton said she’s been blessed and thinks it’s her
duty to give back. “I really think that once you are
in a position to help, you definitely should help.
You get a good feeling when you feel like you’re
doing something for somebody else,” she said.
“Whether you’re paying your tithes or whatev-
er, if God’s been good to you, be good to other
people. That’s how we spread the love around.”
One reporter asked Parton to tell the story
of her first guitar. When she was growing up,
she said, she was always singing. Parton’s uncle
owned a little Martin guitar that she just loved.
“When he saw how serious I was about my mu-
sic, he gave me his little Martin guitar, and it was
my treasure,” she said. “I left it at home when I was
18 years old. I put it in the loft — it was beat up —
and when I got money, when I got rich and famous,
I was going to fix it up. [But] the loft burned out of
our house and burned up my little guitar. So I only
have the neck of that one. But I have collected
Martin guitars over the years, the baby Martins.”
As Parton talked about topics from her
songwriting process — she carries a notepad
everywhere — to knowing she wanted to
leave her hometown and see the world,
she recounted the extraordinary details
behind the success of the song “I Will
Always Love You.”
“That song is so deep-seated in
my heart and in my soul,” she
said. It was written for Porter
Wagoner, a country singer
Parton worked with early
in her career.
DOLLY PARTON
RELEASED HER ANTI-
BULLYING ALBUM
OCT. 13
“We had one of those relationships we were so much
alike that we couldn’t get along or we were so much dif-
ferent that we couldn’t get along,” she said of Wagoner. “I
wrote that song to try to say here’s how I feel. I’ll always
love you, [but] I have to go; I have to leave.”
Years later, Parton sent the song to L.A. She said “Kev-
in Costner and his secretary loved the song,” but she never
heard back from anyone about using it. Parton said she
didn’t know that Whitney Houston had recorded her song.
“I was on my way home and I turned the radio on and
all the sudden I heard that a-cappella part, and I was like
‘Ooh, what’s that?’ — I knew it was something familiar,”
she said.
“By the time it dawned on me what I was hearing when
she was into that chorus, I had to stop the car cause I almost
wrecked. I mean I thought my heart was gonna bust right
out of my body. It was the most powerful feeling I’ve ever
had.”
Parents can sign their children up for the Imagination Library through the Eu-
gene Public Library or at usa.imaginationlibrary.com.