On the Rock Road with Dolly Parton

"What other star do you know who would eat at the counter with the band?" Guitarist Rod Smarr is talking about the big little blonde on the stool waving back at the truckers. She looks like something Andy Warhol might have created in homage to both Marilyn Monroe and Mae West. She is in fact Dolly Parton, the reigning queen of country music.

Dolly has been on the road since January. Touring has been a way of life for her for a decade, but this time it is different. She has split with her mentor and partner Porter Wagoner. She has replaced her Travelin' Family Band--including two sisters, two brothers, one cousin--with the rock-savvy Gypsy Fever band. This week she reaches the Roxy in Los Angeles to begin a series of appearances at the citadels of U.S. rock. At 31, Dolly is out to become, in the hyperbole of the trade, a megastar. That means she wants the rock audience. Curious about how the quest was going, TIME Correspondent Jean Vallely accompanied Dolly part of the way. Vallely's report:

Dolly's bus is equipped with a color TV, cassette player, reel-to-reel tape deck, CB radio and ice chest (soft drinks, beer and wine). It has two bathrooms and sleeps eleven. Dolly has her own room. There is a closet for her 20 costumes and four wigs. About the only way the bus looks like a bus is that it has the familiar lighted sign: WATCH STEPS.

At 8 a.m. the bus pulls into a Holiday Inn in Battle Creek, Mich. It has been traveling all night from Peoria, 111. Several band members drag themselves into the clean sheets of the hotel. Dolly sleeps on the bus until 2:30 p.m. She appears in the hotel dining room looking perfect and is promptly mobbed. A woman named Ruby asks for Dolly's autograph. Dolly signs. An hour and many autographs later, Ruby gets up to leave. Dolly yells, "Bye, Ruby. Have a nice day." Ruby is radiant.

Hot Pink. A Dolly Parton concert is a treat, like a hot-fudge sundae after a month of dieting. As the lights come up, the band tears into Jackie Wilson's old rhythm-and-blues specialty Higher and Higher. Dolly is backstage strutting about, slapping her thighs, her hands, an amplifier, anything. Suddenly, on cue, she leaps onstage and takes Higher and Higher even higher.

Those who have never seen Dolly gasp. That mountain of a teased blond wig and the hot-pink, jeweled jumpsuit are spectacular. Only five feet tall, she totters atop five-inch gold heels. Swinging into All I Can Do, she catches the eyes of the people in the front rows and plays to them, talking, teasing.

Next comes Jolene, which has a haunting Ghost Riders in the Sky flavor. People recognize this song, a big hit for Dolly in 1973. "This is about a woman who tried to steal my man," Dolly cries out. "She pulled my wig off and almost beat me to death with it. I fought that woman like a wildcat. I had another wig, but I didn't want another man." People love it. The flash of Instamatic cameras is almost as blinding as Dolly's finery. It is not a Nikon crowd.

To change the beat, Dolly heads for a tall stool. Hoisting a leg, she pauses. "You know, these britches weren't always this tight--only since I got into them." That draws whoops but she cries out, "Let's hear it for the britches that held up!" The folks let her hear it.

By now Dolly is ready for Light of a Clear Blue Morning, the declaration of artistic independence that leads off her latest RCA album, New Harvest... First Gathering. It opens with a piano solo of almost folklike simplicity. Her singing is at first similarly low-keyed:

It's been a long dark night, and

I've been waiting for the

morning.

It's been a long hard fight, but I

see a brand-new day

adawning.

Then, at the chorus, she and the band let loose--the drums thumping, the piano cascading up and down the scale.

If anyone in the audience has an objection to Dolly's new musical style, it is not detectable in the heavy bursts of cheers. Nonetheless, her reach for the show-business sky is a considerable gamble. Country fans are music's most loyal, especially to a singer who comes from a three-room shack in Tennessee, as Dolly does. But their tastes and preferences are not lightly ignored. Dolly knows that and says imploringly, "I don't want to leave the country. I want to take the country with me." Her voice has always been a high, accurate chirp that is sometimes tremulous with passion or nasal with determination or sweetly childlike with tenderness. Emotionally, it always cuts deep.

Buzzing Basses. Her new style is really not all that radical, considering the cross-fertilization of modes that country rock has brought in recent years. If Elton John or the Rolling Stones can dabble in country, why can't Dolly flirt with rock? She does it expertly, as her New Harvest album makes clear. Those pounding drums and buzzing electric basses on her own How Does It Feel do not disguise Dolly's country touch, just give it greater aural depth.

Back in the dressing room, Dolly eagerly signs autographs. A woman asks her where she got such great fingernails. "It's easy," laughs Dolly. "Thirty-five dollars a set." Then it's back to the bus for the long trip home to Nashville. Dolly settles into her quarters and a long night's talk. "It's a gimmick," she says, pointing to her huge wig. "It takes pure gall to go around under this. I always had a big hairdo. When the style went out, I still loved it. Wigs are great. I can get ready in 15 minutes, faster than any woman I know." Her own hair is shoulder length and light brown. She bleaches it almost white and combs her real hair over the front of her wig.

As the bus pulls into Nashville, Dolly gets excited. Soon she will be with her husband Carl on their 70-acre farm. Carl Dean, who Dolly says has never seen her perform, owns an asphalt-paving company and has built their 23-room house. Dolly does not spend much time there, but when she does she just likes to walk around and play a little tennis. She does not hang out with other country-music folks. When at home, she invites her family and close friends over. Says she: "I ain't no housewife, but I cook real good country food."

This time she hits the road again after just one night in her own bed. She has that date at the Roxy in Los Angeles, plus several guest shots on television. Coming up in May is a tour of Europe. Says Dolly: "Sure I'm in it for the money, but also because I love music. I picture myself in the future as a happy old lady, chubby, rosy cheeks, telling stories to the little kids. When I sit back in my rocker, I want to have done it all."

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