Remembering Dolly Parton

Upon news of Dolly Parton’s death last week, flags across the country were lowered to half-mast. A petition circulated to rename the Nashville airport in her honor, and social media read like a greatest-hits reel of the charisma and musical acumen that made her universally beloved. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry are joined by three fellow New Yorker writers to celebrate Parton’s life and work, and the legacy she leaves behind. Kathryn Schultz, who penned Parton’s Postscript, discusses her undersung, “Oprah-like” business savvy and deep commitment to philanthropic causes; Amanda Petrusich distills Parton’s vast discography down to three essential tracks; and Lauren Michele Jackson considers how the star’s carefully crafted persona played up aspects of her femininity while transcending divisions of race and class. “The ready word one reaches for is ‘saint,’ right?” Schultz says. “This is someone who came from nothing and might reasonably have felt the instinct to hoard everything she had. And she had the absolute opposite instinct, which was to give as much away as she could.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“9 to 5” (1980)

Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”

“Dolly Parton for the People,” by Kathryn Schultz (The New Yorker)

“Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” by Dolly Parton

“Country Music” (2019)

Dolly Parton’s “Better Get to Livin’ ”

“What Dolly Parton Built,” by Amanda Petrusich (The New Yorker)

Beyoncé’s “JOLENE”

Dolly Parton’s “The Bridge”

Dolly Parton’s “Little Bird”

“The United States of Dolly Parton,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

Barbara Walters’s 1978 interview with Dolly Parton

“Taking In the Scene at Daisy Chain Fields, the Zoomer Lilith Fair,” by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker)

“Back: Essays on the Soul and Spine of America,” by Lauren Michele Jackson

Dolly Parton’s “Backwoods Barbie”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

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