It was easy to understand why so many people fell in love with Dolly Parton: I was one of them. But for me, she wasn’t just a trailblazer who took on the men who ran Nashville and built an incredible legacy on her own terms.
Of all the many times I've met Dolly, it was the way she made you feel at the centre of her world despite her enormous fame.
On one trip to Nashville, I made the grave mistake of enjoying the city’s nightlife a little too enthusiastically with her publicist Steve the night before our interview. By the time I sat down with Dolly the following morning, I was horribly hungover and, at one point, could barely get a question out.
Thankfully, she found my somewhat unprofessional predicament absolutely hilarious. “You could do with some water, Tom,” she purred in that unmistakable Tennessee drawl, ruffling my former head of hair before handing me her own bottle. Naturally, it had Dolly’s face on it.
