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Now I had the chance to discover the real Dolly. My friend and willing accomplice Alyson Stanton gleefully signed on to join the search. Our itin- erary played a bit like a country song: Two city girls hit the highway to trace the roots of their music idol, who grew up—and left her indelible stamp—among these hills, where her song “My Tennessee Mountain Home” invokes a life as peaceful as a baby’s sigh. But how does one go about finding Dolly? We headed to Dollywood. Inside Dolly’s former tour bus Park It Since putting her stamp on Dollywood in 1986, Dolly’s to my record player and belting mission has been to share her out “Jolene” duets with Dolly. Smoky Mountains home with Outside, we climbed aboard people from all over the world, Dolly’s former tour bus, which to showcase the area’s crafts became an exhibit here in 2009. and cultural heritage, and to Her bedroom and closet are A lifelong fan heads to eastern Tennessee bring jobs to her old hometown. Alyson (left) and the author fixed in time, her guitar resting in search of her country music idol The park features thrill rides, with Randy Parton casually on the bed and fam- but visitors will also find a cha- ily photos placed throughout BY CAROLYN GRAHAM pel, a fried-chicken restaurant, the room. In the tiny dress- and a working gristmill. Alyson ing room, I could picture Dolly stood frozen in place at Dollywood’s Chasing Rainbows museum in and I bee-lined for the Chasing Rainbows museum, where a applying a fresh coat of bright-red lipstick. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, mere inches from an artifact I didn’t know Dolly hologram greeted us with the singer’s bubbly enthusi- We ducked in to the park’s Dreamsong Theater, home of still existed: Dolly Parton’s famed coat of many colors. asm. Our first sighting! Dolly Parton’s My People. “Her people” actually included her Seeing it took me back to the Christmas when I was 10 years old The museum took us on a musical tour of Dolly’s life, people: a sister and a brother and two nieces, among other and my sister gave me my first record,Best of Dolly Parton, a 1975 com- from her childhood growing up with 11 siblings in a one- live musicians who interacted seamlessly with a prerecorded K PHOTO; CAROLYN GRAHAM (3) K PHOTO; CAROLYN pilation of hits. I nearly wore the record out playing “Coat of Many C room shack to her rhinestone rise to country music queen. video of Dolly. It was as though we were sitting in her child- I While I stood mesmerized by the coat of many colors, Alyson Colors.” As I listened, I imagined what that coat must’ve looked like, raggedy hood home, listening to family stories of how Dolly would LAMY STO pieces of fabric scraps sewn together. The little garment now housed in a glass A gravitated to the props and costumes from Dolly’s role in the sing into a tin-can microphone and bribe her siblings to sing case in front of me didn’t match the image in my mind. It seemed pretty styl- 1980 film 9 to 5. along with her. ish, with larger pieces of red and golden-yellow fabric neatly sewn together and AINIERO/ Viewing other exhibits felt like strolling through Dolly’s Dolly’s brother Randy Parton greeted show-goers after- M IM closet: cases filled with her form-fitting jumpsuits and a button at the top. No wonder Dolly loved it enough to honor it in her music. T ward, shaking our hands as though we were old friends. As That personal piece of her life was one of many I glimpsed of my country papers scribbled with handwritten lyrics from her song cat- he put his arms around us for a photo, I realized I was just music idol while on a mission last summer to eastern Tennessee, a culmi- alog. Gazing at the wall plastered with her album covers, I one degree of separation away from my idol. My head swam nation of my lifelong appreciation for all things Dolly. Raised in a country- © FROM LEFT: found myself back in my old room, sitting on the floor next as Randy told us about his favorite places in the Great Smoky music loving family, I loved many of the singers of that era and genre, but Mountains, but when I opened my mouth to reply, only jib- it was Dolly’s voice and folksy sense of humor that struck a chord with me. berish came out, as though I were a teenager trying to casu- Her music seemed to come so easy to her, even plucking various stringed ally chat with Justin Bieber. Alyson rescued me, reminding Dolly’s coat of many colors instruments with her long fingernails, so I learned some guitar chords and me we had other Dolly sites to explore. attempted to emulate her (minus the sequins and platinum hairdo). As we strolled, McMahan pointed half-mile hike) atop Clingmans Dome, out key sites, including the former the concrete observation tower at 6,643 bus stop where, the day after her high feet, the park’s highest point, and gazed school graduation, Dolly boarded a bus at the blue-haze enshrouded hills that bound for Nashville. stretched between two states and more “She’s most proud of her statue,” than a half-million acres. he proclaimed, as we wandered up to the life-sized guitar-strumming Dolly Dolly Day Parton statue perched prominently We had danced all around Dolly, from in front of the county courthouse. theme park to national park; her home Could we count this as another on wheels to her hometown. She doesn’t sighting? often perform at her theme park, but En route back to Pigeon Forge, for our last day, we scored tickets to a we stopped at Frank Allen’s Market Showcase of Stars show at Dollywood’s and Grill, one of Dolly’s favorite Celebrity Theater. Dolly was raising funds The author with road-food stops, tucked inside a BP for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, her Sevierville’s gas station. We asked the waitress charity that provides free books to the statue of her idol what Dolly orders. county’s children. The thought of seeing “Slaw dog,” was her her perform live gave me a fresh case of Relaxing at the brief reply, so she served butterflies. Historic Tapoco us the same as we took a On a bare stage with a single spotlight, Lodge seat at the counter. The she casually strolled out in white fringe tasty slaw was creamy and began chatting in her cheerful twang. Going to Town and made with cabbage “It’s always good to be back at Seven miles north of Pigeon Forge we chopped into tiny bits, Dollywood,” she told the audience, and found quaint-as-a-quilt Sevierville, and I used the soft bun proceeded to roll through the tunes Dolly’s hometown (population 16,000). to sop up the overflow stashed deep in my brain, from “Coat County historian Carroll McMahan, who that had fallen out onto of Many Colors” to an a capella, chills- offers guided history and Dolly-themed the plate. Locals zipped inducing version of her lesser-known tours, met us at Courthouse Donuts, in and out, picking up “Little Sparrow.” housed in the town’s former dry goods orders and chatting up the Despite being “raised up here in one of store. McMahan, who was a couple of years behind Dolly in waitresses. We spun around on the counter stools, keep- At last, Dolly Parton, in person these hollers,” Dolly later told the audience, school, told us that the Parton family had carved out a hum- ing an eye on the gas pumps for Dolly’s bus, just in case. “it was always my dream to stand out on ble existence in the Appalachian foothills, so Saturday trips stage.” And as she lived out her dream, she to town were a big deal. But even as a youngster, McMahan Country Life burned through a music store’s worth of said, Dolly stood out. Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in the foothills of the Great We put our feet up at our home for the night, the Historic instruments, from acoustic guitar and dulci- “They were country people,” he told us, “but she always Smoky Mountains, and as our drive took us deeper into the Tapoco Lodge, which sits near the southern edge of Great mer to piano and electric guitar. set her own style.” towering trees, it was easy to see why Dolly sings so sweetly Smoky Mountains National Park in Robbinsville, North The sound of her voice pulled me forward in my seat. I of her homeland. Carolina. At the two-bedroom White Oak cabin, tucked tried not to tear up, which I managed pretty well even during “Wow,” was all Alyson could manage, as we pulled over to GRAHAM (3) CAROLYN against a hill, Alyson and I stretched out on our back porch “Jolene,” but when the lights came down for “My Tennessee soak up a view of the undulating hills that made me think as twilight settled in. Mountain Home,” I blubbered like that Justin Bieber–crazed of the ocean, with waves of foliage rolling across the valley. “There it is!” I sputtered, as a lightning bug drifted in and teenager again. To me, this was the best place to find Dolly, out like a tiny lightbulb losing juice.

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