A number one song on the dance charts impressive achievements for anyone but particularly for an artist who has been performing for more than half a century so what keeps her relevant Dolly Partons america sets out to understand. America from a dollys eye view. Is this quivering mass of irreconcilable contradiction and unity both. And unity enjoyed by Church Ladies and again it is india the sexuality the spirituality the sensuality thats exactly who i am she is just a beautiful fountain of goodness me 100 percent dolly and extractive capitalist hours they are give god the created in terms of cultural power and i think shes like 2nd to walt disney this is jen ive been robbed from radiolab more perfect for the last 2 years ive been following dolly parton around the world. Trying to figure out who she is hed be surprised to know thats why were here were trying to find a new bridge you never groove find everything you know im a mystery to most sand trying to answer the seemingly simple question what is Dolly Partons america. When i. Listen to Dolly Partons america on apple podcasts. 2 years but dolly i know a lot of people in our community might be a little jealous and thats because our community includes many fans and so we want to hear from you at home join us on twitter are in our live chat and ill bring your comments and as best i can into our discussion and welcome everyone to this stream it is so good to have you all here were joined now from new york by jad abumrad creator of radio lab more perfect and host of Dolly Partons america from the studios and audio she is also a producer and reporter for radio lab and Dolly Partons america from n. Y. C. Studios and audio and in california Helen Morales is the author of pilgrimage to dollywood and a classicist and cultural critic job i want to start with you because you spoke a lot in the podcast of finding connections through dolly and and one episode in particular its called meon moss you shared a really special conversation with your father and dolly and i want our audience to have a listen to this clip sid no. Man. Industry back to. Leave us who was. And which is us to talk about with dolly. We talk about her family is everything to both of us but hes very open with me about his family in that the old ways back home and just the fact that were just 2 people from. Different parts of the world but theres a lot of similarities in our personalities were both the same when she talks i mean i have never visited tennessee home and when she talks about it she talks about it as if it is as important as any you leave just sanctuary that any human being can have. And i can i can understand that to people that could be more different that we are so similar in so many ways that is fascinating us and theres something similar there the reason we talk about that i dont i cant explain it you know it doesnt even need to be explained its just like how you meet people in your lives you just click you just feel like you know there are just some things that you know you just cant explain it you just be it you just live it you just know what you just feel it. So sad that we have your father to think in part for the reason that the world has this pod cast your vote aside a brief explanation for how that came to be. Yeah this is one of the sort of surprising. I mean its funny to hear that clip because its but its funny its like to have your to have Dolly Partons global star explain your dad to you is a strange and weird situation the whole reason that this this came about i mean there are many reasons but one of the principal ones is that in about 2013. Dolly got into a minor car accident in nashville where i grew up where my dad still lives hes a doctor and he ends up randomly being one of the people who treats her when shes taken to the hospital and they become friends over the course of the years and you know he was initially your doctor and then you just became or how and as i was getting curious about her i basically called my dad like that can i get an introduction so its like nepotism is what we have to thank for for this yes but but what was expected to me was that to see how much their stories mirror each other her story of coming down the mountain i didnt expect to find the so similar to his story of coming down the mountain there from very different worlds and it was really interesting to me and thats something we explore in the market. So i want to share this tweet we got from julie as who says i push a the podcast intimate format and one on one conversations with dolly herself its like shes reading you stories every time you tune in dedicating each weekly episode to a specific topic allows for more centered conversations as well so she may ill bring you in here on this one because i know youre the producer of this is that means you are you have been mired in research and autobiographies and videos talk to us about that process and what led to this format the format that julie is on twitter like so much. I think that the audience probably has the same experience that jad and i had. In in looking into this in looking into dolly and discovering her everything was kind of a surprise and weve just started with the autobiography and the 1st interview and we knew it we knew everything that she had written about her life all those stories that jad tells her in the Tennessee Mountain home episode. She has all of those already written and recorded on an audio book so we knew she was this letter larger than life figure but then when we found other people that were thinking about her like helen whos here today and also this small class at u. T. Knoxville called Dolly Partons america it was i think that was the 1st big moment after jad 1st interview interview with dolly herself where we thought we had touch something that we were not expecting and we had found something profound and basically were in this classroom this episode coming up so im not going to share too much but the kids start shit theyre all from appalachia where dolly is from and they started sharing really personal stories. That were very painful and i think it changed jad and i you know in the room listening to them like we couldnt see dollys america clearly and tell we met the kids from appalachia and who were really thinking about her and and and feeling her like both in pain and in pride you know what it means just a little bit in the south. You just jump in i mean i think she was absolutely right and its also i mean just to bring not to helen i mean you know what i hope this podcast is thats part of a like. A new wave of dolly ologists people who are like baking really seriously but dolly taking her seriously because she has is that its not you made up is that a real term well it was a term that i 1st of all it is i think she is the 1st dolly ologist to my knowledge the 1st person to really sort of like. Talk seriously about about dolly and like you know to think about what does she mean to america what does she mean to our culture and we sort of like are following in her footsteps really so helen helen you got it helen has to pick up from there you are the dalai ologist talk to us about what that means to you. But the greatest honor. So but i think one of the fantastic things about the podcast is that it goes beyond Dolly Partons america so one of the things that really touched me about the episode. That was released today i was listening to the Freedom Fighter tokyos sus quality who was imprisoned in south africa during the time of apartheid with Nelson Mandela talking about when the guards allowed them to play music they played so how im to. There just because one i dont want to spoil it for our audience but i love i love the theme i love that you brought it up because i want to share a little clip at that and i think it doesnt spoil the episode but in the latest episode of the podcast was released today tuesday you guys go deep into the lyrics perhaps one of Dolly Partons most popular songs which is jolene and she my you took the lead on this one it seems there was one connection to the song that struck our team being a show with a global audience i want to share that what you were just referring to and have a look. Do you remember one of the dolly songs that you heard Nelson Mandela play. Oh wow. I just think about. A night at Robben Island in the dark when jolene is playing over the loudspeakers. The prisoners here in their song on the other side of the wall the guards are listening to and both groups of people are are having the same experience. According to the song was done about love like nadine would say its about fear of someone taking your man of of losing everything the prisoners feel that because theyve lost their freedom and the guards feel that because their countries changing and they can sense theyre about to lose power both are feeling the same fear for very different reasons. So helen im going to give that one back to you but 1st i want to share this because the idea and the theme behind that is that there is a global reach here all the way to south africa so i want to share a couple of comments from around the world to from you tube this 1st one is for she says this is my favorite woman were talking about im coming to you live from Nairobi Kenya another person writes and also on you tube oddly says live to you from nigeria she is the best songwriter woman in the world very talented and then one more. Goal says shes an icon and a music legend thats placed permanent marks into the hearts of millions across the globe and he is writing us from doha qatar so helen i will give it back to you to finish your anecdote about why that was special to you. So wonderful to be in contact with dolly fans from around the world like the last tweeter i 1st became when i was a teenager and partly because i was you know that clear teen with no dress sense and dolly parton seemed to. Embrace what people can now call being extra. And partly because my dad who was a Greek Cypriot immigrant to england said this is our music by which he meant this is immigrant music and i think thats part of a global appeal. Is the fact that the things like the concentration on. Common values of family and. Displacement. Done often from a female from a radical perspective that takes into account womens perspectives when maybe they havent been taken into account. There as youre speaking to and what are you thinking. Of just. Agreeing with what helen just said i mean i for me dolly is such an interesting combination shes sort of a paradoxical blend of this deep longing for the place that she grew up and she kind of carries it with her and she tells the stories of her home and just sit with her in an interview as she tells you these stories i mean its transporting like she its almost like the images appear in front of you she is an incredible storyteller and you could tell she really time travel space travels when she tells those stories so theres a part of her thats backward looking thats always kind of bringing that with her but theres also a part of her thats relentlessly on the go forward marching expanding into new places shes seen very as a very progressive figure in a lot of places so shes got this kind of like duality to or which i think speaks to a lot of people like helen and winsted and certainly my dad where youre leaving a war torn place in the case of my family youre trying to make im in awe at the time at what i dont think our audience might know right ok exactly and and you know you want to take something from that place but you also feel like you cant because youre in a new place and you cant be up front about it you cant be outspoken about it so somehow dolly captures she is like this interesting place to stand for people whove gone through that and that was something i didnt expected to we started doing these interviews to see just how global her reaches how much she speaks across cultures. You mentioned the progressive ideas behind some of her lyrics and i wanted to share one that many people would point to along those lines so that the pardon is nonpartisan and as i repeatedly is that she is not a feminist though in your pod cast she qualifies what that meant as a means to her but our colleagues at 18 plus went into the record and into the movie 9. 00 to 5. 00 you knew i was going there and they came to a different conclusion so take a look. Its in that context that the film 9. 00 to 5. 00 comes out it mixes 2 of the largest movements of the previous 20 years and uses kami to make a radical point about workers rights and Sexual Harassment in a way thats possible and not pretty i mean think of this way 3 female workers feeling detached from their labor and suffering abuse from their boss overthrow him and introduce reforms that benefit both men and women equally the film may as well be called full communism now now thats a film what about parton song in the same way the film 9 to 5 is a workers 0 mostel her sweat and toil as well as her revolt the song 9 to 5 is her laments but also her hope. That everyones heads are a little more bopping along and when 95 finally started playing take us through that conversation the feminist conversation the progressive politics what was your takeaway from that yeah i think. I think you know asking dolly about feminism letters to grandma betty and a lot of the episodes take is to someone who actually lives in america or in the world that embodies something that were trying to understand about how dollys image or take on an idea thats very prevalent in our present day and when we met with grandma betty and saw how she. I heard about her life story and saw how she lived in who she was but that she would never use the word feminist it helped i think it helped me understand and it helped me see her in a way that i couldnt understand why someone wouldnt say that they were feminist and help me understand the history it helped me understand a generation it helped me understand more deeply about what it means to just survive in live something and she didnt have the space to just use a label and dolly is not about labels at all i think she understands that labels have been used to divide people and shes kind of not only the great observer and her songs but shes the great connector she is connected through time shes connected through geography and if you ask her about it critically like dolly what are you doing come on you dont mind if i was she just she doesnt want to analyze it shes just like this was this was the truth i lived and you watched me live it and this is the truth i live to this isnt a game or. Did you ask her about the dixie stampede when you and. We did. Tell him just give a one liner on why youre asking about that and tell our audience what it is because its really difficult as a such a big fan to be critical in any way but if were thinking about dolly and progressive politics the dixie stampede which is now called Dolly Partons stampede is a dinner attraction need dollywood in tennessee that used to recreate in a fun way the civil war and thats a really old sentence to say and it was a very odd experience and quite an alienating experience and its changed a bit. Its now a regional rivalry longstanding regional rivalry between north and south with the explicit references to so the civil war taken out but it its. Something maybe. Doesnt quite fit with the. Inclusive progressive. Aspects of dolly parton that youve been so right to strike and i pulled it up on my screen here stampede dot com americas number one choice for the holidays dollywood perhaps the only woman in intertainment or in the world who has her own theme park but i want to pick up on a point that you raise hell in about it feeling weird to criticize dolly as a fan and i want to share a couple of criticisms john ill give these to you jeffrey here says perhaps its not a criticism actually saw take that back but jeffrey says i like that her mass appeal is something shes very protective of would it be nice for her to speak out against trump yes sure but i can name a few other artists are so beloved by red and blue america all people are represented in sharing space in the audience of her shows and one more on the view from dan who says the most recent episode of the podcast explores dollys politics. And its remarkable to see how shes been a champion of progressive values while remaining above the partisan fray its not simply a calculated stance to maintain her appeal to the broadest possible audience so these 2 people tweeting made it sound like a good thing that she is above the political fray but there are other people online who have issues with that what do you make of that criticism that she should be more outspoken i mean its a really interesting and very like on resolvable thing with ali i mean shes shes risen to the stature where we we expect her to to speak out about things that we might not expect other entertainers to address and she wont go there and i think that makes a lot of people uncomfortable i mean she is defiantly a political. Particularly when it comes to President Trump i mean i think she knows that that that is just that its the fault line that divides america and any president and i we human eye witness this again and again any time a reporter would bring up President Trump she would shut them down and it is an interesting. Question like should she speak out about President Trump magically those on the left would say absolutely how could you remain silent thats unconscionable but certainly if she were to speak out she would lose her fans many of them on the right and there is something. That i agree with in the comments you just shared that to to maintain that a political stance is actually a choice its not avoiding something its not saying im not going to address this its an ethos in itself it is saying i will simply not cast out one side or the other and so it feels almost like a spiritual stance in a way in addition to being simultaneously a business decision so its kind of both at the same time thats what makes it kind of interesting and uncomfortable but i think really find it refreshing you know be honest i think also a lot of it comes from this idea of she does not abandon a human being and even someone who is perceived as a bully in a room where they are being bullied she wont jump on that wagon she she wont do it she just shes really living kindness to the best of her ability and one thing that was interesting about the delegates episode is i come from a stance where i think say are going to stand protests in the street and get arrested every friday that is my thats my if those but dolly taught me a lot about you know what do you do if your family dinner is divided this is something shes living in her daily life its not just what shes doing with the public eye her group of friends and her family is heterogeneous a lot of the women that are amazing feminist icons like Gloria Steinem jane fonda we spoke to are there you have nothing to lose by being liberal you know their group the people that feed them you know its pretty they have the a lot of the same similar political views so i find dollys stance. Really refreshing and also just interesting for me to sell for flat on people get to do whatever they want to do shes doing what she wants to do she loves jane fonda you know and i know she has opinions. Behind the scenes but i dont think she wants to throw those on people she wants people to figure it out for themselves she is an independent thinker but even if she doesnt. Enter Party Politics one of those that i think the podcast brings out so well is that shes very strong on certain political issues so she. Stands up for. Community well before. It was popular to do so. And the other thing that she is quite radical on is education so i let helen im going to end you there unfortunately but we can tweet out more on how shes great on education that she meant when were out of time unfortunately the Dolly Partons america is available at n. Y. C. Studio start or in 4 wherever you get your podcast before we go leave you with esther come carra a kenyan musician who shared her thoughts of i. Imagine. Why you love devotion songs because she mean me seems about green. From a very humble background a big old to become. An international. Story corps griot humble background overcome quite a number of challenges. Join me Steve Clemons on the bottom line for your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society im changing but the institutions frequently dont the system itself is set up to benefit those who understand people who actually believe things that are not true that is a crisis for democracy is a crisis of concentration the bottom line. The us is always of interest to people this is been going on for a number of tear gas being used pushed by a Consumer Reports stories from an International Perspective we try to explain your global audience why its important how this could impact at the height of the water was so high that you know this is an important part of the world people Pay Attention to what one here knows to do is very good at bringing the news to the world from here overthrown and exiled. Insurable dont dismiss me to give you an intimate film about the struggle of the elected leader of madagascar to return to his country and reinstate his presidency you know the truth. And. Nothing to do. With nutrition the return of the president on aljazeera. This is going to be a very painful. Very very painful to extend the u. S. Is warned to be ready for up 2240000 coronavirus deaths as the president urges people to stick to the books. Could be back tomorrow this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. A tele remembers its thousands of dead at the highest fire is told in the world and spain has just had its why