How Dolly Parton Became America's Sweetheart

THE LAST SONG on Dolly Parton's My Tennessee Mountain Home, her autobiographical concept album from 1973, is a three-minute story about how she arrived in Nashville looking for her big break. She gets off the bus with just dreams and a guitar, washes her face with the water from the fountain outside the Country Music Hall of Fame, and starts knocking on doors. The music executives are too busy to pay attention to her; they're in conference, or in the studio, and she's told to leave tapes. But then "Chet and Bob at RCA" (that would be Chet Atkins and Bob Montgomery) hear her music and give her a shot, and that's how this chapter ends. 'Down on Music Row' gets the details right—Parton's talent for succinct, vivid description has always been remarkable—but it skips over a few steps in her musical saga. It wasn't quite a direct line from that opening scene of young Dolly getting into town to attracting the attention of RCA and beginning her climb to the top.