Dolly Parton dies aged 80

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Get more with BBC Podcasts wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows like Evil Genius, Good Bad Billionaire and You're Dead to Me with a subscription to BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon Music subscription. Hello, I'm James Kamarasamy. Thank you for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast for Tuesday the 25th of August. Tributes are pouring in for the country music legend Dolly Parton, who has died at the age of 80. We'll look back on a life in music, film and philanthropy that took her from dirt-poor Tennessee to Hollywood and to her own theme park, Dollywood and beyond.

0:48Also on the programme, the North America Free Trade Disagreement as the US-Canada trade war escalates. We hear from politicians on both sides of the border and as a new report highlights the scale of deaths among young care leavers in England, We hear about one young woman who died and consider the lessons that are to be learned. Country music has lost its queen. Dolly Parton, a singer-songwriter who sold more than 100 million records, a savvy businesswoman who grew up in poverty in rural Tennessee and who then created her own theme park named Dollywood, a philanthropist who donated to causes from child literacy to medical research, has died in Nashville at the age of 80.

1:29Earlier this evening, her family released this video with her nephew, Brian Seaver, who was also her head of security, sharing the news. I first went on the road with Dolly as a kid, getting a taste of the road life in the early 1980s. Dolly opened doors not just for me, but for her entire family to reach the potential we didn't even know was possible. Dolly also opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent. By her example, we believed that anything was possible. She never saw a door she couldn't open, and the door she opened made and changed history.

2:07My family and I have shared a lifetime of beautiful memories with Dolly, but so have you. She has always been on your television, your record player, your CD, and on your phone playlist, becoming an extended part of your family whether you liked it or not. Our family and the team she has entrusted with her legacy will work diligently to ensure her spirit will live with us forever. Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy. He farmed the soil. She farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.

2:46Rest in peace, Aunt Dolly. Aunt Granny. Gigi. May God bless Dolly Barton. And may God bless you all. She will always love you. Dolly, and she was in that elite club where one name was enough to identify, was also a successful film actress. She was known also for her steady flow of one-liners, many of them self-deprecating ones about herself and her unfailingly glamorous looks. In a moment, we'll speak to a Dolly Parton biographer. First, though, with a look back at the life of a country music legend, here's the BBC's Ella Bicknell.

3:29Born in a one-room cabin in the smoky mountains of Tennessee, Dolly Parton was writing songs from a young age. How else do you stand out when you're one of 12 siblings? Those personal experiences of family, faith and rural hardship would inform her songwriting for decades. But this isn't just a story of rags to riches, it's a story of rags to rhinestones.

3:54Dolly burst onto the Nashville scene in the mid-1960s, immediately challenging stereotypes with her big hair, bold style and razor-sharp wit. Her catchphrase, it takes a lot of money to look this cheap. Just because I'm blonde, don't think I'm dumb Cause this dumb blonde ain't nobody's fool I, first of all, believed in my talent. I was a right pretty girl, you know, a little overdone, of course. Some people might have thought I was dumb, but I would have the deal done and gone before they realised what had happened. Please, please, don't stop loving me. Her partnership with Porter Wagner catapulted her to a national audience.

4:38Their duets became staples of 1970s country music. But as his stardom faded and hers rose, he initially refused to let her pursue a solo career. Dolly responded the only way she knew how. by writing a song. If I should stay I would only be in your way I Will Always Love You became one of her enduring hits and a favourite of Elvis Presley. But when his team demanded publishing rights, Dolly said no. Years later, Whitney Houston's cover turned it into a global sensation all over again

5:26Amazingly, Doddy wrote the track in the same few days as Jolene the semi-autobiographical ballad about a stunningly beautiful woman she pleads with not to steal her husband

5:40She met Carl Zean at a laundromat and despite her fame and his flirtation with a Nashville bank teller, they remained happily married for almost 60 years until Carl's death in 2025.

5:56When she wasn't recording album after album, Dolly was on the big screen, most famously in 9 to 5 alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. The 1980 film was a satire on workplace sexism, Dolly using her acrylic nails to create the song's iconic typewriter sound. Beneath that sparkle was a sharp business mind, launching Dollywood, one of America's most successful theme parks. She also became one of the country's most beloved philanthropists. In 2020, she helped fund Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine. Fans called it the Dolly Shot. And through her imagination library, she donated hundreds of millions of books to children.

6:36Part of my legacy that I'm proud of, but I'd like to be thought of as a decent human being. When you think of me when I'm gone, I'd like you to smile and think, oh, she was funny. I just hope I leave something good behind for other people to enjoy and to draw from. And I hope that you have all that you ever dreamed of. Staunchly apolitical, Dolly was one of the few artists that could cross America's deep political divides. Her music, with universal themes of love and resilience, gave a voice to the overlooked and the ordinary. I wish you love. And I will always love you I will always love you I will always love you

7:40Ella Bicknell there looking back at the life of Dolly Parton. Well, we're joined now by Lydia Hammersley, Professor of Music at Hamilton College in New York. She's written the book Unlikely Angel, the songs of Dolly Parton. She also featured in the landmark BBC documentary Dolly Parton, Here I Am, which I just note is being shown tonight on BBC One just after we're off air as a tribute to Dolly Parton. Welcome to the program, Lydia. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Your book focuses on Dolly Parton's achievements as a songwriter. Tell us about her talent as a songwriter. Well, it's massive. When I started writing the book and getting into all the research, I thought I didn't even know how to begin because she's written so many songs.

8:29How can you even comprehend talking about all of those songs? I could only cover maybe about 250 out of the thousands that she's written. But she started writing songs as a child. She said her first song was when she was five years old, a little song she would sing called Little Tiny Tassel Top about her corn cob doll that her daddy made. And her mother recognized her songwriting talent and would write down the lyrics to the songs that Dolly would make up as a child. So, you know, we're lucky that we have some of that. A corn cob doll that her father made. I think they paid the doctor in cornmeal when she was born.

9:11I mean, that poverty in which she grew up, how key was it to her songwriting? Oh, I think it was absolutely central. You know, she strikes me as being someone who has such a deep imagination that took her out of her poverty. She has a song called Paradise Road that perhaps a lot of people don't know, but she sings in that song about paradise is a state of mind. I can go there whenever I want to kind of idea that I think it reflects probably the way she felt growing up, that she had to look for beauty where she could find it and had to use her imagination to kind of escape or to create a sense that was beyond the poverty.

9:56She would talk about looking for broken glass out in the yard, which she would envision as jewels, you know. But well, the real jewels came, of course, didn't they? The look and it's always so witty and self-deprecating about it as time went on, wasn't she? And she did become this, I mean, larger than life figure, I suppose it's fair to say. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And she talked about kind of developing her look, the one that we all think of as the overblown kind of look with the big hair and everything, and that what she was trying to do was get attention in the 60s in Nashville when she went there to become a songwriter.

10:44She wasn't thinking about becoming a singer as much as selling songs, but she knew she needed to get attention. And she thought, well, this will get their attention. And then once I got their attention, maybe I can turn it to my songs that they will understand that I've got that talent. And you got her attention, didn't you? Because she actually contributed to your book, didn't she? Although not sort of face to face. Right. I was very lucky to be able to kind of interview her from afar in a sense. I created a conversation that I wanted to participate in with her. And she was so generous to respond to that.

11:25And I wanted to ask her things and talk with her about things that no one had done before. So I really dug deeply into the music that she was writing and why she wrote the way she did and what she thought about her songs, questions that other people had just not asked her. And she just went right with it and was very serious. I mean, she was lighthearted and very cheerful, but she took my questions so seriously. and I got a couple of real golden nuggets out of that conversation. Oh, well, what would you like to share? Well, my favorite, although it's very much a music nerdy kind of thing, is that I asked her about a particular chord that she uses in songs and I won't go into the details of what that chord is, but it's a very specific kind of sound and I said, you use that a lot, you know, what's up with that?

12:14Why do you like that? And she said, oh yeah, I know what you mean about that. She said, well, that's just that old sorrow chord, isn't it? And I just, my heart just melted when I heard her say that. I thought that whole interview was worth it to hear her describe this chord as the sorrow chord. And as you say, the wit, but also serious. And I guess seriousness manifested itself both in her business acumen, but also in her philanthropy. Oh, yes, yes, yes. She definitely was interested in giving back to her community and then spreading it, you know, much wider than that, like with the Imagination Library that started very locally in her severe county, but then, you know, has traveled worldwide.

13:00And a lot of her philanthropy, I think, people aren't aware of because she didn't tout all of it. Most people, I think, know of the library and the COVID, you know, funding for the Moderna shot, but money for the wildfires that happened, I think it was 2016 in eastern Tennessee, and also funding a birthing unit at the local hospital there in Sevier County. You know, so I have a feeling that we may learn a lot more about philanthropy, the philanthropy that she did that we just don't know of yet. Lydia Hammersley, professor of music and author of Unlikely Angel, the songs of Dolly Parton. Thanks very much for that assessment of that country music legend who's died at the age of 80.

13:48And coming up later, a government commissioned review shows young adults who have left care in England have a death rate around four times higher than the general population. We take a closer look at the changes that the review is calling for. There is a really unhealthy obsession, and it's very, very entrenched within the children's care system, an obsession with independence, with getting ready for living life on your own. And that permeates everything. That's not how families operate. Now, though, last night we reported on the US government opening a new economic front in its conflict with Iran.

14:30Today, a trade war closer to home has escalated as Canada unveiled a set of countermeasures in response to a new and long list of Canadian goods which have been slapped with US tariffs. This latest tit-for-tat spat follows a breakdown in trade talks over the weekend, which saw Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney accusing the Americans of encroaching on Canada's sovereignty and the US government accusing their northern neighbours of walking away from the best trade deal of any nation. The Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne outlined the latest Canadian measures. Today I'm announcing that Canada will match the United States tariffs dollar for dollar, rate for rate.

15:13Effective September 8th, Canada will impose counter tariffs of up to 15, 25 or 50 percent on 27.6 billion in imports from the United States of America. For each product, our tariff would match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good. Well, everything from dishwashers to frozen fish are on a list which is designed to show Canadian resolve, but also cements a worsening of ties with its much bigger and more economically powerful neighbour. And that, as politicians from Prime Minister Mark Carney-down acknowledge, could also raise costs and reduce choice for the Canadian public. Well, we'll hear from politicians on either side of the border in a few minutes.

15:59First, though, let's speak to our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue, in Washington. And Gary, just remind us, do we know why the trade talks broke down at the last minute? Well, the Canadians say it was because of last minute demands by the president. And in fact, he was asked about that in the last few hours. And he said, that sounds like me. So it's not something necessarily that's being denied here in Washington either. It looked to be going pretty well towards the end of last week. And then there was this sort of collapse. And we have been here before. They had a round of these kind of tit-for-tat tariffs last year, of course.

16:38But this does seem pretty serious, and the Canadians do seem to be determined to stick to their guns on this. It is worth saying that the numbers they've put tariffs on, the amount of dollar imports, is quite low as a percentage. So there's plenty of places to go, and they have promised to escalate if the U.S. does so. And they have some big levers they can pull, not least on things like natural gas, even electricity and crude oil. Although there are some parts of Canada that wouldn't be very happy on oil becoming a contested issue between the two countries. And, of course, a big lever that the Americans can pull is automobiles, cars, isn't it?

17:18And Donald Trump threatening 50 percent tariffs from the 1st of January on cars, which would be huge for Canada, wouldn't it? Yeah, and there's already a battle going on auto parts, of course. But there is some room for manoeuvre here because, you know, there's two weeks until these counter tariffs come in. January, you've already mentioned. So there is a window of opportunity for them to get back round table. The issue is that, you know, from the Canadians' point of view, they can sort of hold out a bit because the political pressure here is on the president, Donald Trump, because some of these border states in the U.S.

17:58are deeply dependent on that trade with Canada, utterly intertwined with the Canadians. And some of those border states like Michigan and Maine, Alaska, have very contested U.S. Senate elections come these midterms. And cost of living, as we know, and making ends meet are right at the top of voters' minds when they're going to be making up their mind in November. Gary, many thanks. Our chief North America correspondent, Gary O'Donoghue, in Washington. and Gary mentioned those border states. We'll be hearing from a Republican state senator in one of those US border states in a few minutes' time.

18:36But let's turn to Canada first, because Currie Dixon is the Premier of the North Western Canadian Territory of Yukon. He leads the Conservative Yukon Party, which governs the territory. So does he support the decision of Canada's Liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, to walk away from the trade talks and go toe-to-toe with the United States in this escalating trade war? Yeah, I support the Prime Minister's decision both to stop negotiations and walk away from the table and launch the retaliatory measures that were announced this morning here in Canada. What is the immediate impact going to be for the people in Yukon, though?

19:11Well, actually, the Yukon is relatively limited in the impact that we're going to feel as a result of this. We'll feel the same as every Canadian in the sense that it's likely going to have an economic hit across the country. But the measures that were imposed by the Trump administration deliberately targeted a few specific areas in Canada. Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia will feel the brunt of the initial tranche of tariffs. And then the countermeasures are very similar as well. It's actually the countermeasures probably that are going to have more impact, isn't it, in UConn, since what, 89 % of your imports come from the United States?

19:47Yeah, no, the countermeasures will certainly hurt more than the actual measures themselves from the United States. But that's part of this process and that's part of why we want to see ultimately a negotiated solution to this. But in the meantime and in the face of the unacceptable deal that was put forward over the weekend to Canadian negotiators, we agree with the prime minister's decision to launch retaliatory measures. It goes beyond the economics though, doesn't it? I mean clearly from everything we're hearing from the Canadian government, this is also about sovereignty. This is about America wanting to put limits on the kind of tariffs that Canada can impose on third countries, wanting to put limits on whether or not French language films can be given the prominence they are on streaming platforms at the moment.

20:36How important is that for you? Well, it's a quickly evolving situation. I mean, when all premiers met with the prime minister on Thursday last week, the prime minister was letting us know that they were very close to what they hoped was a good deal and that they were asking provinces and territories to take some action to remove non -tariff barriers to trade, including the booze bans. And then within a matter of hours, really, by Saturday morning, the Prime Minister called another meeting with premiers to let us know that things had fallen apart and that the United States had at the last minute imposed a range of new requests or demands that were very much red lines for the federal government.

21:20Those included the ones you've mentioned. And those types of requests are quite frankly unacceptable. And the fact that they were included at such a late time in the negotiations really leads one to question whether they were put forward in good faith. The threats of annexation and the 51st state and all those kinds of things that have come out of this president have not bounced well with Canadians. There's a strong degree of support for a strong response from the Canadian government. And you see that across the country. But, and there's a big but, which is you rely on the United States. I mean, there's the geography of it, but the fact that your economy is a twelfth of the size of the US one.

21:57So this tip for tariff war, you are going to come out second best. I saw one quote saying the retaliatory tariffs have the effect of a pea shooter in a gun battle. And price increases, as you've acknowledged, are going to harm Canadians. And if we go down the road of car tariffs that the President of the United States is talking about, 50%, I mean, that could end up decimating the car industry in Canada. Yeah, there is no doubt that over the near term, both the Canadian economy and the United States economy are going to suffer. And Canada will suffer more than the United States, without doubt.

22:34That suffering in the United States, though, is regionally diverse. And we think that the timing of this will impact things as well. And what I mean by that is that the Americans are going into their midterm elections and we're hopeful that Americans will start to realize that this economic pain that they're feeling as a result of this trade war is completely unnecessary. You've got in Canada a strong, reliable neighbor that wants to work closely with you, wants to develop our respective economies and wants to continue the long tradition of working together closely. That was Carrie Dixon, Premier of the Canadian Territory of Yukon.

23:08Well, the Canadian government is explicitly placing reciprocal tariffs on goods which come from US states where there are competitive contests in this November's midterm elections. That includes Michigan, a Midwestern swing state. John DeMoose is a state senator with Donald Trump's Republican Party in Michigan. He represents a district that borders Canada. And I asked him what he makes of this escalating trade war. Frankly, I don't understand where this even came from, because Canada is our best friends in the entire world. And we've been treating them almost like enemies over the past year and a half.

23:43And it's just not right. But we're seeing real, real ramifications in my own district. I mean, the estimated impact just last year alone was$82 million lost in the Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan area. So this is devastating. But also, you've got to look at all of Michigan. I mean, whether it's automobiles or I was touring a cement plant yesterday, and now that cement has been included in this, they're absolutely in a panic. It's really important, especially in Michigan. So these retaliatory measures that the Canadians are taking are going to have a real impact? I think they're definitely going to have an impact.

24:15But the measures that the United States has taken are in and of themselves going to make a huge impact. And, you know, you talk about anybody in the automobile industry and these parts and vehicles move back and forth across the border multiple times. And depending on how these tariffs are structured, sometimes the same part is getting hit over and over again with tariffs. And, you know, and it even has a secondary impact. I was actually disappointed talking to somebody who I know quite well yesterday who is in an industry where they make plywood. And it's all U.S. plywood. OK, so they were actually happy about these tariffs because plywood is getting caught up and now they can charge that much more money and still be competitive.

24:54And I was just thinking we have a crisis in housing in the United States, especially in northern Michigan here. And this just makes it even more expensive for people to be able to build their own home. You represent the same party as President Trump. What's your message to him? Well, I think we need to, there is a role. I mean, first of all, as Republicans, we tend to not be in favor of tariffs. I mean, this is a very new idea for our party. And I think tariffs can play a very limited role in society when there is a clear, unfair trading practice where the playing field is truly not level. But using this broad-based approach to countries all across the world and not really taking into the nuance of each trading partner's relationship with us, I think is a bad idea.

25:42And, you know, also, I'd say to pull back on the rhetoric, when I started hearing the rhetoric about the 51st state, if somebody out there said they were going to take over the United States of America, we'd have our carrier groups on the way. I mean, this would, there's nothing funny about that. It sounds to me as though you're worried not just about the economic impact, but the human impact? I mean, given the closeness of the two countries where you are. Well, it's especially, we notice it because Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, it's a really unique dynamic there where we have families who are split by this tiny little river.

26:17I mean, you can't throw a stone, but it's pretty close between the two countries. And we have all sorts of people, especially healthcare professionals who live in Canada and work in Michigan and vice versa. It's a real problem. It's very personal for some people. And on the politics of what's happening at the moment, the Canadians are making it clear they are targeting states where the Republican Party, the party of President Trump, your party is potentially vulnerable in the midterm elections. Do you think that's going to make a difference? It's hard to say. It's a very complicated political environment right now.