Denton filmmaker and writer Randy L. Schmidt was in the midst of a documentary about music icon Dolly Parton when news broke of the titan’s death at age 80.
Schmidt had to collect his thoughts before reflecting on one of his favorite artists on Tuesday.
“Still processing this,” Schmidt said in a message. “It’s harder than I thought it would be.”
Schmidt has been a fan of Parton’s since he was a toddler, he said. In 2017, Chicago Review Press published his thoughtful compilation of Parton’s interviews, Dolly on Dolly: Interviews and Encounters With Dolly Parton. As the editor of the volume, Schmidt created an anthology of published interviews and stories about Parton, who died on Tuesday. She was a rare artist who rose from poverty in Tennessee to become a chart-dominating musician and television and movie star.
Schmidt is part of a team that is producing a documentary about the artist for AMS Pictures.
“What struck me most was Dolly’s extraordinary ability to evolve without ever losing herself,” said Schmidt, who has also published books about Karen Carpenter and Judy Garland.
“She expanded the possibilities of what a country artist could be and moved effortlessly into pop music, film and television. ‘I’m not leaving country music,’ she assured her fans, ‘I’m taking it with me.’ I think she was such an exceptional songwriter that she could take something deeply personal and make it feel universal,” Schmidt said.
Guitarist Lindsey Miller, a graduate of the University of North Texas College of Music, is touring with Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony. Parton co-produced the project, which adapts songs from her catalog for a full symphony and includes videos of Parton, who tells stories about the songs.
“The really famous iconic bands and artists, where it’s like they can cover so much territory, but it’s still them, it’s funneled through them and who they are — she was kind of like that,” said Miller, who is based out of Nashville, Tennessee. “Thinking about the show, we’ve got sections that are more bluegrass-oriented. But then we have ‘I Will Always Love You.’ We do ‘Islands in the Stream.’ And those almost lean toward like a top ’80s disco kind of thing. And then we do ‘Two Doors Down,’ and that almost has a funky country thing to it.
“It’s like she could grab onto to any genre, write a song, but it was still through her. Like, through her limbs and through her perspective. Bands like that are always really interesting to me.”
Miller’s first project with Parton producing was playing guitar on Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol, a retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic with a score and songs by Parton. Miller workshopped the show in Minneapolis and then played the premiere for six weeks in Boston.
“It was phenomenal,” Miller said. “I was just impressed with how quickly she could write music. And she was in her 70s then.”
Miller said the team that produced the Christmas show said that even at that time, when many have retired, Parton woke up at 4 a.m. and wrote music.
Matt Grigsby, a Denton bluegrass and Americana artist, has been a fan of Parton for years. Grigsby, the president of the Denton Songwriters Guild, said Parton was something of a colossus.
“To me, Dolly Parton was everything. All encompassing. She wrote over 3,000 songs,” Grigsby said. “I was actually fortunate to see her the same week I saw Bob Dylan. They were complete opposites. She played six different instruments and talked in between the songs. She was a complete artist, a musician and a performer.”
Denton’s singer-songwriting scene has nurtured bluegrass and folk artists. Songwriters in town have often prized authenticity in writing, something many of them credit Parton for leading with.
“Her influence in music is unparalleled,” said Denton musician Rex Emerson, who is known for the local bluegrass bands he has co-founded, the Boxcar Bandits and the newer act Texas Rex. “She composed so many classics that will stand the test of time.”
Emerson said he first became aware of her as a kid, when his mother would play the albums Parton recorded with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt.
“And then, of course, her bluegrass albums in the late ’90s, early 2000s, helped bring bluegrass to the masses with a great deal of authenticity,” Emerson said. “To me, also, her legacy is felt deeply through her inspiration to my own two daughters, in that she carved her own path as a female musician, and also in her philanthropic work in education and lifting up the downtrodden. She was a genuine person, and she will be missed.”
David Heetderks, the chair of the UNT Music History, Theory and Ethnomusicology Division, said Parton created a career using her strengths, without bowing to pressure to change or polish what the music industry might have thought too regional or earthy.
“I would say that Dolly Parton had a great gift for melody, and her songwriting and storytelling craft were superb,” Heetderks said in an email. “She had a highly distinctive vocal timbre and used it unapologetically. These characteristics, combined with her willingness to explore new styles, made her a trailblazing figure.”
Parton was able to take risks that might have sidelined lesser artists. Decades before musicians openly identified as allies of marginalized groups, Parton welcomed drag queens who loved her music and impersonated her. Parton’s image lent itself to drag’s celebration of the big, the shiny and the unapologetic. Grigsby described how Parton’s persona brought “a loving grace to everything she did.”
Schmidt agreed.
“I think Dolly’s courage came from genuinely loving people and never being particularly interested in being told who to love or accept,” Schmidt said. “I recently came across a quote where she said, ‘I know I’m unusual. And I love the unusual in other people.’”
Schmidt said he felt included in Parton’s circle of acceptance. “She was like my Mister Rogers,” he said. “I thought she was singing and speaking directly to me. She made you feel seen and welcome. And because her faith was so deeply rooted, her embrace of the LGBTQ community, long before it was fashionable, carried a message of acceptance to people who might not have heard it from anyone else.”
That acceptance was extended to audiences wherever Parton played. Miller said the singer would listen and speak directly to those she met, regardless of their position on a crew or ensemble. Miller remembered when Parton surprised an audience for Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol, coming out to greet them at the end of a Minneapolis performance.
“To see the reaction from people, not knowing she was going to be there, was like, oh my gosh, this lady is so famous. It was like the Beatles, with people screaming and fainting,” Miller said.
When Schmidt was working on the documentary on Tuesday, he said one of his video screens was showing Parton singing “My Blue Tears.”
“At the end, she sings, ‘Go spread your blue wings / Go light your blue sky / And I’ll shed my blue tears,’” Schmidt said. “I don’t think I’ll ever hear that song quite the same way again.”
Schmidt said Parton’s death might bring changes to the project. The documentary currently focuses on Parton’s becoming a star with universal appeal and her rise to cultural icon. Though a release date hasn’t been determined, the documentary is due out later this year.