Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

Dolly Parton is, unquestionably, one of music’s best songwriters. Arguably, she is the best writer of the “girl singers,” as they were called in the 1960s, to come out of Nashville.

Loretta Lynn was smart and unique in her view of marriage and relationships. Tammy Wynette, a beautiful soul, often collaborated on songs including her most famous, “Stand By Your Man.”

About that song, she famously quipped, “I spent 15 minutes writing it and a lifetime defending it.”

But Dolly? Of the nearly 4,000 songs she has written, only a handful of her early songs had a co-writer, who was her uncle, Bill Owens.

“Co-writing just doesn’t work for me,” Dolly once told an interviewer. “I work best alone.”

Dolly’s 1960s songs were often Southern Gothic with tales of a young woman institutionalized, one who is pregnant outside of marriage, and another who ran off with a criminal.

In the 1970s, she grounded her songwriting legacy with story songs including, “Coat Of Many Colors”, “Jolene” and “Joshua.” She also wrote what would become her biggest hit, “I Will Always Love You”.

Dolly was paying, monthly, on a Cadillac – she still buys a new one every year – when Elvis’ people called to say he wanted to record “I Will Always Love You.” She was thrilled until she heard the catch: she would have to give Elvis half publishing. She thought long and hard before, with a tear in her voice, saying “No.”

In 1992, actor Kevin Costner insisted on using the song in his movie, “The Bodyguard,” sung by the incredible Whitney Houston. It sold 20 million copies, a good downpayment if the very smart Dolly wanted to buy the Cadillac company.

The 1980s brought further evolution as Dolly landed in Los Angeles and wrote the smash hit, “Nine to Five,” with the brilliant rhyme: “Stumble to the kitchen/ pour myself a cup of ambition” and other pop-flavored songs.

“The Seeker,” she once told Tink and me, “was written during a period when I was having a good time but knew I needed to be closer to God. I was the seeker.”

At the turn of the century, Dolly’s songwriting stepped back into the time of her raising in the East Tennessee mountains and is flavored with church-tinged melodies and bluegrass banjos and fiddles.

She has sold over 100 million records worldwide and self-penned the vast majority of those songs.

Tink and I had the opportunity to work with Dolly on a project about four years ago. I didn’t know what a privilege it was until we sat in an office with her on the Warner Brothers lot and I listened to her low-key wisdom tumble forth. I have never met a smarter person nor one who is so humble about her creativity and business savvy.

The first time we met, the business meeting had ended and we sat there, chatting. Dolly and I were sitting on a love seat, together, while Tink was in a nearby chair and another executive was at his desk.

I can’t carry a tune. The cats run when they hear me. This is a gift from all those years in stock car racing when the noise destroyed my mid-range hearing so I can’t hit pitch.

“My favorite song of yours is you and Chet Atkins singing, “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” I remarked about one of her lesser-known composition.

Her brown eyes popped wide. “You know that song?”

I began singing, on pitch, “Oh, sometimes I go walking through fields where we walked long ago in the sweet used to be.” Dolly, delighted, grabbed my hand and, together, we sang every word. In perfect harmony. Two mountain girls with the same accent, harmonizing.

When we finished, Tink was teary-eyed and Dolly happily clapped her hands. “That was wonderful!”

Jesus must have touched me. That’s all I can figure.

Ronda Rich is the best-selling of the forthcoming novel – “ST. SIMONS ISLAND: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.”