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Music
Dolly Parton has always been proud of her music. There was one record she didn't feel great about, though,
Published on May 12, 2024
3 min read
When Dolly Parton was 13, she got in the recording studio to work on her first record. She had experience performing — she had even taken the stage at the Grand Ole Opry by this point — but many believe this was her first record. According to one radio station worker, Parton recorded another song when she was even younger. She wanted to keep this record far from the public.
Dolly Parton didn’t want an early recording to be made public
Parton began taking steps toward her dream of being a musician at an early age. She began writing songs and traveling to venues with her uncles. When she was 13, she recorded the songs “Puppy Love” and “Girl Left Alone” at a local label. According to the book Dolly by Alanna Nash, Parton was so small “so the microphone could fit and we could get the fullest capabilities of the song she was recording.”
Skip Trotter, who worked at the Sevierville radio station WSEV, said Parton made a recording even earlier than this, though.
Dolly Parton | Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
“Prior to 1960, when Dolly was just a little girl — eight or ten, maybe — the first record she ever made was right here,” Trotter said. “She had a little squeaky child’s voice, and we made the thing with one microphone on an Ampex 601. It was a poor pressing at that.”
According to Trotter, Parton does not want this record to be publicly available.
“She’s threatened to kill us if we ever play it,” Trotter said. “We’ve got it under lock and key.”
Dolly Parton worked hard on her recording career
Parton left a lasting impression on Trotter. He met her when she was a child, and he watched her work as hard as most adults. It was clear to him that she would do whatever it took to achieve success.
“They dragged her around to all those schoolhouses,” he said. “I saw her so sleepy the next day she couldn’t hold her head up, where she said they’d had car trouble and she’d gotten out and pushed the car in the mud. She was a determined little girl. Worked at it from the time she was five years old.”
She shone on stage while in school
Though Parton’s family members said she didn’t stand out as more musically inclined than her siblings, others saw she had a knack for performance.
“We played show dates at schools and things back then, and she would go and sing and be in comedy routines with us,” banjo player Bud Brewster said. “She was always a show person. She knew what it was about. Her personality just seemed to come out on stage.”
Dolly Parton | Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images
Even when she was young, she was professional. She knew how to cover up her nerves and win over an audience.
“Even though she was bashful, you wouldn’t know it when she was on the stage, because she was just so vibrant that it just covered the shyness right up,” he said. “She sang a song called ‘I Love a Tall Man’ a lot. That was one of the first songs she sang on the show. And she sang a lot of hymns, done ’em just terrific.”
