Small interview of Richie & Dolly Parton's Rockstar album.
From latest Classic Rock magazine.
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How far back does your friendship with Dolly go?
Well, Dolly covered [Bon Jovi’s] Lay Your Hands On
Me in 2014. That summer, I was on a tour of my own
for a solo record called Aftermath Of The Lowdown.
And on my day off I got a call. Dolly was doing
Glastonbury, and she needed some rock’n’roll juice.
So I go: “Of course.” But I said: “You’re gonna have
to chopper me out there.” Because, y’know,
Glastonbury is in the middle of nowhere and there’s
five million people in one road. That was the first
time we’d ever met. We walked out on stage in front
of 225,000 people, and we blew the place up. I flew
back to London and played with Stevie Wonder that
evening – on my day off!
Was Dolly part of the culture when you were
growing up in New Jersey?
Of course. Country music started for me with
Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. I was a blues hound,
y’know, a rock guy that loved everything, starting
out with the whole English invasion that happened
to us here in America in the sixties, when I had teeth
[laughs]. And it continued on. How could you not
be a fan of the great songwriting in country? Hank
Williams, Patsy Cline, everybody else. But Dolly
and Johnny Cash were the entry points for a young
guy in America.
The track you did and the album are titled Rockstar.
Do you consider Dolly to be one?
Of course. What I heard is that she gets inducted to
the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and [initially] she
turned it down because she didn’t make a rock album.
So then, when she wanted to make a rock album,
what else would it be called? It’s kind of impossible to
describe her. She’s a phenomenon. She knows what
she’s doing, and she has done for a long time. I don’t
want to insult the woman by saying her age. I actually
do not know her age – and she is timeless. It’s like
she’s been here for ever and she will continue to do
so. There’s only one. Let’s face it: Dolly is Elvis, man.
What did you think of Rockstar, and what are your
memories of recording the track?
I loved her self-proclamation in the lyric. Dolly and
Kent [Wells], her producer, they kinda left it on me
to do what I do, to make that kind of record come to
life. I recorded my parts at the Power Station [in
Manhattan], where I once worked as a session guy.
It was April and it was snowing. I have an apartment
with my girlfriend here in Hell’s Kitchen, and I walked
there like I would normally do when I was nineteen
years old. I brought in Nile Rodgers’s engineer,
Russell Graham. It was basically just the two of us.
And I had a gas, we tore it up. There’s some talk-box
guitar on that track, y’know, if you want a bit of my
moniker on there. I sang background vocals too –
I used my Beach Boys harmony training for all that
stuff. And it went that quick [claps hands]. That
means it was supposed to be, as far as I know about
making records.
There can be a certain scepticism in rock’n’roll
circles. What would you say to someone who isn’t
sure whether to investigate a rock album by Dolly
Parton, best known as a country artist?
Music is coming from a long time ago and we’re all
just pushing it on. So hop on. I learnt how to play
guitar by listening to records, reading the backs of
records: let’s find out where Zeppelin got their shit
from, let’s find out where The Beatles came from.
They came from Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters
and Good Golly Miss Molly and Little Richard. And
where did they come from? That’s the way people
should look at it. Dolly may have been the beginning
of that movement, whatever you want to call it. If
you’re not a fan of Dolly, you don’t understand
music very much.
Did Dolly give you her verdict on your contribution
on Rockstar?
It’s on the record, isn’t it? [laughs].
__________________
Once there was this rock n' roll band rollin' on the streets
Time went by and it became a joke
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11-07-2023, 11:31 PM
