Singer-songwriter and musician, Jennifer Nettles, portrays Dolly Parton's mother in the new NBC film based on Dolly's song, "Coat of Many Colors." Best known as lead vocalist of the country duo Sugarland, Jennifer is a storyteller at heart. She was beyond thrilled to join in the re-telling of this beloved story from Dolly's childhood.
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Q. As you started to develop your character, what things about Avie Lee stood out or perhaps surprised you?
A. What I loved most about Avie Lee was her authentic mixture of vulnerability, compassion and strength. She loses a child and goes into a dark depression. She checks out for a while. She is real and wounded and human. But, her love of her family gives her strength to push beyond and create a beautiful metaphor of rebirth out of tragedy by making a coat for Dolly. I love so much that beautiful, living metaphor of her sewing those pieces back together. So womanly and strong.
Q. The Parton family is known for their tight-knit bonds. While filming, did the cast develop similar family-like relationships?
A. We had a ball. Having so many kids in the cast kept us all laughing and humble. Children have a beautiful way of demanding your presence and that definitely provided levity much of the time. Though there were times where I definitely heard myself become "mother-hen" in trying to help keep their little attentions for the next shot. And, true to the script, many of the older children helped to keep the younger ones in focus.
Q. Considering everything you have done in your career, where does this role rank in your list of achievements?
A. Playing the role of Avie Lee definitely ranks up at the top of the list for rewarding artistic experiences. I love telling stories, be it in a three and a half minute song or as an actor. Getting to tell such a beautiful story as Avie Lee's and getting to dive deeply into her heart, her struggles and her strength was such a treat for me.
Q. Knowing that Dolly herself helped cast you in this role, did you feel a certain amount of pressure to get it right and if so how did you handle it?
A. You better believe I felt pressure!! I was chosen to play Dolly Parton's mother!! The relationship between a mother and child is so special and sacred and complex. I wanted to honor their close bond and make Dolly proud at the same time. I asked Dolly about her mother and also pulled from my own precious relationship with my mother, not to mention my own relationship with my son as a mother myself.
Q. The song "Coat of Many Colors" first debuted in 1971, yet it still has a powerful message for people today. Why do you think people relate so well to this story?
A. The symbol of the "Coat of Many Colors" is one of alchemy. We are all so attracted and attached to the very real experience of something simple and humble actually holding the most value. We love and relate to taking humility and limited resources and watching them be transformed into gold, through the lens of love.
Q. Other than "Coat of Many Colors," do you have a favorite Dolly song?
A. "Jolene." Of course. Such a fantastic story of the complexities and messiness of love and life. And I love that it is from one woman to another.
Q. What was your favorite moment of making the film or your favorite takeaway?
A. Interestingly enough, my favorite moments were the most painful ones. The funeral scene in particular. How cathartic. I hope its rawness touches people and reminds them that their own losses are seen and understood.
See more cast interviews and tune in Thursday, December 10 at 9/8c on NBC to watch Jennifer Nettles as Avie Lee Parton in "Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors."
If you had gone from cabin to cabin across the mountains of Appalachia in the 1940s and 50s, you would have observed a wide variety of activities. You might have caught a glimpse of a young boy watching his grandfather whittle a slingshot handle from a piece of white oak. On down the dirt road, you may have seen a mother lovingly teaching her children how to churn butter. Up the mountain on Locust Ridge, however, something extra special was happening at the Parton’s Tennessee Mountain Home…
In the Smoky Mountain morning light, there was a little girl with great big dreams of becoming a star. Her stage, the front porch, had been there all along, but she needed a microphone. She knew it would require a little more creativity —she’d have to make one. She searched through a pile of tobacco sticks, trying to find just the right one to use as her microphone stand. She tried three or four and finally found one she could wedge between the weathered wooden slats. With her stand securely in place, it was time to find her microphone. She loved all things shiny and knew just what she would use. She removed the label from a recently discarded tin can and smiled at her reflection as she held her first microphone in her little hands. In a crowning moment, she balanced it atop the tobacco stick. She paused to take a deep breath, and that’s when the magic began.
If you had been there, you may have simply seen a little girl in her favorite cotton dress singing her heart out to her younger siblings and throwing some extra feed to the ducks and chickens to ensure a captive audience. If you could have seen it through little Dolly’s sparkling eyes, though, it would have taken your breath away! The wings of her imagination carried her to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. She swayed to the rhythm of her heartbeat in a beautiful shimmering dress and sang into the famed WSM microphone to a sold-out crowd at the Ryman auditorium.
Dolly shares,
“I just pictured myself out there in the big world singing songs I’d written, performing to people and getting out of the mountains and just traveling around.”
It was a window to her dreams. Singing meant the world to her, and she was determined to take her music beyond the hills of her home.
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With that same cadence of determination, that’s exactly what she did! Now an American music icon and longtime member of the Grand Ole Opry, the spirit that fueled her front-porch-dreams has propelled her from the beloved stage of her childhood to untold numbers of sold-out performances in venues all over the world.
Dolly says,
“That little tobacco stick and tin can have carried me far.”
Everything she envisioned on that front porch has become a reality, and though she may use many different microphones during her performances today, none could ever compare to the one of her youth…a tin can and a tobacco stick.
Avie Lee Owens Parton was born on Oct. 5, 1923, in Lockhart, a small cotton farming community in South Carolina. As a preacher's daughter, she learned to make the best of what she had, a skill that would come in handy in her life as a wife and mother.
She married Lee Parton in 1939, and in the years that followed, the couple raised 12 children, six boys and six girls. In order of birth, they are: Willadeene, David Wilburn, Coy Denver, Dolly Rebecca, Bobby Lee, Stella Mae, Cassie Nan, Randel Huston “Randy,” Larry Gerald, Estel Floyd and Freida Estelle (twins) and Rachel Ann.
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As a wife and mother, she supported her family in everything she did, from canning food to caring for their medical needs. She had a way of knowing when one of her children needed a little extra attention, and she had creative ways of making them feel special. She would often announce they were having Stone Soup for supper and would send all the children out to find the perfect stone. When they returned with their treasured stones in hand, Avie Lee examined each one and commented on its merits. She would then choose one very special stone; the one brought back by the child who needed a little extra love on that day. She tended to her family's every need while bringing faith and happiness to her home.
Mrs. Avie Lee would have turned 92 today. Although she passed away in 2003 at the age of 80, her love was immortalized in the words of Dolly's song, "Coat of Many Colors." It tells the story of Avie Lee sewing her young daughter a winter coat out of small scraps of fabric when the family could afford little else. However, her gift was more than just the coat. She taught Dolly an important lesson in seeing the value of what you have no matter how little it may seem to be. This lesson would become Dolly’s life philosophy. "Coat of Many Colors" may be the most famous story of Avie Lee’s handmade gifts, however, it was not the first. In fact, the first song Dolly ever wrote was inspired by another of her mother's gifts.
"Little Tiny Tasseltop" was composed by a young Dolly even before she could read or write. The song was inspired by a corncob doll, with corn silk hair, that Avie Lee handcrafted for little Dolly. As she played with her precious doll on the front porch, she began singing. Avie Lee quickly wrote down the lyrics to what would become Dolly's very first song.
Audio of Dolly singing "Little Tiny Tasseltop."
Listen via SoundCloud.
Little tiny tasseltop,
I love you an awful lot
Corn silk hair and big brown eyes
How you make me smile
Little tiny tasseltop
You’re the only friend I’ve got
Hope you never go away
I want you to stay
You’re my tiny tasseltop
You’re my favorite-est doll
Even if you’re just a cobb
I want you to stay
Even after Dolly began to achieve career success, Avie Lee's outlook on life did not change much. In Dolly's book, "Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business," she recalls another story involving a coat.
“After the song had become a hit and had done so much for my career, I wanted to go back home and repay Mama for all the love she had sewn into my coat. I said, ‘Mama, let’s go to Knoxville. I’m going to buy you a mink coat.’ Mama is the type of person who is somewhat uncomfortable about somebody making her an offer like that. At first, she came back with a joke: ‘It’s bad enough we have to eat little varmints...I don’t want to have to start wearing them...’ Then she took on a more serious tone as she said, ‘Shoot! Where would I wear a mink coat...to a pie supper? Give me the money instead.' So I did.”
Avie Lee poured her heart and soul into raising her children. Her legacy is a profound testament of a mother's love...a legacy that will live on for generations, far beyond the hills and valleys of Locust Ridge, Tennessee.
