Photo Credit: © Curtis Hilbun Dollywood
Dolly Parton brings her Pure & Simple concert tour home to Sevier County, TN with a stop at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge on November 15 to benefit her Imagination Library. The Pure & Simple tour is Dolly’s first North American concert tour in more than 25 years and takes her to more than 60 cities across the U.S. and Canada.
Tickets go on sale to the general public on July 1. Dollywood season passholders will have an opportunity to purchase concert tickets before the general public. Additional details about Dolly’s November Pigeon Forge concert stop will be released at a later date.
She is as busy as ever, and with the Pure & Simple tour, a new CD and much more in the works, Dolly doesn’t plan on slowing down any time soon. Dolly announced the tour earlier this month at a press conference in Nashville, Tn. When asked about the timing of the tour and the minimalistic approach she said,
"I just thought it was just a good time to kind of simplify things, especially since we're doing things like 'The Coat of Many Colors.'"
Her set-list during the tour includes a number of hit songs, with a few new offerings from her double-disc album "Pure & Simple with Dolly's Biggest Hits." She will also perform a number of hits that have not been heard live for decades.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book-gifting program administered through the Dollywood Foundation, which provides a free, age-appropriate book each month to children from birth to age five in participating communities. To date, the Imagination Library has provided more than 77 million free books in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
"Pure & Simple with Dolly's Biggest Hits" two-CD set will include all new material as well as a compilation of Dolly’s biggest hits. The entertainment icon is on one of the biggest hot streaks of her career after her hugely successful TV movie, "Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors," attracted a network record of more than 16 million viewers. It became the most watched movie on network TV in more than three years and will be available on DVD May 3.
Dolly Parton will bring her boundless energy to stages in over 60 cities as she embarks on her first major U.S. and Canadian tour in more than 25 years. For the last 20 years, she has only played select dates in the U.S., but her 2016 tour will cover cities across North America.
In what is sure to be one of the summer's most sought-out concerts, Dolly will perform her hit songs all while weaving in a few new songs from her new double-disc album "Pure & Simple with Dolly's Biggest Hits." She will delight fans by playing songs they have not heard live for decades. Dolly said,
“We’re so excited to get out there and see the fans again. I’m really looking forward to singing songs the fans have not heard in a while, as well as the hits, while debuting a few new ones off Pure & Simple."
"Pure & Simple with Dolly's Biggest Hits" 2-CD set will include all new material as well as a compilation of Dolly’s biggest hits. A track listing will be announced soon.
The Country Music Hall of Famer is on one of the biggest hot streaks of her career after her hugely successful TV movie, "Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors," attracted a network record of 15.8+ million viewers making it the most-watched movie on network TV in more than six years. “Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors,” is coming to DVD on May 3.
Tour dates and album details are coming soon.
WATCH: RAW Press Conference Video Footage
Featured image by Curtis Hilbun
The performances billed as Dolly: Pure & Simple, kicked off a series of concerts at Dollywood, all of which benefit Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. From Blue Smoke to Backwoods Barbie, 9 to 5 and Coat Of Many Colors, Dolly captivated the crowd show after show performing her latest and greatest hits. When welcoming the audience, Dolly said,
“Thank you from all the kids and me! We give books to children all over the world now, and the Imagination Library started right here in Sevier County, right up here in these hills. So thank you all for coming tonight. I truly believe that you can never get enough books into the hands of enough children.”
Family, friends, and fans from around the world headed to Pigeon Forge, TN to show their support for Dolly and her book gifting program for children. The four sold-out shows raised nearly $500,000.00. Now present in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the Imagination Library has mailed more than 71 million free books to babies!
During her performances, Dolly also shared her excitement for her all new resort next to the waterpark and theme park. She said,
“I am so proud of all the things we are doing here. Of course, it’s our 30th Anniversary, and we’ve been longing for our own hotel ever since we started Dollywood. Yesterday, I had a chance to go over to the resort and do some videos and things in my suite, and I got to see the resort up and breathin’ with real people in it. We are just so proud of it!”
Dolly’s weekend concerts are the first of several concerts taking place this year as part of Dollywood’s Showcase of Stars, all of which will benefit her Imagination Library. The next scheduled performer is Kenny Rogers.
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View related press release via Webster PR
Author Mickey Rapkin
Image by Stacie Huckeba
Ryman Auditorium, known as the Mother Church of Country Music, played home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. Backstage before Friday’s show, Dolly—dressed in a denim skirt and gold top, her nails painted a Backwoods Barbie pink—recalled her first appearance at the Ryman and what it meant to get on that stage, coming from a two-room house in the Great Smoky Mountains all those years ago.
“My Uncle Bill Owens used to bring me back and forth to Nashville,”
Dolly said.
“And he would always try and get someone to let me on the Grand Ole Opry. The stars had two spots on the Opry. So finally my Uncle Bill talked to Jimmy C. Newman”
—the first Cajun member of the Opry—
“and he let me have one of his spots.”
It was 1959 and Dolly (a girl who made her first guitar out of an old mandolin and two bass guitar strings) was all of 13 years old. There were 4,000 people in the audience as she stepped out on stage.
“Johnny Cash was kind of hosting that night and he brought me on and I sang a George Jones song, ‘You Gotta Be My Baby.’ I guess that came out about 1956. And so that was one of my big numbers. It was a thrill beyond compare.”
She laughed, adding:
“I got an encore. I know now it wasn’t because I was good, it was because I was little.”
But the importance of this moment cannot be overstated.
“As a kid in the Smoky Mountains, I used to stand on the porch and sing in a tin can with a tobacco stick stuck down on the porch thinking I was on the Grand Ole Opry. It’s kind of like that song, ‘New York, New York.’ If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, and the Grand Ole Opry was my dream.”
The Ryman became something of a second home for Dolly. For more than seven years she appeared on The Porter Wagoner Show, which broadcast live from the auditorium, (watch raw video of Dolly singing "Dumb Blonde" in 1967—the same year her solo record "Hello, I’m Dolly" was released on Monument Records.)
The Ryman—once a tabernacle church dating back to 1892, where patrons still sit in pews—has always been celebrated for its acoustics. Before the building was renovated in the 1990s, there was exactly one dressing room for the men; the women, meanwhile, had to change in the ladies restroom. When it got too crowded, the performers famously went across the street to Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, which acted as an unofficial green room.
“The old Ryman didn’t even have air conditioning,”
Dolly recalled backstage.
“There was one dressing room for the boys, one dressing room for the girls. We’d almost get in fist fights, you know, trying to get a spot at the mirror. You know how girls are. It’s air conditioned now, but it still has the same old feeling. I just love this place.”
Dolly’s return to the Ryman had been billed an acoustic tour.
“It’s not really some big statement I’m making,”
she said, with a smile.
“Like, oh, it’s Dolly unplugged!'
Rather the decision was as much about practicality as it was about honoring the Ryman itself.
“I didn’t have a band together. Everyone is out on the road working with Garth Brooks and all the other bands. I said, let’s put together a show of our own. We don’t have big screens or big productions or big sound. But hopefully, it’ll be more enjoyable—especially in a place like the Ryman where you don’t want a whole big bunch of stuff. It is the Mother Church of Country Music. And there’s just something sacred about it. We have the new Grand Ole Opry House, which we love. But there’s nothing quite like this old building.”
As for the title of the show, the [producers] said,
“What can we put on the tickets?”
Dolly laughed.
“I said, 'Well, I guess just Dolly pure and simple?'”
Nashville is famously a songwriter’s town, and over the course of two hours, Dolly—dressed in a white suit, opening the show in silhouette—would return to some of her biggest hits, admitting:
“All those old songs are gonna hit me in a different place tonight. It’s gonna take me back in time.”
Of “I Will Always Love You,” she said:
“That will be a very special song tonight. As you know I worked with The Porter Wagoner Show all those years. I was with Porter when I became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1969. I owe so much to Porter. But that was a song I wrote when I left Porter’s show. So singing songs like that will be very special and very emotional to me.”
Proceeds from Friday night’s concert benefited the W.O. Smith School of Music’s Dustin Wells Foundation, which encourages young people to play music, and the show sold out in minutes. Dustin Wells was killed in a car accident in 2005 at just 21 years old; Wells’ father, Dennis, has been Dolly’s dentist for more than 20 years. Bringing levity to the stage, Dolly told the crowd:
“You know you’re a hillbilly when you get your boobs done before you get your teeth cleaned.”
A second show was added benefitting the Opry Trust Fund, which helps members of the country music family who are struggling with medical expenses. Lines stretched down the block, and level of interest in the two concerts surprised even Dolly.
“I just felt like, that many people didn't really want to see me in Nashville,”
adding:
“I don’t get to do the Opry as much as I’d like to. When I’m here, I just want to be at the house. I’m gone so much I want to hang out with my husband.”
But looking around, she said,
“This is kind of like home to me.”
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If the concerts were about looking back, rest assured Dolly is looking ahead, too. She is producing a film, Coat of Many Colors—set in 1955 in the Great Smoky Mountains and inspired by her childhood—that will air on NBC this winter. And Dolly hints at more potential films to come inspired by her songs "Jolene" and "The Seeker." She’s also at work on a Broadway musical based on her life. She smiled, adding:
"Lord, I’ve lived so long, I got a lot of stories to tell. I can’t just tell ‘em all in one place. I’ll just scatter ‘em around.”
Special thanks to guest author, Mickey Rapkin.
Featured image courtesy of Stacie Huckeba.
Update: After selling out Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium in record-setting time, Dolly adds a second benefit concert on Saturday, August 1.
In addition to the sold-out performance on July 31, Dolly will showcase her new concert “Pure and Simple” again on August 1, in support of the Opry Trust Fund. The July 31 show along with the encore performance on August 1 mark the first time in 12 years Dolly has headlined in Nashville.
Dolly said,
"The show won't be flashy, but I will be. I don't have … video screens, pyrotechnics and the like," she said. "But I hope people will enjoy sittin' back and enjoying the stories and songs told and done in a simple way. Hopefully the shows will represent the spirit of our beloved, historic Ryman Auditorium, the original home of the Grand Ole Opry...where I became a member back in 1969. I am so looking forward to performing there again."
In 1965, the Grand Ole Opry celebrated its 40th birthday and started the Opry Trust Fund as a way of helping those in the country music industry. To date, the fund has distributed over $2 million to those in need. On the Ryman Auditorium's website, Dolly was quoted saying,
"I love being a member of the Grand Ole Opry...have been since 1969. It's important to me to be able to do a concert for the Opry Trust Fund as so many of my old Opry friends have benefited from it through the years. The money raised will go to help fund the medical needs and hospitalization for those who are not able to afford it and need the help. I am proud to be of help in any way."
Dolly originally announced one scheduled performance for July 31, 2015, at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN, as part of The Gift of Music presented by the Dustin J. Wells Foundation. The foundation supports the W.O. Smith School of Music in its efforts to share the gift of music with children. Dolly said,
“Through all of us working together we can make a difference in helping a child feel the magic in making music.”
In addition to Dolly's "Pure and Simple" performance at the Ryman, to kick off Dollywood's "Showcase of Stars" this summer, Dolly will bring her "Pure and Simple," concert to Dollywood on August 8 and 9. As part of their ongoing commitment to Dolly’s Imagination Library, Dollywood is donating all proceeds to the program in an effort to help garner $1 million. Dolly said,
"I am so excited that Dollywood is bringing back the celebrity concert series, and I'm honored that I get to be first. It's always great to play in my own backyard and I know all of my country music friends who are coming to do their concerts will love it as much as I do. So look for my show 'Pure and Simple' in August and help support my Imagination Library."
2015 marks the 20th anniversary of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and that’s cause for celebration! Since launching in 1995, Dolly’s book gifting program, which once mailed just a few hundred books each month, now mails more than 800,000 free books to children in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, every month!
The new show featuring Dolly with a three-piece acoustic band. The simple style spotlights the purity and heartfelt emotion of Dolly's music in an up-close and personal setting.
Dollywood's popular concert series first began in 1988 in the newly opened 1,739-seat D.P.'s Celebrity Theater. It featured performances by the biggest names in country music. In addition to Dolly's 2015 performances, Kenny Rogers will close out the series. More entertainers will be announced throughout the summer.
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