Dolly Parton's America, Episode 3: "Tennessee Mountain Trance"

WNYC Studios & OSM Audio | Airdate: October 29, 2019

Overview:

In “Tennessee Mountain Trance,” host Jad Abumrad embarks on a deeply personal journey through Dolly Parton's mythic Tennessee roots. Using Dolly’s iconic song “My Tennessee Mountain Home” as a gateway, the episode explores memory, nostalgia, and the universal longing for home that her music evokes. Along the way, Jad examines both his own outsiderness growing up in Tennessee and Dolly’s uncanny ability to create a mesmerizing “trance” through her storytelling. The episode blends firsthand interviews, visits to Dollywood, and intimate musical moments to unpack how Dolly’s world and music forge powerful connections across generations, cultures, and continents.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Universal Pull of “My Tennessee Mountain Home”

• Personal Resonance:
  • Jad reveals that “My Tennessee Mountain Home” loomed over his childhood in Nashville as a song that seemed to unite Tennesseans while making him, as an Arab-American in a post-Gulf War world, feel like an outsider.
    • “As the scrawny, shy Arab kid that hit high school during Gulf War one, I kind of felt on the outside of all that.” (02:18)
• Dolly’s Perspective on Fans and Generational Shift:
  • Dolly describes her unexpected cross-generational appeal, citing connections from appearing on shows like Hannah Montana and how fans from different eras continue to find her (“All those Hannah Montana fans have grown up and now they’re my fans.” 04:12).

2. The Trance of Storytelling and Music

• Dolly’s Memories Come Flooding Out:

  • Once Jad brings up her Tennessee childhood, Dolly effortlessly launches into stories and music, describing life in a large, rural family, hardship, Pentecostal faith, injury, and her earliest memories of music—all punctuated by impromptu singing.
    • Notable: She sings folk tunes her mother would sing and describes harmonizing with family (05:26–07:22).
  • Dolly embraces her role as a storyteller:
    • “Well, you know me, you just ask and I’ll just tell it as I know it or as I feel it.” (03:07)

• The Interview Turns into a Trance:

  • Jad admits he is so taken by Dolly’s storytelling, he’s unable to stick to his questions or even speak, likening the sensation to being in a video game trance (10:12).

3. Why Do Dolly’s Stories Entrap Listeners?

• Other Fans Fall into the Trance:
  • Listeners like Wandi Pryor describe being enchanted by Dolly’s childhood stories. Wandi, as a child in British Columbia, engineered her entire wardrobe to mimic “child Dolly,” experiencing a kind of immersive, empathetic nostalgia (11:44–12:19).
    • “For the next three years, she only wore clothes that she thought child Dolly would have worn... I called them prairie dresses.” (11:57)

4. Dollywood: A Shrine and Theme Park to the Mythos

• Visiting the Center of the Dollyverse:
  • Jad and Shima visit Dollywood, a site that physically enshrines Dolly’s Appalachian youth with a theme park devotion—roller coasters, a working steam engine (“Appalachia facial” – 14:02), butterfly motifs, and the Chasing Rainbows Museum topped with a Dolly hologram (15:13).
• Nostalgia and Souvenirs:
  • English professor Susan Harlan contextualizes Dollywood as different from other theme parks, calling Dolly a “secular saint” and the park, especially Dolly’s childhood cabin, a quasi-religious space (18:12).
  • Souvenirs, even if mass-produced, become “powerful material memories” binding people to an experience they long to revisit (18:57).

5. The Power and Paradox of Nostalgia

• Dolly’s Replica Cabin:

  • The recreated “Tennessee Mountain Home” cabin is sparse and unsentimentally accurate. Visitors experience an emotional connection, projecting their own childhood or lost home onto the shared symbols of quilts, boots, and a table (20:05–21:52).
    • “That nostalgic cabin, this Tennessee mountain home, that’s what the brand is about… Nostos is home in Greek and algia is pain. So it’s this painful longing for home that I found just really kind of poignant.” - Susan Harlan (21:58)

• Global Resonance: Esther Konkara in Kenya

  • Jad speaks with Kenyan musician Esther Konkara, who emotionally links the song to her own rural upbringing. For her, “My Tennessee Mountain Home” stirs homesickness for a place she was still living in, imagining missing her present before leaving it (24:10–26:27).
    • “For me, my Tennessee was those hills where I come from, where I would just go there and meditate and just think about life and the future.” - Esther Konkara (26:16)

• The Song as a Time Capsule:

  • Jad reflects that the song’s vivid imagery preserves a disappearing moment so powerfully that listeners around the world find their own longing for home reflected back at them (27:46–28:23).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dolly, on Remaining Close to Her Roots:
  • “Well, I never left it. Just like when I left the Porter Wagon show… I said, I’m not leaving country. I’ll take country with me. Wherever I’m at, that is who I am... I long to always stay attached to my home, to my family. That’s a thing, a golden thread that keeps me tied to eternity.” (28:45)
• Susan Harlan on Nostalgia and Brand:
  • “That nostalgic cabin, this Tennessee mountain home, that’s what the brand is about... I think really comes out of this sort of mournful, sad sense of a lost home. Nostos is home in Greek, and algia is pain. So it’s this painful longing for home that I found just really kind of poignant.” (21:58)
• Esther Konkara’s Reflection:
  • “My Tennessee was those hills where I come from... I would go and sit on the rocks and just fantasize about me being far away from here and being somebody who has made it in life, big star somewhere. And then I have not lost ground with where I come from.” (25:31)
• Jad on the Trance of Dolly's Storytelling:
  • “It’s a little bit like that old video game, Legend of Ocarina of Time, where Zelda starts playing the flute, and then all of a sudden your character starts swaying and loses control and there’s nothing you can do.” (10:17)
• Dolly on the Dream/Fantasy of Her Story:
  • “I’m almost like a Cinderella story. People still want to believe that there is magic, that I did sweep the hearth. I do wear the glass slippers.” (30:22)

Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:33] – Dolly starts telling stories and singing “My Tennessee Mountain Home”
• [03:37] – Dolly describes cross-generational fan connection and Hannah Montana
• [05:26] – Early music memories, family harmonies, and singing
• [09:04] – Childhood injury and Pentecostal upbringing
• [10:12] – Jad reflects on being entranced by Dolly
• [11:08] – Wandi Pryor describes deep identification with Dolly’s stories
• [14:02] – Walking into Dollywood; amusement park and butterfly motifs
• [18:12] – Susan Harlan on Dollywood’s quasi-religious aura
• [19:27] – Exploring the replica of the Tennessee Mountain Home cabin
• [21:58] – Nostalgia, longing, and the centrality of “home” in Dolly’s mythos
• [23:23] – Esther Konkara in Kenya sings “My Tennessee Mountain Home”
• [25:31] – Esther’s rural Kenyan childhood and the universal resonance of the song
• [27:42] – Jad reflects on nostalgia and the present moment
• [28:45] – Dolly on never really having left her roots
• [30:22] – Dolly frames her story as a “Cinderella” tale
• [34:22–41:39] – Jad, Shima, and Dolly’s nephew Brian visit the actual Tennessee Mountain Home, leading to a magical, reverent tour of Dolly’s real roots

Tone & Style

The episode moves with a gentle, hypnotic pace, weaving Dolly’s music and unfiltered storytelling with Jad’s personal and searching narration. There is humor (Appalachia facials, “I’m a pirate” glass eye story), warmth, and deeply felt nostalgia throughout, always shaded by self-awareness about myth-making, commercialism, and the blurring line between fantasy and reality in Dolly’s world.

Conclusion

“Tennessee Mountain Trance” is a meditation on memory, longing, and how the simple evocation of a home—whether real, remembered, or imagined—can enthrall millions across cultures. Dolly Parton’s music and myth connect people not by erasing differences, but by making room for everyone’s longing for place and belonging. As the episode closes, listeners are left with “the golden thread” that keeps all of us tied, if only in spirit, to the places and stories that made us.