Lessons a Mere Mortal Learned From Giving Notes to Dolly Parton

'Her energy spread to everyone around her'

It was early morning on the West Coast. I remember the nervous chatter coming from the grid of boxes on my Zoom screen.

This was a room full of people accustomed to working with talent. My colleagues at Deutsch were there, along with Grammy-winning duo Barlow & Bear. But there was one square everyone was waiting to come to life.

Then, in the surreal way these things happen, it did.

A vocal booth. A single microphone.

And Dolly Parton.

For a moment, everyone froze–and not like, “internet froze,” but like, “this is really happening” froze.

There are very few people I’ve encountered in my career who could have that kind of effect on a room without physically being in it. Dolly had a magnetic pull. I think she knew it, too. And in typical Dolly fashion, one of the first things she did was take the pressure out of the room.

“So we’re here to talk about the Mexican Pizza?”

For context, we had asked Dolly to narrate the voice of the Mexican Pizza for Taco Bell’s “Mexican Pizza: The Musical,” a wonderfully ridiculous project celebrating the return of the beloved menu item.

Dolly continued: “I remember when I was younger they’d say, ‘Hey, there goes ol’ pizza face!’”

Nervous laughter erupted. And just like that, we settled in.

Looking back, I think there was something much bigger happening in that tiny exchange. Dolly knew exactly how much space her presence occupied, and her first instinct was to give some of it back to everyone else.

You can take the work seriously without taking yourself too seriously. That was Dolly.

The session itself was supposed to last two hours. She had a script. We had a booking. And I remember her knocking out the entire thing, with multiple takes, in under an hour.

She was prepared. She was funny. She cracked jokes along the way, asked for notes and then snapped right back into the work. Every satirical line was delivered with complete commitment. She understood the absurdity of what we were making and somehow treated it with exactly the right amount of seriousness.

And she gave us her attention. That’s something I’ve thought about a lot since.

When someone reaches Dolly Parton’s level of fame, their time becomes an extraordinarily valuable commodity. There are endless demands on it. But sitting there that morning, I never had the feeling that she was trying to get somewhere else. For that hour, she was there with us.

You can give people the gift of your time.

The whole thing went by in a flash.

I’ve spent much of my career giving notes to artists, musicians and composers. It’s part of the job. But suddenly, there I was staring at Dolly Parton and thinking: Am I really going to give Dolly Parton a note?

It seemed ridiculous.

Still, I remember mustering up one piece of feedback—if I’m being completely transparent, probably in part because I wanted to be able to say that, at least once in my life, I had given Dolly Parton direction.

She graciously took it. And before long, the session was over. Dolly said goodbye. Her square disappeared. And I remember looking around at the other squares on my screen.

Everyone was smiling. Not polite Zoom smiles. Ear-to-ear smiles. Genuine.

The same people who had nervously waited for her to appear were now sitting there glowing from the experience of having spent an hour with her.

That time with Dolly was a gift. And in the years since, I’ve realized that what stayed with me wasn’t really the fact that I’d gotten to work with one of the most influential artists of all time. It was the way she made people feel while doing it.

Her energy spread to everyone around her.

There’s a lesson in that which, for me, extends far beyond music or advertising.

You can take the work seriously without taking yourself too seriously.

You can give people the gift of your time.

You can leave a place better than it was when you got there.

You can spread your energy to others.

You can make someone’s day better with a smile.

Dolly understood the effect she had on people. What struck me was what she chose to do with it. She used it generously.

I’ve been fortunate to work with a lot of remarkable people over the course of my career. But very few have possessed that particular combination of greatness and generosity. Dolly didn’t need to remind anyone in that Zoom who she was. We all knew.

Instead, she spent her time making the rest of us forget, at least for a little while, that we were talking to Dolly Parton.

Then her square went dark, but every person was still smiling.

Related: ‘Be Yourself’ and Other Life Lessons From the ‘Queen of Country’