MUSIC: Stoned At The Jukebox by Hank Williams Jr
# As long as I can keep a lotta friends around me... #
I think there's a paradox that's always existed in country music.
How much change do you embrace?
And how much change can you make without completely obliterating
what you were and where you came from?
I don't like fences built around music.
Cos fences - sure, they keep things out but they also...
They don't let things in.
I think the lines are only imaginary and that you have to put them there
because they're not there in the beginning.
It's music, you know. You can't say it's this, that or the other.
It's not a Democrat or Republican.
HE LAUGHS
From its beginnings, country music had always resisted
being confined within arbitrary borders.
And like all artists,
its biggest stars had always pushed those boundaries to their limits.
As fans, we may want them to do the old stuff.
We're unhappy, quite often, when they branch out into something new.
But musicians, they're innovative, they're experimental.
They want to do something fresh, something new.
Of course, the question is, where does it end?
When does it cease to be country when they've made all these changes?
# Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars
# It's been the same way for years
# We need to change... #
Woo!
# Well, good morning
# Captain... #
By 1974, Dolly Parton had been performing
on Porter Wagoner's syndicated television show for seven years.
And during all seven of them,
Wagoner had exerted tight control over her career.
# Down on your new mud run Hey, hey... #
Wagoner's own star as a country singer was fading.
His duet albums with Parton outsold his own solo records -
but on the road and in the studio, he insisted on being in charge.
"I signed the cheques," he said, "so we did things my way."
# From down old Tennessee way
# Hey, hey, I come from Tennessee... #
With Wagoner producing, she recorded the old Jimmie Rodgers tune
from 1930, Mule Skinner Blues,
which became her first top 10 single.
There are songs like The Mule Skinner Blues
that are just classics - from Jimmie Rodgers
and his version of it, to Bill Monroe's to Rose Maddox.
There are songs like The Mule Skinner Blues
that go all the way back, somebody hears that and, "Daddy loved that",
"Grandpa loved that," and they've passed that song down.
It's a little like an heirloom.
You know, something that they can hold in the family.
They're like keepsakes.
But Wagoner also encouraged Parton to record more and more of the songs
she had written herself, starting with Joshua -
which became her first number one country hit -
and then Coat Of Many Colors and Jolene.
# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
# I'm begging of you Please don't take my man
# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
# Please don't take him just because you can
# Your beauty is beyond compare
# With flaming locks of auburn hair
# With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green
# Your smile is like a breath of spring
# Your voice is soft like summer rain... #
You know what that feeling is like -
"That girl's prettier. Is she going to take him away?"
"She could take him away. You know, is he going to leave?"
# He talks about you in his sleep And there's nothing I can do to keep
# From crying when he calls your name
# Jolene... #
She's not cursing her out, she's not yelling at her, she's not being...
..you know, feisty and Catwoman,
she's just saying, "Please don't take my man."
I mean, there's something about that line in Jolene -
"Please don't take him just because you can."
That is so heart-wrenching.
# Jolene, Jolene
# Please don't take him even though you can... #
In the early 1970s, Parton had five number one country solo hits,
all of them self-written.
Wagoner had none.
Insiders could see tensions building.
Dolly got smart.
I guess she came smart.
I think Dolly...
..learned that she was not going to go any further with her career
as long as she was in Porter's shadow.
Well, I think Porter had a real hard time after other people
started recording my songs and I was writing
and I was getting to be pretty popular.
And it WAS his show. I wasn't trying to hog it,
but I just kind of carved out a little, you know, place for myself.
But it was a love-hate relationship. We fought like cats and dogs.
We were just both very passionate people.
There was no way that I wasn't going to do what I was going to do
and no way I was going to not do what he thought I was going to do.
"Porter dreamed of me staying with his show forever," Parton said,
"and I dreamed of having my own show.
"I wrote more and more songs and dreamed bigger and bigger dreams."
When I was trying to leave the show,
I had told Porter I would stay five years.
It had been five - then it was six, then it was seven.
He was just having a real hard time
cos it was going to mess up his show.
We were very bound and tied together in so many emotional ways,
and he just would not hear it.
And so he was going to sue me, he was going to do this,
he was going to do that. And so I went home,
I thought, "He's not going to listen to me
"cos I've said it over and over," and so I thought,
"Do what you do best. Just write a song."
So I wrote this song, took it back in the next day and I said,
"Porter, sit down. I got something I have to sing to you."
So I sang it.
And he was sitting at his desk and he was crying.
He said, "That's the best thing you've ever wrote.
"OK, you can go, but only if I can produce that record."
And he did - and the rest is history.
Released a few months after she left,
it would go on to become Dolly Parton's best-selling song.
# If I should stay
# I would only be in your way
# So I'll go
# But I know
# I'll think of you each step of the way
# And I
# Will always love you
# I will always love you... #
That song, it was an anthem to Porter Wagoner.
She wrote it, I think, cos he had done so much for her but she felt
if she didn't leave him, she would just remain Porter's girl singer.
# But I
# Will always love you
# I... #
Writing a beautiful song from the most simple words.
"I will always love you, I will always love you,
"I will always love you," when she sings it over and over,
it's just something that any of us can really do.
And I wish you joy.
She was able, like Hank Williams, to take the most basic one-liners -
"I will always love you" - and turn it into a masterpiece.
# I wish you love
# And I
# Will always love you
# I will always love you
# I will always love
# You. #
APPLAUSE
MUSIC: Behind Closed Doors by Charlie Rich
By this time, the smooth Nashville sound
had evolved into something even smoother.
# My baby makes me proud... #
People called it "countrypolitan" -
and producers hoped it would help their artists cross over
to the lucrative pop market.
# Cos people like to talk... #
Billy Sherrill was music city's most reliable countrypolitan hit maker.
He helped Charlie Rich, a journeyman rhythm-and-blues singer,
reinvent himself as an easy listening country pop star.
And when he found Tanya Tucker,
a precocious 13-year-old with a big voice,
he gave her songs with adult themes that raised eyebrows
among country music's more conservative fans
and created dozens of hit records.
# And she makes me glad... #
Up and down Music Row, other producers -
including Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley -
steered even farther away from country's twang.
MUSIC: If You Love Me, Let Me Know by Olivia Newton-John
But the bridge to crossover success went both ways.
# You came when I was happy In your sunshine... #
Australia's Olivia Newton-John got her career launched
when her early pop songs were promoted to country radio stations.
In 1974, she was named the Country Music Association's
Female Vocalist of the Year, beating out Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn.
Country traditionalists were surprised and angry.
# If you love me, let me know... #
It shocked me that the music was getting away from us.
We were losing our identity,
so to speak, I guess.
The furore was even greater at the next year's award show,
when CMA's top honour, Country Music Entertainer of the Year,
went to a folk-pop singer who was watching
from the other side of the world.
The winner... DRUM ROLL
LAUGHTER
..my friend, Mr John Denver!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Wow!
Things were changing - and not everybody agreed with it.
I think a lot of people saw it as that boundaries were being
broadened and expanded upon, and other people saw it as
that country music is losing its soul.
While older, traditional artists engaged in a tug-of-war
with the countrypolitans,
Nashville was also attracting a new wave of young singer-songwriters
who had their own ideas about the direction of country music.
# I've been a fool
# Forgivin' you each time that you've done me wrong
# I've been a long time leavin'
# But it'll be a long time gone... #
He sang as good as Hank Williams and he was really a good songwriter.
His voice was what tore me up, though.
He just... He just had...
I don't know, just like the way Hank Williams tore me up.
He's...
# I've been a long time leavin'... #
He could sing songs that I can't.
# Hello, high line Hello, highway
# Here come a big old semi my way
# Stick up my thumb, hear the truck come
# Trees goin' by, lookin' like a fly
# Open the big legs on my Levi's... #
Born in Littlefield, Texas during the Dust Bowl in 1937,
Waylon Jennings's earliest childhood memory was of his father
connecting the family's radio to the pick-up truck's battery
so they could listen to the Carter Family out of Del Rio's
border blaster station to the Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville.
"In my house," he recalled, "it was the Bible on the table,
"the flag on the walls
"and Bill Monroe's picture beside it."
His mother cried every time Roy Acuff sang Wreck On The Highway.
# I stick up my thumb Hear the truck come
# Trees goin' by Lookin' like a fly... #
As a teenager,
Jennings was especially drawn to Hank Williams and honky-tonk music
and started performing it in local bars.
Working as a disc jockey at a small radio station,
he also soaked up other types of music - rhythm-and-blues,
and then rockabilly and rock-and-roll.
By the early 1960s, Jennings was in Arizona, packing in huge crowds
and clearing 1,500 a week at a nightspot called JD's in Scottsdale.
# Come on, sugar... #
Country star Bobby Bare heard him there
and convinced Chet Atkins at RCA to invite him to Nashville.
Before he agreed to leave his well-paying steady gig in Arizona,
Jennings asked fellow Texan Willie Nelson for his advice.
"Stay away from Nashville," Nelson told him.
"They'll just break your heart."
# Candy, candy, candy
# I've got a sweet, sweet piece for you... #
He went anyway.
But Atkins had trouble trying to mould Jennings into a country star.
# Don't look for me I must go
# Don't waste your time I must go
# Don't look for me
# Don't waste your time... #
Their first album together was Folk-Country.
Their second was filled with the smoothed-out Nashville sound
of the time.
A third included a ballad by the Beatles.
And on another, Jennings crooned the pop hit MacArthur Park.
None of it sounded like Waylon's performances back in Arizona.
# I don't care if the sun don't shine
# I don't care if the bells don't chime... #
"They were good, smooth records," he said,
"but I was rougher than a goddamn corncob.
"All the damn sand I swallowed in Texas is in my singing."
# Just as long as you love me... #
All Waylon wanted was for his music that he was doing live,
on the stage, and driving the people crazy
to sound exactly like that on the record - and it didn't.
It didn't.
Waylon was, you know, a real artist.
He knew what he wanted and he was running into the same things
that a lot of us were running in there.
And he decided he wanted to do it his own way,
which was basically take his band in the studio,
which was not that easy to do back in those days.
# So, darlin', let it ring... #
"I was the black sheep of Nashville," Jennings recalled.
"They thought I was a troublemaker."
# Just as long as you love me... #
Fuelled by amphetamines and cocaine, he simply didn't sleep
and spent ceaseless hours playing pinball at a local Burger Boy.
# Just as long as you love me. #
MUSIC: Waymore's Blues By Waylon Jennings
In 1972, Jennings changed managers and negotiated a new contract
with RCA that broke all the prevailing Nashville rules.
He would have his own production company to oversee his recordings,
choose his own songs,
use his own band in the studio.
# Well, I woke up this morning It was drizzling rain
# Around the curve come a passenger train
# Heard somebody yodelling and a hobo moan
# Jimmy, he's dead He's been a long time gone.
# Been a long time gone... #
Jennings quickly broke another rule which required RCA albums
to be recorded with RCA engineers, in RCA studios.
Instead, he began using an independent studio
owned by his friend Tompall Glaser, where he could have sessions
as long as he wanted, at any time of the day or night.
# If you want to get to heaven Gotta D-I-E
# You gotta put on your coat and T-I-E... #
Jennings and his friends called their new studio hang-out
Hillbilly Central.
# Like a D-O-G Like a D-O-G... #
I would go to work and go into my office,
and there would be people asleep in my office.
Had been asleep in there all night long.
Just stoned out of their mind -
one of them asleep with their head on my typewriter
and the other one asleep over there in the chair, and I chased them out.
Told them they better not come up there no more when I wasn't there,
but they came back - of course they did.
Jennings let his hair grow longer and shaggier,
added a beard and moustache,
gave up shiny suits completely - in favour of blue jeans
and leather vests - and he started making the music he wanted to make.
Jennings brought his band into Hillbilly Central, where he and
Clement began recording an album called Dreaming My Dreams.
It was an eclectic collection of songs,
paying homage to country music legends
like Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills,
Roger Miller and especially Hank Williams.
Jennings chose to open his album with a song
he had written on the back of an envelope on the way to the studio.
It summarised his Nashville experience -
Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?
# Lord, it's the same old tune, fiddle and guitar, where do we...
Are you sure this is the way it is going to work? I don't think so.
Same old song, fiddle and guitar, where do we take it from here?
Rhinestone suits and big shiny cars, it's been that way for years,
says it all right there. This has got to change.
# We need to change...
And why does it have to change?
Because it doesn't speak to the people who are listening
to our music.
It was a call to arms kind of, you know.
# Son, you've finally got it made
# Old Hank made it here, we're all sure that you will
# But I don't think Hank done it this way, no
# I don't think Hank done it this way... #
Take it...
Dreaming My Dreams became a huge hit.
Now, other country artists were demanding contracts like Waylon's
and more and more people were showing up at Hillbilly Central.
First of all, the building didn't have windows
and everybody up in that music group wanted to come in that
building to see what is going on there.
Waylon would come to town, he would be there.
Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jewboys practically lived there.
They would be walking up and down the halls.
The hip people of Nashville, Tennessee hung out at that building.
People thought, "They've got something going on in there,
"they ain't got no windows."
# ..Singing my songs and one of his now and then
# But I don't think Hank done it this way, no
# I think he did like he wanted to... #
Yeah.
Back in 1968, Parsons had come to Nashville
and recorded the album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo with the Byrds.
# ..in South Carolina... #
He was passionate about real country music,
the real washed-in-the-blood stuff.
But he was also a child of the '60s,
rock and roll was also a passion of his.
He kind of had one foot in both worlds.
He really believed that you could bring the two together.
In California, he and Chris Hillman put together a new band,
the Flying Burrito Brothers.
# Unhappiness has been her close companion
# Her world is full of jealousy and doubt
# It gets her off to see a person crying
# She's just the kind that you can't do without... #
The music that was going on in California, in Southern California,
it was the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers.
In Northern California, the Grateful Dead had a spin-off band,
the New Riders of the Purple Sage.
It was Commander Cody.
There was this incredible crossing of people
very interested in the roots of country music and folk music
and rock and roll and how it all fit together.
As a self-appointed apostle of the fusion he called
"Cosmic American Music",
Parsons became friends with the Rolling Stones
and helped influence the creation of their song, Wild Horses.
Parsons' next prospect for conversion
to country music was Emmylou Harris.
Except for Johnny Cash, I couldn't be fooled with country music.
Folk music was what really spoke to me.
# Calliope calling, children are falling
# In line to ride on the merry-go-round
# People are passing
# Children are laughing
# They want to ride on the merry-go-round
# Doesn't matter when you came, every ride is just the same
# Do not worry how it's done
# There is room for everyone. #
Born in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Virginia,
Harris dropped out of college, got married, had a baby, then a divorce.
She had bounced around the East Coast folk scene for several years
when one of the Burrito Brothers heard her
performing at a small club
in suburban Washington DC and told Parsons about her remarkable voice.
# Ooooh. #
APPLAUSE
# Love hurts
# Love scars... #
A year later, as Parsons prepared to record his first solo album,
he sent Harris a plane ticket for Los Angeles
and they began rehearsals, which included his tutorials
on the music he loved, like melodies written by
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, or the tight harmonies of the influential
gospel and country duo The Louvin Brothers.
# ..take a lot of pain, love is like... #
It was a very intense musical learning experience for me.
# ..holds a lot of rain
# Love hurts... #
I had no idea who the Louvin Brothers were.
They had these wonderful harmonies.
There is such a tension in the voices that you feel
like you're starting to vibrate.
I became a big fan of the Louvin Brothers
and started trying to track down their records.
Harris's own exquisitely tender harmonies added
the special element Parsons had been searching for
and they went on tour to promote the result.
# ..I know a thing or two... #
I had finally discovered who I was as a singer from singing
with him and becoming this huge country music convert.
I finally felt I had found where I was supposed to be as a singer.
I felt like I was a singer,
who was coming through the country music door.
# I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham... #
The simplicity of country music is
one of the most important things about it.
It's about the story and the melody and the sound and the voice
and the sincerity of it.
When they hear her voice,
they feel like they've been touched by an angel...
# I can see your face
# If I thought I could see
# I could see your face. #
..that just somehow gets past everything
and winds up somewhere in your heart
and it feels good in there.
In 1975, Harris came out with two solo albums.
# If I could only win your love... #
She filled them with songs drawn from the lessons in country music
that Parsons had provided -
Merle Haggard's Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down,
Dolly Parton's Coat Of Many Colors,
George Jones's One Of These Days,
Hank Williams's Jambalaya and others.
# I'd give my all to make it live
# You'll never know how much I'd give
# If I could only win your love... #
Released as a single, her version of an old Louvin Brothers song, If
I Could Only Win Your Love, went to number four on the country charts.
Then her renditions of Buck Owens's Together Again
and Patsy Cline's Sweet Dreams both reached number one.
# If I could only win your love... #
One reviewer, noting her background in folk music
and that she was based in Los Angeles, nevertheless declared
that her music was more country than Nashville.
When I became a convert to country music, there's no other word
for it, I became obnoxious,
trying to get people to listen to everything.
She surrounded herself with some of the leading rock instrumentalists
on the West Coast.
They were called The Hot Band.
# Made me put my money in the bank... #
The one she became closest to was Rodney Crowell. After hearing some
of his songs, Harris had invited him to California to work on her albums.
Rodney was kind of like my kid brother.
We were the same kind of... sort of quasi-hippie kids.
But we had totally different upbringings.
He grew up with country music.
# Party just started
# Lord, I'm drunk on Bluebird wine... #
He was kind of my partner in this wonderful crime of making
country music outside the lines,
but with total respect for the tradition of country music.
So we just took traditional country music and southern rock and roll
and rockabilly and just played it, you know,
and just let have its voice and it was good fun.
# Well, the jambalaya and crawfish pie and file gumbo
# Cos tonight I'm going to see my machez amio... #
With The Hot Band, Harris played in every type of venue,
from the Palomino Club in North Hollywood
to Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin.
They were the opening act for folk and pop star James Taylor,
as well as Merle Haggard
and for the 60,000 fans who came to hear Elton John at Dodger Stadium.
# ..The place is buzzin'... #
Emmylou Harris was a lone voice.
Emmylou Lou didn't explode onto the scene, she bloomed.
And she will forever be that rose that bloomed
into our collective consciousness and our musical consciousness.
During a whirlwind visit to Nashville,
she was asked to judge a talent contest at the Exit/In,
then performed at the 50th anniversary show
of the Grand Ole Opry.
She provided vocal backup on a Guy Clark album and recorded
Townes van Zandt's song - Pancho And Lefty.
# ..And jambalaya, crawfish pie and file gumbo... #
Her label wanted her to cross over to more mainstream music,
instead she came out with two albums tinged with bluegrass,
featuring Ricky Skaggs.
Rolling Stone magazine hailed her music as country without corn.
Everyone seemed to love Emmylou Harris.
# ..On the bayou
# Yee-hee! #
Thank you, the hot band, thank you.
I tell you, this sure beats the Red Fox Inn in Bethesda, Maryland.
# I went down to the river to watch the fish swim by... #
By the mid-1970s, Hank Williams had been dead
for nearly a quarter century.
But his shadow still loomed over any
country musician dreaming of success.
# Doggone river was dry... #
No-one felt it more keenly than his only son,
Hank Williams Jr.
Just three-and-a-half years old when his dad died,
Hank Jr. had few actual memories of his famous father
beyond listening on the radio to hear him say good night to Bocephus,
Hank Sr.'s affectionate nickname for his little boy.
But Audrey Williams was determined that he would be the vehicle
to keep her former husband's memory alive,
and provide her a chance to be in the spotlight in ways
she hadn't been during Hank Sr.'s short career.
When I was eight years old
and I went out and did the very first show,
I thought, "Oh, my gosh."
You know, this is an eight-year-old boy,
the son of a godlike figure.
So, an eight-year-old boy's out there, and you've got people
that are crying, and people that are laughing, and, er...
"What's going on here? Does it sound that bad?"
It's quite an effect on a little guy.
Yeah.
Williams made his Grand Ole Opry debut at age 11,
singing the same song his father had at his own debut,
Lovesick Blues.
By the time Hank Jr. was 14,
his mother had negotiated a contract for him
to record an album of Hank Sr.'s songs.
# I got a hot-rod Ford and a two-dollar bill
# I know a spot right over the hill
# There's soda pop and the dance for free
# So if you want to have fun come along with me, sayin'
# Hey, good lookin'
# Whatcha got cookin'?
# How's about cookin' something up?
# How's about cookin' something up with me? #
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
To promote the album, Audrey arranged a tour
that opened in Canton, Ohio on New Year's Day 1964,
the same place his father was headed
when he died in the back seat of his car.
At a promotion in Nashville, Audrey brought the car itself.
My dad was dealing with his dad's shadow from day one.
Not only from fans and friends, but from his own mom.
She was right there with other people, going,
"You need to sing your daddy's songs."
You know - "You need to write like your daddy did."
It was very hard for him.
"Loosen up a bit," Johnny Cash urged Audrey.
"Let him be Hank Williams Jr. A while."
She didn't pay any attention.
As soon as he turned 18 and became entitled to his inheritance,
and legally able to make his own decisions,
Williams dropped his mother as his manager
and set out to make his own way in the music world.
I said, "I'm done with this, I'm doing my own."
Because there's one simple reason -
Daddy don't need me to promote him.
How dumb can you be? He does not need me to promote him.
What a joke!
That's a joke, yeah.
I said, "I think I better start writing my own,
"and doing my own style of stuff."
He told me his first few shows of his own music, you know,
he would literally, he's getting boos from the crowd,
he said 50% of them, sometimes 80%, would be gone.
There would be a few people left sitting there.
They'd throw stuff at him.
He'd say, "If you all don't mind, I'm going to
"sing a song of mine for you tonight."
And just gone, they don't care about it, you know.
Which, just on a basic, you know, human being nice to people level,
is so shocking to me that people would just turn away
and walk out - but they didn't want to hear it,
they wanted to hear Cold Cold Heart and I Saw The Light and...
So, he really, really struggled for years.
By 1974, he had entered what he called
an "endless nightmare of bars and shows,
"of Jim Beam and multicoloured pills".
"I'd never realised how deeply ingrained my daddy's myth
"really was," he recalled.
"At 25 years old, I was more like him
"than I ever figured I'd be - drunk, on dope, divorced."
Convinced he was on the same trajectory as his father,
he attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of painkillers.
# I'm going to take a freight train
# Down at the station, Lord... #
A doctor advised him to leave Nashville
and rethink his life, or he would certainly not even make it to 29.
# The highest mountain... #
He moved to Alabama, and lived in a small cabin.
# Can't you see (can't you see)
# Oh, can't you see (can't you see)
# What that woman... #
Hank reached a point where he said, "I am me.
"My name is Hank Williams, but I am me,
"and I've got things I want to do, and I want to say,
"so I am going to pursue that."
And just did a complete turn.
He took quite a chance when he did that.
In 1975, Williams went into a studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,
to record a new album, Hank Williams Jr. And Friends.
He was attracted to what was called Southern rock,
music by groups like the Allman Bros, Lynyrd Skynyrd,
The Marshall Tucker Band and his friend Charlie Daniels.
We were country, but not what was accepted by the country music
establishment at the time, let's say.
Every other music was changing and moving and cooking,
and you know, it was time for country to do that, too.
When the sessions ended, Williams took off for Montana to
relax before releasing his album and going on tour.
# I am going to quit singing all these sad songs
# Cos I... #
He was happy with his new record, which included Living Proof,
a song that mentioned the early death of his father and lamented,
"I don't want to be a legend, I just want to be a man."
# When I sang them old songs of Daddy's
# Seems like every one comes true
# Lord, please help me do I have to be
# The living proof? #
Hiking along a ridge near the Idaho border, he accidentally slipped
and tumbled nearly 500 feet down the rocky slope.
By some miracle, he survived,
though every bone in his face had been broken.
One eye was permanently damaged.
His nose was torn off,
and parts of his brain were exposed through a deep gash in his forehead.
Three surgeons worked 7.5 hours trying to put him back together.
The news quickly reached Nashville and his godparents,
Johnny Cash and June Carter, who raced to be with him.
John sat down at the side of the bed and...
..er, it was...
..er...
..something I really needed at that time.
There wasn't any better medicine than having him there...
..with me.
Over the next 16 months, and after nine surgeries,
Williams' face was reconstructed.
When his album was finally released, another member of his country
music family, Waylon Jennings, stepped in to help him promote it.
It was a risk, you know,
my dad wasn't huge at the time but Waylon looked at him and
believed in him and believed in his songs, not him covering his daddy's
songs, and gave him really his
first break in music, in On The Road.
There was nobody - nobody - in this business,
that was more special to me than Waylon Jennings.
He believed in me.
When he made it to age 29, Williams released Family Tradition.
# These country music singers... #
It began an uninterrupted string through the 1980s
and early 1990s of 21 gold records.
# Disowned a few others and me
# I guess it's because
# I kind of changed my direction
# Lord, I guess I went and broke their family tradition
# Get on me, wanna know, Hank, why do you drink?
# Hank, why do you roll smoke?
# Why must you live out the songs that you wrote?
# Over and over
# Everybody made my prediction
# So, if I get stoned and sing all night long
# It's an old family tradition... #
The Williams family tradition is to follow our own passion.
Find your own way, write what you know and what inspires you.
I'll never forget a security guard saying, "Your dad's shows were
"wilder than our Guns N' Roses and Metallica in the '80s," you know?
"More fights and drinking and whisky."
But then dad would do his acoustic set, and that's when he'd go,
"He does have Hank's blood in him.
"He can rip your heart out
"with songs like Old Habits and Blues Man."
# And old family tradition. #
So, he's known for his party songs, but he still had that gene to just,
you know, make you stop and listen and really relate to his music.
# Why must you live out songs that you wrote?
# If I'm down in a honky-tonk
# Some slick's trying to give me some friction
# Leave me alone, I'm singing all night long
# It's an old Williams tradition. #
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
# Here you come again
# Just what I've begun to get myself together
# You waltz right in the door
# Just like you've done before
# And wrap my heart round your little finger
# Here you come again... #
She's crossed all boundaries.
Dolly's not country, Dolly's not rock, Dolly's not pop.
Dolly's everything.
And everybody from every genre loves her.
# All you've got to do is smile and smile
# And there go all my defences... #
She didn't want to be just Nashville.
Nashville was great to her, and she reveres it.
But Dolly wanted to be everywhere.
And that's what she did.
# Looking better that than a body has a right to
# And shaking me up so...
Frustrated with the trajectory of her solo career,
Dolly Parton hired a new management team in Los Angeles,
and travelled there to record a new album.
"I'm not leaving country music," she told reporters.
"I'm taking it with me."
# All you've got to do
# Is smile and smile... #
I was trying to expand my horizons.
I wanted more.
I just felt like I could have a broader audience.
But when I first got LA management, everybody said I was making
a mistake leaving Porter's show, Porter told me that as well.
Everybody was saying I was betraying country.
How could I not be country?
I'm a country girl, at heart, in my voice, in my feelings,
in my attitude.
Parton's number one country singles had
sold about 60,000 copies.
Here You Come Again, her first crossover success, sold a million.
Then, the album it came from did the same, and went platinum.
All across the country, people wanted to learn about the petite
and shapely blonde with the big hair.
With her refreshing sense of humour, especially about herself,
Dolly never disappointed them.
"It cost a lot of money," she said,
"to look this cheap."
In New York, she gave a free concert at City Hall Plaza,
and mayor Ed Koch presented her with the keys to the city.
Later, she was the guest of honour at a party at the famous Studio 54.
"Although I look like a drag queen's Christmas tree on the outside,"
Parton said, "I am at heart a simple country girl."
This is a country girl's idea of glamour?
I wanted to have beautiful clothes,
I wanted to, you know, to wear make-up, I'd pattern my look after
the town trollop in our hometown, because I thought she was beautiful.
Parton was also one of the savviest artists in the business.
She had her own publishing company,
marketed a successful line of Dolly dolls, and negotiated a three-year
deal with a Las Vegas hotel, said to be worth from 6-9 million.
I've never had a problem being a woman, that's worked for me,
more than its worked against me.
I just always believed that I was strong in myself
and strong in my work.
I do know, and I have seen, that it can be a hindrance,
but I would always just go in, just saying, "I think I've got something
"to offer, and I think we can both make a lot of money from it."
And usually, by the time the deal was done,
I'd have the money and gone.
She's my idol in many ways.
But the fact that she is such an unbelievable songwriter,
at the core of all that superstardom and, you know,
fancy show stuff appearance,
is probably the most amazing thing about her, to me.
In 1980, she achieved an entirely new level of national stardom
when she joined Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin
in the hit Hollywood movie 9 To 5.
Let's just sit down and ...
Look, I've got a gun out there in my purse.
And up to now, I've been forgiving and forgetting
because of the way I was brought up, but I'll tell you one thing,
if you ever say another word about me
or make another indecent proposal, I'm going to get that gun of mine
and I'm going to change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.
Don't think I can't do it.
# It's all takin' and no givin'... #
Thanks to her songwriting talent, her unmistakable voice,
her bigger than life persona and her tireless drive,
Dolly Parton had become the most famous woman in country music.
"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes,
"because I know I'm not dumb," she said.
"And I'm not blonde, either."
# Crazy if you let it
# 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'... #
# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
# I'm begging of you, please don't take my man
# I had to have this talk with you, my happiness depends on you
# And whatever you decide to do, Jolene... #