DOLLY PARTON has been awarded TWO Guinness World Records. And because she’s Dolly and is a national treasure, the Guinness people made the trip to Nashville for a personal presentation. Let’s start with the two World Records. One is for the “Most Hits On a U.S. Hot Country Songs Chart by a Female Artist.” She accomplished that by having a total of 107 hits. (So far.) The other is the “Most Decades with a Top 20 Hit on the ‘Billboard’ Hot Country Songs Chart”. That spans six consecutive decades . . . starting in 1967 with a song called “Something Fishy”, to last year’s version of “Jolene” with Pentatonix. She answered a few questions too. They asked her to pick a favorite from all of her hits. She named two. She loves “Coat of Many Colors” because it’s about her family and is very personal. But as a singer and songwriter, that favorite is “I Will Always Love You”, which Dolly released in 1974 and Whitney Houston covered in 1992. They asked how her music has evolved over the years, and that’s a good question because it’s tough for artists to stay relevant in two different decades, let alone six.
She said, quote, “I’ve always written from my heart. I try not to dwell on trying to be commercial. Usually when an idea hits me it comes from my heart, but I still try to be alert and to be aware and try to be as up-to-date as I can be. When you’re as successful as Dolly, everyone wants to know if there’s a secret. She said it’s all about the work. Quote, “You’re not going to do it without hard work. You certainly have to have the talent [and] a lot of people helping you out.”I’ve been blessed with good people through the years. [But] I’ve still had to be there on the spot. I’m the one up in the wee hours coming up with what I need to do next to get things done. I don’t think anybody comes to great success without working for it.” And her advice to new artists is, quote, “Be true to yourself. You can’t expect someone else to do it for you. Nobody else can live your dream. You have to take the initiative and you have to really see it through in order to make it happen.”