Stella Parton’s life has always been rich in music and family. From an impoverished-but-special childhood alongside her 11 siblings (including older sister Dolly Parton) in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, Parton’s world has revolved around the power of family, love and music. I caught up with Stella Parton for my podcast Whine At 9 to talk about her fascinating life journey and latest album Mountain Songbird: A Sister’s Tribute.
These days it seems like just about everything is genetic, so it’s not surprising to find more than one great singer in a family. The Parton family is no exception. “It’s a rockier road,” says the younger Parton about choosing a career similar to a famous sibling, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. The singer/songwriter, author, and inspirational speaker is well aware of the comparisons of others. “I kind of have always lived between that luxury and curse of being her little sister, but I’m comfortable in that boat let’s say.”
“I think you have to see it [sibling success] as a family legacy and to be honored by the person that has brought us to the party and to be supportive of that person as much as possible,”says Parton, who has had plenty of award-winning milestones too. How perfect that Stella Parton’s latest album Mountain Songbird: A Sister’s Tribute is a celebration of her sister’s music—the music that she embraces and loves. The touching title track, is about her family’s feelings when older sister Dolly left home.
Explains Parton, who served as a consultant for the hit TV movie (now on DVD) Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors in which she portrayed Corla Bass, “I’ve always loved my sister’s writing. She’s always been one of my very favorite songwriters. And she’s so prolific. And over the years, randomly, I’ve cut different songs that I just loved of hers and put on different albums. But I’ve been working on this project for about 10 years trying to put together what I felt like were the songs that resonated with me the most—which are her story songs. She’s written 3,000 songs, so it was a daunting task to try to choose 10 or 11 songs to just do an album. But I feel like I’ve picked the ones that people would want to hear and that I wanted to sing. And I’ve tried to do them as pure and simple as I would like to hear them when she would write them just in the basement with her guitar back in the ’70s some of these songs are from—like ‘Down from Dover,’ and ‘Jolene,’ and ‘Coat of Many Colors,’ and ‘I Will Always Love You.’ And I just tried to sing with the harmonies that I grew up singing around her.”
Listen to Stella Parton’s Mountain Songbird.
Parton reflects on her decision to take on the task of tackling an album of her sister’s songs. For her, it wasn’t about topping original performances, it was about creating a project that tapped into the roots of the music. “I had so much fun doing it, because so many of her songs are like epic novels—they’re movie vignettes…they just have so much visual power to them…I just did them as if I was sitting in the living room with her, singing harmony around her with a couple of my sisters…I just tried to keep them as organic as possible because to me, that’s what she is as a writer. That’s the purest form of her art…her songwriting.” It’s no surprise that Dolly Parton is a fan of her sister’s work.
The track “More Power to Ya,” co-written and sung by the two Parton sisters, is a women’s anthem that showcases their musical connection. My favorite fact about the song? Stella and Dolly wrote it during a sleepover. Because that’s what great musical sisters do.
Listen to Nancy’s interview with Stella Parton on iTunes and follow the podcast on Facebook.
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