MINNEAPOLIS -- I outed Dolly Parton.

Back in 2004, when the country legend came to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, I called her out in my review for lipsyncing.

It seemed unfathomable that this giant of the music world with that sweet, flutter-like-a-butterfly mountain-girl voice was faking it in concert on hits like “I Will Always Love You” and “Islands in the Stream.”

Gosh darn if Dolly didn’t own up to it.

My review drew the attention of the National Enquirer, that nosiest of supermarket tabloids, that quoted my piece and even got Dolly to admit in an interview that some of her vocals were as much of an illusion as her hair.

Dolly, who died Tuesday in Nashville at age 80, may have looked unreal, but she was about as real as it gets.

Beneath the wigs, the makeup and the garish outfits was a woman who was supremely talented, authentic, altruistic, independent, sharp as a pitchfork and disarmingly quick witted.

The first time I interviewed Parton was at the O’Shaughnessy auditorium at what was then St. Catherine College in 1977. Her tiny dressing room was cramped, so I sat on the floor.

With a gleam in her eye and a smile as wide as a double-wide trailer, she said, “I know what you’re looking at.”

No, I wasn’t admiring her, um, famous physique but rather the rhinestone hand chain that stretched from her long red finger nail up her wrist. I’d never seen one before.

Honest.

In 1987, I — along with other media members from around the world — spent three days with Dolly, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris in Hollywood as they promoted their landmark “Trio” album.

“Dolly provided the real ring of authenticity for this project,” said Ronstadt, who had performed everything from opera to new-wave rock. “We admire it [the mountain music] and want to emulate it, so she was our model for that.”

The three days of “Trio” hype culminated with an appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

After the trio sang a tune, they sat down, with Dolly closest to Carson.

Carson: “Were there any questions [during the media blitz] that got under your skin?”

Dolly: “People are always asking what Johnny Carson is really like.”

Carson: “Why don’t you find out sometime?”

Dolly: “Well, you get around. I might be next.”

The country bumpkin was the smartest one in the room. An exceptional songwriter of such classics as “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colors” and a skillful picker even with long fingernails, she was also a spirited actress, a shrewd business woman and a charitable tsunami. Since 1995, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has sent more than 300 million free books to kids around the world.

Dolly was an accidental feminist after leaving her early duet partner Porter Wagoner in 1974 and taking control of all aspects of her career from owning recording masters to building Dollywood theme park.

In 2008, Dolly, after decades on major labels, went independent with the aptly titled “Backwoods Barbie” project.

Assisted by a non-Nashville crew including her St. Paul-reared manager Danny Nozell and Minneapolis-launched graphic designer Kii Arens, Dolly promoted her new project the old-fashioned way, calling radio stations and newspaper reporters because everyone wants to talk to world famous Dolly Parton.

I asked her: “Does your celebrity get in the way of your new songs?”

“I think it might to some degree — just like my look has always hindered me to some degree, as to whether people are taking me as serious as a songwriter and entertainer. But over the years they’ve seen beyond that.

“If I’m willing to go to these lengths, it’s not about making money. It never was to me. It was more about the art and this is my gift, and I have to do everything that God meant for me to do. And I’ll never stop even if they’re buying it or playing it or not. I can’t help it. It’s my addiction.”

And her legacy.

©2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit at startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.