c.2026, St. Martin\u2019s Press
\n$30.00
\n304 pages<\/p>\n
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
\nThe Truth Contributor<\/p>\n
Not too bright.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what people once thought about you. Your language didn\u2019t conform, you had your own sense of style and you were ignorant about modern things and places and foods. But you were no dummy. You were different, and you had a secret: as in the new biography, Ain\u2019t Nobody\u2019s Fool: The Life and Times of Dolly Parton<\/em> by Martha Ackmann,<\/strong> you knew exactly where you were going.<\/p>\n When Avie Lee Owens and Lee Parton first married, they had the very basics: \u201ctwo knives, two forks, two spoons, a skillet, a butcher knife, and an old iron kettle.\u201d He was 17; she was 15. Babies came quick. The fourth one was named Dolly, after two great-aunts.<\/p>\n Almost from the time she could walk, Dolly sang. Before she was old enough to attend school, she wrote poetry, and she\u2019d begun to notice rhythms and beats she could make with her fingers. As a schoolchild, she created her own musical instruments out of scraps, and she was eager to perform whenever anyone asked her \u2013 and they asked often, because Dolly Parton was a nice girl, and her sense of humor conveyed a warmth that drew people in.<\/p>\n Growing up in the Tennessee mountains, Parton was independent, shunning marriage and child-raising, instead focusing on a dream of being a star. By the time she was in high school, she\u2019d had a regular gig on local television but she recognized that there were few opportunities for fame in the mountains, so she left for Nashville the day after high school graduation, with the snickers of naysayers ringing in her ears.<\/p>\n She stayed with an aunt and uncle there, and she beat the streets, dined on grocery store samples to get by and missed her family and friends. And they worried about her, but they knew nothing would derail her plans. They knew Dolly would be fine.<\/p>\n As a friend said, \u201c\u2019She had her head on pretty good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Chances are that if you\u2019ve listened to music any time in the last 60 years, you\u2019ve heard Dolly Parton through her words or her music or both. Now you need to learn more about her, and Ain\u2019t Nobody\u2019s Fool<\/em> is where to do it.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a biography that grabs you on the first page with the tiniest bit of family tree, but not so much that you get bored with it. Author Martha Ackmann writes about Dolly Parton\u2019s early life, putting hardships and experiences in context, both personally and historically. There are name-drops, but not overly so, as Ackmann takes you through Parton\u2019s career, her heartbreaks, her marriage and her years with Porter Wagoner, in detail but not dramatically embellished or outrageously told. It\u2019s a biography that\u2019s just right, <\/em>sourced well and written with a fresh take that, like its subject, tells a good story.<\/p>\n Fans, of course, will want this highly-researched book but music lovers of any age or type will eat it up. That means you, so use up that Christmas gift certificate. Ain\u2019t Nobody\u2019s Fool<\/em> just shines.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" c.2026, St. Martin\u2019s Press $30.00 304 pages By Terri Schlichenmeyer The Truth Contributor Not too bright. That\u2019s what people once thought about you. Your language didn\u2019t conform, you had your own sense of style and you were ignorant about modern things and places and foods. But you were no dummy. You were different, and you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[20],"class_list":["post-20631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book_review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20633,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20631\/revisions\/20633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20631"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=20631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}