Around 10:53 am on Tuesday, August 25, news broke that Dolly Parton, the Queen of Country, died in Nashville at 80. I raced to Scarecrow Video and scrambled upstairs to the Musicals section to grab a copy of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas before it was gone. On the television above the register, Rhinestone, the 1984 romcom in which Parton stars opposite Sylvester Stallone, was on. Her angelic cloud of platinum curls glittered in a dark bar on screen.
I wasn’t the only one in a rush for the comfort of Parton music and movies. All day, frenzied fans were renting videos, depleting the stocks of record stores across the city, and requesting her songs on the radio.
At the end of the day, Scarecrow Video says they rented 11 Dolly Parton films, including every copy of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and 9 to 5. Parton didn’t star in many films—just six major feature films and a handful of made-for-TV movies—and Scarecrow rarely stocks more than two copies of a given title. Scarecrow assembled an “RIP Dolly Parton” section in the store, which will remain up for several weeks.
On Capitol Hill, Spin Cycle Records’ stock of five Parton records—copies of Jolene, the 9 to 5 soundtrack, and one copy of A Holly Dolly Christmas—sold out before noon, and 10 more people had come in asking for Dolly records since, owner Jason Grimes says around 2:13 pm. He’d been keeping a tally, even before I called. Grimes says this often happens when a popular artist passes. It’s a way of mourning.
“I think it’s a beautiful gesture to think that when you reach for that record in your collection, you’ll remember that was the day you bought it,” he says. “I will say, this one’s particularly impactful on the Hill.” It’s not surprising that this death is a blow to the historically queer neighborhood. Parton was an outspoken LGBTQ+ advocate throughout her life—she is widely considered to be the first country artist to use the word “gay” in a song (1991’s “Family”), covered the costs of a staff member’s transition in the ’90s, funded HIV and AIDs relief efforts through her Dollywood Foundation, and spoke out against North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom law in 2016.
On nearby Pike Street, Zions Gate Records have been playing Parton all day. An employee says they’d sold roughly 30 Dolly records in store and online within an hour of her death.(Jolene was most popular, followed by a Greatest Hits compilation. Only Christmas albums remained.)
When I called Royal Records in Queen Anne, I could hear Parton crooning faintly in the background. The store’s entire stock sold out except for a copy of Run, Rose, Run and the underappreciated 1994 live album Heartsongs which was recorded at a concert at Parton’s Tennessee amusement park, Dollywood, and features the song “PMS Blues.” An employee says Royal Records has a tough time keeping Dolly records under normal circumstances; it’ll be even more difficult to stock them now. “Basically, when someone well-known passes, it becomes really hard to order their stuff, even new,” they say.
