Dolly Parton’s public life for the last 60 years has been like a daily act of performance art. While her interior life may or may not mirror the colorful, quirky exterior, there’s an air of rock & roll spectacle to the way she’s walked in those high-heeled shoes day after day.
“Iconic” is a word that gets misused and overused, but it feels appropriate for Parton: Her face shows up in murals and art galleries in Tennessee, but is recognizable in virtually every corner of the world.
Now she’s one of the performers nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Rock Hall doesn’t always welcome country artists into its fold — most of those who have dual citizenship in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock Hall hit their commercial peaks while my parents were still kids, save for Johnny Cash and his latter-day revival in the late Nineties and early…
