this week with dolly

By Duane Gordon

Dolly Parton was home in Sevier County last week to kick off Dollywood's KidsFest celebrations. 

On Friday, she initiated the annual festival by donning a red robe (which she called her red pajamas) in the Heartsongs Theatre to inaugurate the "Llama Llama Red Pajama" musical in a private performance for Imagination Library conference participants, the media and invited guests.

While there, she also celebrated the release of her new children's book, "I Am a Rainbow," with a reading of the story and a performance of her song of the same name. She also took questions from the press, including this reporter asking why some colors of the rainbow, such as orange and purple, are absent from the book.

"That was the publishers that did that to me," she said with a laugh. "In fact, I made the comment I wrote the story and it was a lot, lot longer. It had every color. In fact, it even had some colors not in the rainbow . . . but they needed to condense it down to make it easier to read and to make it not so involved for all the little kids to have to read so many pages. So that wasn't my fault."

She also touched on the previous children's book made from her song "Coat of Many Colors," confirmed she plans to participate in September's rededication of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as part of her role as ambassador of the park's 75th anniversary, said that she hasn't ridden the new SkyZip zip-line, spoke of "9 to 5: The Musical," added that she wants to write more Broadway shows and noted that she hopes to have her life story out as a movie in the next two years.

Later in the day, she presented the Chasing Rainbows Award in conjunction with the National State Teachers of the Year Organization to Francis Mustapha, a science teacher at Snider High School in Indiana's Fort Wayne Community Schools who is a native of Africa and plans to return to his home village upon retirement to open a school.

She also honored Sevier County's four 2009 Dolly Parton Scholarship recipients of $15,000 each: Hagen Sims of Gatlinburg High School, Morgan Webber of Seymour High School, Julia Husky of Pigeon Forge High School and Christy Frasier of Sevier County High School. She finished the day with a park parade.

Saturday started with a rose planting ceremony honoring her friend Dom Deluise, with whom she co-starred in "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" and who visited the park for opening weekend appearances a decade ago. He had passed away May 4 at age 75.

Then it was off to a special ceremony to honor more than 400 East Tennessee Girl Scouts who had earned the new Coat of Many Colors Patch. The girls learned each verse of the song and completed diversity tasks associated with the major themes of each verse in order to receive the patch. They were not told in advance that Dolly herself would be on hand that morning, so they and their parents were surprised when she interrupted a video message that was playing and came on stage to congratulate them and perform the song "Coat of Many Colors." She individually greeted each girl as they walked across the stage, hugging many of them, and took group photos with them as well. Afterward, the girls walked the parade route behind Dolly's car as she took her second park tour of the weekend.

 In other news, Dolly's "Backwoods Barbie" inched up one digit to No. 48 in its 45th week on the country albums chart last week, while Steve Martin's "The Crow - New Songs for the 5-String Banjo," featuring a Dolly and Vince Gill duet, slid seven to No. 16 Internet albums in its eighth week there, remained at No. 1 bluegrass in its 16th week there and fell 24 to No. 117 pop in its third week there and 26 to No. 125 comprehensive in its third week there. Overseas, "The Very Best of Dolly Parton, Vol. 1" gained a little bit last week on the Irish pop albums list, rising 14 spots to No. 79 in its 83rd week on the chart.

And Dolly's "9 to 5: The Musical" will see its original cast recording of her Tony-nominated score hit stores July 14, it was revealed last week. As was previously reported, the CD was recorded in May and will be the second release on Dolly Records. New, though, is word that Dolly herself co-produced the album with the show's music director, Stephen Oremus, and its dance arranger, Alex Lacamoire. The initial track list doesn't include any Dolly bonus material (as some have suggested that the album might contain), so we'll have to wait and see if anything special is added.

Be sure to check Dollymania.net: The Online Dolly Parton Newsmagazine nightly over the next week or two for complete coverage from Dolly's recent visit home!