How Dolly Parton ‘Musically Abused’ Her Sisters
From the minute Dolly Parton could talk, she was singing. Sometimes, she felt singing by herself wasn’t enough. She had dreams of being a star, after all. She needed to practice working with backup singers. So the “Coat of Many Colors” singer would often rope her sisters into performing with her.
The Queen of Country admits she ‘musically abused’ her sisters
In Parton’s first memoir, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, she writes about how she used to all but force her sisters to sing with her.
“My sisters were musically abused,” she wrote. “That is the only way I can think of to describe what I put them through in my constant search for musical satisfaction. Stella and Cassie were my chief victims. Of course, I was always the star, and I made them sing backup.”
Parton would make any kind of deal, promise, or threat to convince her sisters to join her:
“‘Oh, I’ll do your chores if you’ll just sing one more verse,’ or ‘IIl tell Mama about your boyfriend if you don’t sing one more verse,’ or, ‘I’ll just die and it will be your fault if you don’t sing one more verse,’” she wrote.
Dolly Parton was convinced she came up with a gimmick that would make her and her sisters famous
In the midst of practicing with her sisters, an idea came to Parton that she was sure would catapult all of them to stardom.
“I would have my reluctant backup sisters sing in pig Latin,” she wrote. “Brenda Lee had not thought of this; what a silly oversight on her part. This was going to be the biggest thing that ever hit radio, TV, or the special live stage that would surely be built so that the entire world could hear us sing, “E-shay, as-way I-may est-bay end- fray.” (Translation: She was my best friend.)”
Parton made up all the parts and lyrics, and she wanted to hear them. Over, and over, and over again.
“It was of no consequence to me whether my sisters wanted to sing them,” she wrote. “It simply had to be done. Even today, if I start into one of our old arrangements, Stella and Cassie will chime in with their parts. I had them so drilled.”
Unfortunately, pig Latin backup singing was not the cash cow Parton thought it was going to be.
“We never even made it onto The Ed Sullivan Show,” she wrote. “Stella and Cassie are probably just as glad that it didn’t.”
Dolly Parton ended up using pig Latin in a song
While singing in pig Latin with her sisters wasn’t the thing that made Parton famous, she did end up using pig Latin in a song many, many years later. In a song called “The Friendliest Enemy” on Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas special, the “Jolene” singer’s sisters can be heard singing one of the exact phrases they practiced so many times growing up: “She’s my best friend.”
“We did it on the show,” Parton said on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “And harmonies. My sisters Cassie and Rachel. And then I had a lot of my family on the show. So, we’re singing pig Latin.”
“Back when we were young, I used to make ’em work up all these background parts for songs that I wrote,” the singer reminisced. “So that was just a fun thing.”
