Dolly Parton’s Former Boss Called Her a ‘Hustler’
When Dolly Parton met Cas Walker, she promised him she’d work hard if he gave her a spot on his radio show. Walker agreed to hire a young Parton, who stayed true to her word. He was endlessly impressed by the dedication she showed.
Dolly Parton’s boss said she was a hard worker
Parton knew she wanted to be a singer from a young age. When she was just 10 years old, she began to appear on Walker’s Farm and Home Hour. By the time she was in high school, Parton was appearing on the show three times a day.
“I didn’t pay much attention to Dolly’s singing when she was little, ’cause that was just part of our family,” her aunt, Estelle Watson, said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “But when she was ten or eleven, I saw she was just determined to be a singer. I figure if you want to do anything bad enough, you can do it, and she was good, even then. ’Course, she couldn’t have gone if I hadn’t lived in Knoxville, ’cause the family wouldn’t have let her come as young as she was. But I didn’t mind driving her cause she wanted to do it, and of course, I’ve always been ready to help anyone, especially my family, if they needed it.”
Though Parton couldn’t make every show, she did her best to be there. She fit the radio appearances in with her school work and didn’t utter a word of complaint.
“This Dolly, she’s a hustler,” Walker said. “She’d come forty miles from Sevierville and be on that show and then go back to school every day. Then she’d get off and come back and be on the noon day show most of the time.”
Through her dedication to the work, Parton proved she had what it took to make it as a musician.
“I’ve seen Dolly play five shows at Bryson City, North Carolina, from 2:00 in the afternoon until 12:00 o’clock at night, and she’d be right in there,” Walker said.
Dolly Parton won her boss over with her promise to work
With her hard work, Parton showed Walker he had been right to hire her. When they first met, she promised him she would throw herself into her work. This promise, even more than her stellar audition, is what landed her the gig.
“I went to Cas Walker and said, ‘I want to work for you.’ He said, ‘Well, then you’ve got a job, because you’re the only person that ever said they would ‘work,’” she wrote in the book Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. “He used to pay me $5 a show out of his pocket.”
She once admitted she wanted to avoid hard work
Parton has worked tirelessly on her music career for decades. Still, she said the reason she pursued this path so relentlessly was because she didn’t want to work hard.
“Well, I never wanted to have to work a real job,” she told NPR. “I never wanted to work that hard. I knew that God gave me a talent, and he gave me the kind of personality that I could use my personality, as well as my talent. And I just felt like if I, kind of, followed direction, I pray and ask for guidance, and I believe what I pray, and I just kind of wait for, you know, answers or at least a kind of feel of how to do it and what not to do and, you know, who to work with, who not to work with.”
