Dolly Parton’s Teachers Thought She Wasn’t Good Enough to Sing at a School Program

Dolly Parton knew she wanted to sing professionally from a young age. As a child, she threw herself into building a music career, writing songs and traveling to recording studios with her uncle. By high school, she was a local celebrity, with songs on the radio and a regular spot on Cas Walker’s Farm and Home Hour. Despite all this, some people in her community did not believe in her abilities. Some teachers didn’t want her to perform in a school program because they didn’t think she had the talent for it. 

Some of Dolly Parton’s teachers weren’t confident in her ability to sing

By the time Parton reached high school, she had been working as a singer for years. It’s hardly surprising, then, that she announced her plans to pursue it further after graduation. Some of her teachers used this to their advantage, placing Parton in the assemblies they headed.

“Different teachers would be in charge of different assemblies,” her principal, Jack McMahan, said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “Sometimes they would use talent from their own homeroom or talent from other parts of the school. Dolly worked for different teachers scattered through a period of time.”

Some teachers didn’t want Parton to take part in the assemblies at all. Once, several teachers objected when Parton had a spot in a school assembly. They didn’t think she had a good enough voice.

“I get tickled at ’em now,” her former teacher, Tillman Robertson, said. “We’ll be talking about it, and I’ll say, ‘You folks down here made your remarks about Dolly, said, “She’ll never amount to anything; just runs around here with that ol’ guitar tied around her neck.”’ I’ll say, ‘Yeah, and she drives a Cadillac now. I notice you folks still drive these ol’ beat-up Chevrolets, Fords, and Plymouths.’”

Others remembered Dolly Parton as being able to sing beautifully

Robertson, who enjoyed seeing people be wrong about Parton, said he always knew she’d be a star. 

“I didn’t think of her as a special child, but I knew she had an exceptional voice, a different voice,” he said. “Her mother told me her tonsils bealed [swelled] and bursted and affected her voice. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, but she was a good singer.”

He said that while Parton didn’t sing any more than the other children, she seemed to take particular joy in it.

“I’d take my old guitar up there, and we’d sing,” he said. “Dolly didn’t sing any more than the rest of the kids did, but every time you wanted a group to sing, she was ready.”

Her principal said many people at school believed she’d be a star

While some of the teachers at her school did not like her singing voice and some of her classmates made fun of her dreams, many believed Parton had what it took to be a star.

“I have heard two different thoughts,” McMahan said. “One is that a lot of people made fun of her. But on the other hand, there were many, many who didn’t. I truthfully wasn’t sure of all her goals, but as far as making the Grand Ole Opry, I thought she would, because she was doing too well for her age. Almost every weekend, she was on a television show in Knoxville. I didn’t have much doubt about her making it and going that route.”

McMahan said that even her detractors couldn’t have felt too surprised when she hit it big.

“As far as becoming a star, well, that’s kinda like saying, ‘How big is big?’” he said. “In my opinion, when she made the Grand Ole Opry, she was a star. When Dolly came on the Grand Ole Opry or on her television show, it didn’t really surprise anybody who was in school with her.”