This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Over the last six decades, Dolly Parton has become an icon in country music and one of the most beloved musicians anywhere in the world.

She just released her 49th solo studio album, and it's the highest charting album of her career.

And yet with all that behind her, when she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022,

she did so with a certain sense of trepidation, even a little embarrassment. Oh, I'll tell you what, this is a very, very, very special night for me.

I'm sure a lot of you knew that back when they said they were going to put me

in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I didn't really feel like I had done enough to deserve that.

Flash forward one year in Dolly Parton, age 77, has just released her first rock album.

The album mixes covers from the Rock and Roll canon, along with Parton's original songs like

the title track, Rockstar.

Emily Lorty is a music writer based in Nashville, who's written for the New Yorker about

Gladys Knight and Mariah Carey and other greats, and she recently spoke with Dolly Parton.

So to get started, I wanted to actually refer back to our last conversation in 2020, where you said something that has stayed with me ever since.

And you said that it's not true that you have never been afraid.

You said you are afraid.

You do experience fear,

but your desire to do something has always been greater than your fear.

And I'm wondering what, if anything, scared you about this project?

Well, it really was, you've got to take on a thing like this and you've got to hopefully

make sure that you're going to do it good.

Just making the decision to do a rock album, it was made easier when they decided to go

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