Dolly Parton Remembered, Canada Hits US With Tariffs, US Visa Revocations

**Steve Inskeep** (0:02)
Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80 She was a singer, a celebrity, a humanitarian, a sex symbol, a writer, and a storyteller, and we tell her story. I'm Steve Inskeep with Michel Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News.
President Trump put new tariffs on Canadian goods, and now Canada is answering. It's putting tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American products like dairy steel and protein powder. Talks fell apart, and neither side is backing down.

**Michelle Martin** (0:33)
And the Trump administration is moving to revoke nearly 200,000 visas. It says it's cracking down on people who came as tourists then claimed asylum. But some immigration lawyers say the move may be more show than substance. Stay with us. We've got news you need to start your day.

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**Michelle Martin** (2:05)
There are so many aspects of Dolly Parton's life to celebrate and mourn today. Her talents as a singer, songwriter and musician, her philanthropy, her career as a businesswoman, theme park owner.
She died yesterday in Nashville at the age of 80 According to a statement from a representative, she had recently been diagnosed with cancer. She drew on her own life for some of her most popular songs like Jolene, which was inspired by a bank teller who seemed to have a crush on her husband.

**Dolly Parton** (2:30)
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.

**Michelle Martin** (2:41)
Julie Height, who's been covering the music scene for decades from Nashville and with WPLN, is here to talk with us about Parton's contributions to country music and American culture. Good morning, Julie.

**Julie Hyatt** (2:50)
Good morning.

**Michelle Martin** (2:51)
It's hard to sum up what she meant to people, but we're going to try. Have a go at it.

**Julie Hyatt** (2:58)
Yes. Well, if she had spent her entire life strictly focusing on her career in country music, she would have still been one of the most important singer-songwriters in modern country history. She gave us Jolene, as we just heard, coat of many colors, I Will Always Love You, so many other enduring songs. But she really fashioned a career that transcended country music without leaving her countryness behind and had huge mainstream pop hits. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and ventured into Hollywood stardom as a magnetic actor with great comedic instincts.
But ultimately, her fame was so expansive. Her appeal was so universal that she just became a ubiquitous American icon and an embodiment of both authenticity and artifice of staying true to her roots and making good on her ambitions on this grand scale. So Dolly was really like a prism who reflected all of these different facets to what each and every person saw in her, all of these different qualities.

**Michelle Martin** (4:09)
So where did the Dolly story begin?

**Julie Hyatt** (4:12)
Really in East Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains, well outside of Sevierville, kind of a remote spot. Picture 12 kids in a rustic cabin, a family that subsisted on what they could farm and their resourcefulness.
And at the same time, she was there nurturing her dreams of performing and writing songs appearing on local radio. And as soon as she got out of high school, she headed to Nashville, tried to establish herself, not just as a singer, but as a songwriter too, which was hard for women to do in the 60s. And her songs really began to hit when she found a way to draw stories and lessons and characters and scenes from those humble Appalachian roots. And Coat of Many Colors is a fantastic example.

**Michelle Martin** (5:26)
I take your point that Dolly's sort of her fame and her, what she meant to people, really transcended genre. But what did she mean to country music specifically over the course of her very long career?