<p id=”par-1_60″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/dolly-parton/”>Dolly Parton’s</a> record label signed her but, according to her, they didn’t think her voice was anything to write home about. Parton, who thinks she has an unusual <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/music/”>singing</a> voice, claimed her label didn’t think she could sell records with her voice. They thought they should cover it up with music to save her — and themselves — from embarrassment.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-dolly-parton-s-label-didn-t-think-her-singing-voice-was-strong”>Dolly Parton’s label didn’t think her singing voice was strong</h2>
<p id=”par-2_13″>Parton’s voice is high, clear, and unique. She thinks it’s divisive as well.</p>
<p id=”par-3_55″>“I have a real strange voice,” she told The Great Speckled Bird in 1971, per the book <em>Dolly on Dolly</em>. “A lot of people it just irritates them to death, ‘cause it’s piercing. I can understand it, cause there’s been a lot of people I don’t like to hear singing. My voice is real unusual.”</p>
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<p id=”par-4_23″>She said her record label recognized that some may dislike her voice, and so tried to bury the sound of it under music. </p>
<p id=”par-5_65″>“They thought people wouldn’t buy me unless I was covered up with music,” she said. “They wanted to drown out my voice to keep from hurting my feelings, getting embarrassed when I heard the record. I’m sure they believed in me but they thought that was the best thing to do. So I recorded a type of music that I had never been familiar with.”</p>
<p id=”par-6_25″>This was early in her career, though. Parton has proved over her decades in the music industry that people like the way her voice sounds.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-dolly-parton-admitted-she-didn-t-think-she-had-the-best-singing-voice”>Dolly Parton admitted she didn’t think she had the best singing voice</h2>
<p id=”par-7_25″>While Parton loves to sing, she thinks she’s <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-wrote-shocking-number-songs-prolific-day-writing.html/”>better at writing songs</a> than performing them. She admitted she doesn’t think <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/why-dolly-parton-doesnt-think-she-has-a-great-singing-voice.html/”>her voice is very good</a>.</p>
<p id=”par-8_62″>“My manager just hates me to say that, because he says it’s not true. I don’t have a great voice,” told Playboy in 1978. “I have a different voice and I can do things with it that a lot of people can’t. But it’s so delicate in other ways, there’s no way I can do some of the things other singers can.”</p>
<p id=”par-9_13″>She said one of the biggest problems with her voice was the vibrato.</p>
<p id=”par-10_98″>“I used to have a lot of vibrato in my voice. It could almost be real irritating to a lot of people’s ears. It was a natural thing for me, but some people say, ‘You sound like you been eating billy goat.’ Bah, bah,” she said. “I guess I overdone it, so I tried to learn at takin’ some of the vibrato out. I would like to improve my voice to be able to hit better notes. My notes are not always true. But my heart is always true. And the emotions I put in is always true.”</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-porter-wagoner-once-lied-to-her-about-how-people-viewed-her-singing”>Porter Wagoner once lied to her about how people viewed her singing</h2>
<p id=”par-11_38″>When Parton joined <em>The Porter Wagoner Show</em>, he wanted to get her on his label. Wagoner told her he had to go to battle for her, as record executive Chet Atkins told him he didn’t like her voice.</p>
<p id=”par-12_28″>“This girl just can’t sing,” Atkins reportedly told Wagoner, per the book <em><a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Dolly-Alanna-Nash/dp/0891695230″ target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Dolly: The Biography</a></em> by Alanna Nash. “I don’t think she’d sell, because she just cannot sing.”</p>
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<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-width=”550″ data-dnt=”true”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Remembering Porter Wagoner, born on this day in 1927 in West Plains, Missouri. Here he is with Dolly Parton singing “The Last Thing on My Mind” in 1967. <a href=”https://t.co/6yaXG3rEzq”>pic.twitter.com/6yaXG3rEzq</a></p>— Dust-to-Digital (@dusttodigital) <a href=”https://twitter.com/dusttodigital/status/1160903201652203522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 12, 2019</a></blockquote><script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
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<span class=”related-article-flag”>Related</span>
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<a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/dolly-parton-said-nieces-nephews-finally-started-respecting-worked-1-singer.html/”>
Dolly Parton Said Her Nieces and Nephews Finally Started Respecting Her When She Worked With 1 Singer </a>
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<p id=”par-13_20″>Parton expressed her gratitude that Wagoner believed in her. Years later, though, <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/news/porter-wagoner-lied-told-dolly-parton-country-music-icon-hated-voice-strengthen.html/”>Atkins denied ever saying</a> he disliked Parton’s voice.</p>
<p id=”par-14_77″>“I heard her on the radio one day doing an interview, and she said, ‘Chet didn’t used to like my singin’, but now he does.’ I thought, ‘What in the world is she talking about?’” he said. “So the next time I saw her, I asked her, and she told me what Porter had said about how I signed her. I wondered how in the hell she’d been able to face me thinkin’ that all these years.”</p>