My KUTX: Hot Dolly!

Dolly Parton Bash, benefitting Front Steps, January 2019. Photo by Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon/KUTX

Hot Dolly!

My KUTX // July 24, 2021

One cubicle over from my desk sits Deidre Gott, KUTX’s live music booker and the world’s biggest Dolly Parton fan. Parton’s career-spanning box set is permanently enshrined on her desk. Deidre even once worked at Dollywood; she never got to meet the woman herself, but she did pick up Dolly’s can-do attitude and irrepressible need to spread joy.

For the past few years, Deidre has organized a Dolly Parton Birthday Bash in January as a benefit for Front Steps, an Austin non-profit that runs the ARCH and provides resources for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. A January bash wasn’t possible due to the pandemic, but it’s now returning on Sunday, July 25 as Hot Dolly. Over thirty Austin artists will help out Front Steps by singing Dolly’s songs on Stubb’s outdoor stage. Catch performances by Sabrina Ellis (Sweet Spirit, A Giant Dog), Mélat, Jake Lloyd, Leslie Sisson and Cara Tillman (Moving Panoramas), Stephanie Bergara (Bidi Bidi Banda), and many more, all backed by the Steep Cats. Plus, in between sets of music, the Queens of Extragram will perform a Dolly drag show.

This week on My KUTX, Deidre fulfills her greatest DJ wish: playing nothing but Dolly on the air, plus a few songs Dolly wrote and others sang. Hear a Dolly-themed My KUTX on Saturday, July 24, and find tickets and more information on Hot Dolly here.

–Art Levy // producer, My KUTX

Playlist:

1. Dolly Parton – “Puppy Love”

2. Dolly Parton – “Dumb Blonde”

3. Johnny Russell – “Act Naturally”

4. Dolly Parton – “Gettin’ Happy”

5. Merle Haggard & The Strangers – “Kentucky Gambler”

6. Dolly Parton – “Sweet Summer Lovin'”

7. Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers – “Islands In The Stream”

8. Tina Turner – “There’ll Always Be Music”

9. Emmylou Harris – “To Daddy”

10. Dolly Parton – “Why, Why, Why”

11. Jean Shepard – “Slippin’ Away”

12. Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton – “Two Sides To Every Story”

13. Dolly Parton & Willie Nelson – “Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)”

14. Dolly Parton – “I Will Always Love You”

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