Roots to Dolly Parton’s early career can still be found throughout the Smokies
When you have lived around East Tennessee as long as I have, you start to play a little game I like to call “Six Degrees of Separation, Dolly Parton Edition”. For instance, if you live in Morristown, maybe you’ve met Dr. Gregg Perry. He graduated from the Vanderbilt School of Medicine and was the director of psychiatric services at Cherokee Health. But before that, Perry was Dolly’s musical director, touring with the singer and producing and arranging her hit “9 to 5.”
I recently made a new connection with the queen. At least, I just realized an old connection. Tucked away – and by this, I mean hidden in plain sight – is a former Townsend Dance Hall where the great Dolly herself performed during her teenage years. A Soundcloud snippet has a bit of that performance. Introduced by Tommy Covington – more on him later – young Dolly sings “Another,” a country hit by Roy Drusky.
Some places in East Tennessee that Dolly Parton touched in her life have been preserved through time, including her childhood home. But there are other places – maybe places she visited only a few times – that have been chiefly forgotten. In Townsend, there’s a crumbling building right on Lamar Alexander Parkway where Dolly performed – at least once – for the masses.
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Central Dance Hall
Located in front of Little River Campground, just off of East Lamar Alexander Parkway, rests a long, yellow building. It’s one I must have driven past hundreds of times. Somewhat obscured by brush, it’s falling apart. Pieces of the yellow planking are missing and the tin roof is rusted and fading. There are places where the planking is gone, revealing the log-cabin-style building underneath.
Nobody knows how old the building is – or at least nobody I’ve talked to knows or its original purpose. Maybe it was built to be a dance hall. But I doubt it. The broken-down sign out front is for the Tuckaleechee Village, which is or was a little further off the main road. There have been – and may still be – a couple of semi-trailers parked out back.
There was a time – which coincided with Dolly Parton’s teen years – when it was the place to be in Townsend. A gathering place for country dancing – I assume of the square variety – and movie showings. And, circa 1961, an up-and-coming performer named Dolly Parton performed there.
Tuckaleechee Barn Dance Jamboree
Post-World War II, East Tennessee was swept by a wave of barn dance jamboree radio shows. They were modeled after the Grand Ole Opry and the like. Each show had a host and a house band of local pickers who would join with weekly guests to put on a show. In Townsend, it was the Tuckaleechee Barn Dance Jamboree. How far did the Jamboree reach? It’s hard to say. Even today it’s hard to pick up some of the Knoxville radio stations up in the mountains so I’d be surprised if it had much of a reach. Maybe – on a clear night – back into Maryville. Maybe.
At the age of 10, Dolly was already a prodigy. She appeared on television in Knoxville thanks to the support of her uncle Bill Owens and grocery store owner and promoter Cas Walker. By 1959, Dolly was 13 and playing at the Opry in Nashville and had released her first single “Puppy Love.” As a side note, I heard her perform that song a few years ago when the Lightning Rod roller coaster was about to open in the park.
What is the connection to Dolly?
Anyway, in 1961, Dolly turned 15 and was on her way to a full-fledged music career. Like any up-and-coming musician, she took gigs where she could find them. And sometime around 1961, she found one on the Tuckaleechee Barn Dance Jamboree held at the Central Dance Hall and hosted by Tommy Covington. Parton was apparently in town to be in a parade and took time to join Covington and the band to perform.
How do we know this? Well, Covington, who was a local musician and DJ, owned the Tommy Covington Music Store in downtown Maryville. It was the place in the 1990s where I took guitar lessons and dreamed of purchasing another guitar or two. I didn’t know much about Covington’s history back then, but I enjoyed the vibe of the place.
It was a crusty old music store overflowing with vintage, used guitars and the decades of accouterments one collects in the music store business. The store was certainly not organized. It certainly wasn’t fancy. But little did I know that amongst this dust-collecting assemblage of musical bric-a-brac music history was waiting to be re-discovered. You see, after his passing, when they were cleaning out the store, they found a stack of reel-to-reel tapes the old DJ had kept. Amongst that stack, they found a 15-year-old Parton performing “Another” on Covington’s radio show.
Echoes from the past
It’s Covington’s voice you first hear on the tape, calling Parton a purdy little girl that you see on television. “We’re right proud to think that we can get her to come over here to be on our jamboree,” he said before asking Marvin Russell if he knew the guitar introduction needed to start Dolly’s song. “I worked it up but I ain’t got my electric gee-tar plugged up.”
When Marvin replied he didn’t know it, Covington told Dolly to handle it. “That’s all right. Dolly, just strum a chord and start singing the song and we’ll all join in,” he said. “So here she is, Dolly Parton.”
Before Covington could get her name out, Parton comes in singing in a crisp, clarion fashion. Her voice is bright and clear. The recording fades in and out and you hear the band catching on, but it’s Parton’s voice – unmistakable even at that age – that cuts through the dusty recording and transports you back in time. When the song ends, to quite a few hoots and hollers from the crowd, Covington comes back on and proves himself prophetic – maybe even demonstrating why he kept that reel-to-reel for the rest of his life.
“I don’t think Dolly Parton’s got anything to worry about, because there will never be another like her,” he said, adding he’d go to Walker’s store and buy groceries he didn’t need if that’s what it took to keep Dolly Parton around.
Will the old Central Dance Hall be saved?
The future of the old dance hall is undetermined. It’s in pretty rough shape. Is confirmation that Dolly sang there once enough to keep it going? How much would it take to renovate or preserve the place? Those are all good questions to which we don’t have an answer. So, you want to come to the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and walk in the footsteps of Dolly Parton? Play a little six degrees of separations. It’s one of the few remaining structures with a verified connection.
Located just off of Lamar Alexander Parkway in Townsend is a nondescript building with a rich local history and at least a fleeting connection to an icon. The Central Dance Hall has certainly seen better days. But there was a time when the future Queen of Country music blessed it with her presence and that’s the kind of thing that ought to be remembered.
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