What If Dolly Gave a Show in Kingsport and Nobody Came

 

The Night Only 200 People Showed Up to a Dolly Parton Concert

In the days immediately after her death, Dolly Parton was the subject of at least 19 separate stories in The New York Times. That’s the kind of coverage normally reserved for world leaders, which, in a way, Dolly was. Except she was more beloved.

Dolly Parton had been a performer since she was in grade school and a star since she was 21. In fact one of her last appearances, just as she was on the precipice of stardom, came at Kingsport’s Civic Auditorium, on Sept. 26, 1967, as co-headliner with Red Foley.

In a venue with an official seating capacity of 2,032, Dolly and Red drew only 200 people. And ticket prices were a reasonable $1.50 and $2, significantly less than the Porter Wagoner Show, staged a couple of months earlier in the same venue, that drew 1,800. (Tickets for that show were $2.50, $3 and $3.50.)

Even the Kingsport Times-News noticed the attendance discrepancy, calling the Dolly and Red show a “financial deficit.”

What happened?

How did it happen that Dolly gave a show and nobody came?

 

It had been a cool, rainy summer in Kingsport in 1967. All the excitement in town was directed to a piece of ground behind J. Fred Johnson Stadium, where the new Dobyns-Bennett High School building was going up.

But a lot had been going on at the other end of the stadium parking lot: the Civic Auditorium had been the scene of a series of concert by stars of the Grand Ole Opry, kicking off in May with a standing room only show by Porter Wagoner, followed quickly by well-attended concerts by Conway Twitty, Bill Anderson, Bobby Bare, Ernest Tubb, Tammy Wynette and Kitty Wells, easily outdrawing every other form of local entertainment, from symphony concerts to Audubon film travelogs to Theatre Guild productions. All this drew the attention of the Kingsport Times-News which assigned Arts Writer Margy Clark to investigate. In a lengthy Sunday story, she concluded, “Country and western entertainers, when presented at not too frequent intervals and made available at a realistic price, are still the most successful crowd pleasers in town.”

But there was one exception that stuck out to her: the Dolly and Red show.

Dolly had already played a successful show at the Civic Auditorium back in July. But she was the third billed – “Also” – behind headliner Merle Haggard and his frequent duet partner Bonnie Owens.

On September 26, 1967 she was the co-headliner with Red Foley in what was billed as “Kingsport’s First Country Western Gospel Variety Round-Up.”

Foley was a country and gospel legend but his peak years were in the forties and fifties.

And Dolly was only 21 years old with just two singles that had hit the music charts, “Dumb Blonde,” which had peaked at number 24 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles Chart, and “Something Fishy,” which had made it to number 17. She wasn’t yet a star.

There were things working against her September show.

All those summer country shows at the Civic Auditorium. School was back in session. High school football had started.

And the night before her show the new D-B Dome had opened with an exhibition basketball game between the NBA champion Philadelphia 76ers and the St. Louis Hawks that was attended by 4,000 fans.

And her show was on a Tuesday night.

But at least it wasn’t up against Wednesday night prayer meeting.

The sponsoring Colonial Heights Optimist Club had purchased five days of newspaper ads to promote the show.

Still only 200 people showed up.

That didn’t deter Dolly’s perpetually sunny outlook. She knew better days were ahead. Earlier that month she’d signed to replace Norma Jean as Porter Wagoner’s duet partner on his television show. She cut her first record with him two weeks later. And she was back in Kingsport two months later opening the show at the Civic Auditorium for Porter and the Wagon Masters. She was now an official member of Porter Wagoner’s traveling show.

She was going to be a star.

That was what she wanted to be. When I interviewed her eight years later, after a performance before a full house at the D-B Dome, she told me, “All I ever wanted to be was a star.”

She ended up being a superstar. 

 

You can read that 1975 story here:

https://vincestaten.blogspot.com/search?q=dolly

 

Budding superstars have a history of playing to sparse crowds in the Tri-Cities:

On September 22, 1955, 20-year-old Elvis Presley played in front of a crowd of 270 in that same Civic Auditorium. (He had not yet appeared on Ed Sullivan.)

And on April 20, 1976, 26-year-old Bruce Springsteen, who had just appeared simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek, performed for only 898 fans in near-empty 8,000-seat Freedom Hall in Johnson City.

Who was Lavern Tripp. last billed on the Dolly-Foley show? Robert Lavern Tripp, who would replace Elmo Fagg in the well-known Southern gospel group The Blue Ridge Quartet the next year. 

Who were Bill Owens & the Kinfolks? Bill Owens was her kinfolk, as were the others in the group. Bill was her uncle, her mother's younger brother, and also her mentor and songwriting partner. The other band members were Louis Owens, Bill's brother and also Dolly's uncle; Dwight Puckett, Bill and Louis' nephew, and Dolly's first cousin; and Ralph Loveday, an Owens cousin.