Dolly Parton “Busted a Gut” Reaching for the High Notes on “Rocksta

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After six decades as an icon in country music, it’s hard to imagine Dolly Parton had anything to prove. But when she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in 2022, she admitted to feeling uneasy. A result of that feeling is “Rockstar,” the seventy-seven-year-old’s first foray into rock music. “I wanted the rock people to be proud of me, let’s put it that way,” Parton tells the New Yorker contributor Emily Lordi. “I wanted them to say, ‘Did you hear Dolly’s rock album? Man, she killed it.’ ” Plus, three of the magazine’s best thinkers on American politics and history—Jill Lepore, Evan Osnos, and Jelani Cobb—discuss the state of American democracy as another election asks us to litigate whether we want to retain our foundational political system.

Dolly Parton “Busted a Gut” Reaching for the High Notes on “Rockstar”

When Dolly Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she decided to prove that she belonged there.

Jelani Cobb, Jill Lepore, and Evan Osnos on the precarious state of American democracy and why—yet again—we risk losing it in the upcoming Presidential election.