today’s audio is sent from meta heaven - no, not the behemoth billionaire motherfuckers, but that sweet sweet place of brecht and weill, of spinal tap and a strange loop and fleabag.
in 2009, i made “cabin fever”, a series of live streamed concerts to raise money for my new-at-the-time album, hundreds of lions. i won’t bore you with the old man memory of How It Was, but let’s just say that live web streaming at that time was only accomplished with many many cables, gaff tape, thoughts and prayers.
for 20 years i lived in an old mill house overhanging a river, and i thought it would be fun, funny, and fundamentally challenging (and thus satisfying) to sing songs about water, while live streaming from a stream. songs on the setlist included randy newman’s “louisana 1927”, ani difranco’s “78% H20”, and of course “islands in the stream”. a key feature of “cabin fever” was always the special guests, and i knew my friend, the stratospherically talented susan werner, had to join me on the song.
the night before the concert, we got a ton of rain, and on the day of, the usually placid foot-deep river was a brisk 2 feet of rushing water. i’ll never forget susan picking her way carefully over to the drum throne i had wedged with rocks to the river bottom, taking a seat, then letting another friend of ours pass her priceless martin guitar over to her. that’s what real friends do. they wade in the water with you.
“islands in the stream” was such a no brainer for the setlist, not least of which because of its undeniable chorus had been inscribed in my brain since its release in 1983. but it was also made indelible by its performers - kenny rogers, and yes, dolly parton, who died last week.
why do i even say “last week”. you know she died last week. the whole would knows and mourns and can’t get enough of her life and reflections on her good works and meaning to humanity. i am no different. her obituary was the most read new york times obituary, ever. and every square on my instagram “for you” page was a picture or video of dolly, across her many eras and looks. all of them impeccable.
before i get into my specific dolly memories, i want to note what an absolute pleasure it is to mourn someone who was genuinely a good person, someone who you are sure did not treat women or girls poorly, did not assault or take advantage of vulnerable people. what a pleasure. and how sadly, rare.
in this pure place of grief, the next things that come up for me are memories of times where i shared dolly’s music with friends. besides cabin fever, the only other time i covered her was to learn “two doors down” for my friend erik deutsch’s residency at some lower east side bar, more than a decade ago. i remember being stunned to go under the hood of such an american stomper to discover the musical and emotional complexity in the writing. it was like trying on a thrifted jacket only to discover that it was couture. i so wish i had a recording of that night.
my old friend amanda wrote about dolly in her newsletter, and i was reminded of the summer where all my friends were seeing her on tour. those months, my feeds were full of pictures of show after show. in each one, dolly was an overexposed white ball, indistinguishable from an angel or meteor, her white sequined costume too much for our earthly cameras.
photo by amanda katz
i had seen the show in philly, with my friend tara, one of the great nights in life: right people, right seats, right mindset. thinking back, i assumed that show was in 2019 or so, maybe one of the last things we did before the pandemic. tara reminded me, to my horror, that it was july 2016. before everything.
“ a century in a decade,” she texted.
the memory of that show was so recent, so fresh and at my fingertips. that was the incredible gift of dolly parton. a performance i saw a century ago was still influencing me.
hey yall! september is quiet for me, i’m back to classes in my grad school program, but i am teaching in hillsdale NY sept 18 & 19 at a songwriting retreat led by the beacon music factory.
i’ve got 2 Northeast Anti-Holiday Spectaculars announced so far with more to come: Nov 28 in Turner’s Falls MA and just announced Dec 5 in Providence RI. mark your calendars and stay tuned for more dates. if you think you want to join us as a cranky caroler, drop me a line erin@erinmckeown.com
meantime, thanks everyone for listening, telling friends, and subscribing. you’re helping me keep a foot in this crazy business, while i pivot and grow. i could not be more grateful!
9 years after seeing dolly in concert, i wrote about her in the fax of life. i was launching my DEI initiative, deploy every instrument. a series of videos i am now in the second year of where i challenge myself to twice weekly picking up a different instrument and performing something. it’s the thing that’s kept me on social media at all these days, and it’s regular, delightful exercise for all my musical muscles.
when i saw dolly, she had some serious DEI going on. in one section of the show, she moved from guitar to piano, to autoharp, to percussion, and then just to troll us, she grabbed a rhinestone-covered saxophone and pretended to play it.
i will remind y’all that i too have played fake saxophone.
though maybe dolly, like me, also played middle school clarinet, so it wasn’t actually too far a stretch.
what i loved then about her performance, what i love most about her uncontained musical talent and wit, was that she instinctively understood that she had to honor all her talents, to be all of herself, all of the time.
she also believed this about the people around her, as news story after news story has attested, assembling and loving a talented and diverse group of artists, family, and supporters to realize her vision.
what dolly taught us is what i have discovered with my own DEI project: music is music, people are people. iron sharpens iron, the more diverse your skill set and your community, the stronger your individual skills, and the stronger your community.
a long time ago, i had the same UK agent and publicist as dolly parton. this tells you have famous i used to be. what a weird sentence! what a weird life this is. but anyway, those guys were awesome. no wonder she worked with them for so long. and richard and paul told me a set of stories about dolly that i just love.
first, they said she was always on time. to the minute. if the press itinerary said lobby call at 10:05 for a 10:10 departure, the elevator doors would part right at 10:05 and there was dolly. perfectly outfitted, perfectly on time.
in another story, richard had to accompany her to a photo shoot for a charity. whatever the charity was, the mascot for it was a bear. for the photo shoot, there would be a person in a bear costume to pose with dolly. apparently, dolly from the minute she entered the studio until the minute she left, treated the bear like a bear, not a human in a bear suit. she was taking pictures with a bear! how are you, bear? what’s it like being a bear? who knows what world she was in, but the result was fun and weird and so committed it became a reality.
i keep coming back to the words impeccable and indelible to describe dolly. every inch of her self and her writing was thought out, cared for, cultivated, curated. and unforgettable. a vision and person unlike anyone else, never to be wiped away or forgotten.
xo erin
ps - no pic of carl this month, but he’s fine!
ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
baseball plus a troubling history of minstrelsy? CLICK, banana ball!
dolly employed a trans chauffeur because trans people are people
my good-ness Tune-Yards made a strange and strangely compelling cover of “9-5”
the house band (palace band?) at buckingham palace plays “9-5”
a new single by my old pal and fellow virginian, thao
erling haaland shaves his head
an excellent explainer vid about harry and meghan returning to the UK
some gospel to cleanse your browser, courtesy of susan werner who shared it with me
yet another way that i feel out of time with modernity - i have a one-handed backhand
the gold has gotten out of hand
UPCOMING SHOWS
2026
Sep 18-19, 2026 - Hillsdale NY
Beacon Music Factory Song Camp
TICKETS & INFO
side-player in garrison starr’s “gospel truth”
October 3, 2026 - Booth Bay Harbor ME
TICKETS
October 4, 2026 - Northampton MA
TICKETS
October 6, 2026 - Cambridge MA
TICKETS
November 28, 2026 - Turners Falls MA
Pioneer Valley Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
December 5, 2026 - Providence RI
Providence Anti-Holiday Spectacular
TICKETS
2027
January 15-17, 2027 - Santa Rosa Beach FL
30A Songwriters Festival
TICKETS
January 29-30, 2027 - Chicago IL
Folk Alliance
TICKETS & MORE INFO
stay tuned for more winter 2026-spring 2027 show announcements soon!
