After Dolly Parton moved to Nashville, her life turned around when a record label signed her. Fred Foster, who founded Monument Records, realized Parton would be a success and began to work with her. He thought she needed a little work before she could achieve stardom , though.
Foster reportedly spent thousands of dollars trying to make her a little classier. Dolly Parton’s record label paid for her to take lessons Though Parton had achieved local success in her music career as early as childhood, she struggled when she moved to Nashville. She could hardly afford to eat , and record label after record label rejected her.
Foster turned her luck around. “The instant you heard her you would never forget that was Dolly Parton,” he said in the book Dolly by Alanna Nash. “Obviously, there are people who can’t stand to hear her sing, but that’s true of every superstar that has ever been.
If you are pleasing a lot of people, you are displeasing a lot of people. I felt Dolly was very gifted musically, and she sang perfectly in tune.” Foster thought she could be a success in whatever she pursued, but he also thought she needed a bit of polishing beforehand.
He reportedly made suggestions on how she should dress, wear her hair and makeup, and enunciate. He hired a woman to teach her how to do these things, reportedly spending up to $25,000. “Dolly spoke almost in colloquialisms, and of course, that’s a regional thing, but it still wasn’t classy enough for the plans F.