I had heard of Dolly Parton around 1971, concerning her singing, her country heritage and, of course, her famous figure. She was on TV and made quite a number of appearances in magazines and newspaper articles in the 70s.
Starting in the late 1970s I made audio-cassette recordings of “beautiful” music off FM radio; there was such a station in Los Angeles at the time, KBIG. I made quite a few 90-minute recordings of KBIG (and later KJOI) music in the 70s and 80s.
In February 1981, on one such recording, was a song with the lines “Love is like a butterfly/A rare and gentle thing.” I had made the recordings to play back and enjoy, and this song delighted me. In the late 1980s I was working as a security guard in a school office building, and I sat at the receptionist’s desk when she left for the day; people would file out past the desk, and I often played music, including the cassette with the “butterfly” song, at the time.
One employee heard the song and asked me, “Do you know who that singer is?”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
He said, “That’s Dolly Parton.”
I was surprised. For six years I had played my cassettes, including this one, with a song I liked without identifying the singer. I didn’t know it was her.
What would one call this–this appreciation of the song and the voice without knowing whose it was–which would have possibly prejudiced me?
“Ignorance is bliss”