Monica goes One on One with Dolly Parton & Kelly Hansen

[Music] H3 TV presents Monica piercing one on one she's a country music legend known for her songs her voice and her looks but there's much more to Dolly Parton than Matt she's a Savvy businesswoman and philanthropist who is all about family fun and her namesake theme park that's what I learned when I traveled to Dollywood to go one-on-one with the iconic star oh it's bright and early as people stream into Dollywood for the annual season pass holders and media day they're jockeying to get the be

st seat in the house to learn what's new at the park but most of all to see Dolly and she couldn't wait to see them well anyway how are you today [Applause] the question is answered with cheers and Dolly responds with gratitude especially for her season pass holders thank you for being a part of our Dollywood family and for trusting us to create memories for you and your families you've been great to us all through the years sap a hand how about it when Dollywood opened 38 years ago in Pigeon Fo

rge Tennessee the only other theme parks named for person were the Walt Disney parks and while both share some of the same kind of attractions the main attraction in Dollywood is Dolly so tell me what qualities of you did you build into this park so people would love it the way they do well I hope all of it I hope they see me and some of everything that we have here and the people that I work with my partners the herschens and all the folks that work on the park all the ones in the development t

hey're very they want to make certain that there are Pieces of Me In All whether it's the food the recipes coming back from my childhood stores they've heard me tell and just kind of playing off of my personality in one way or the other because I want people to feel me when they're here I can't be here all the time but I want them to feel my Essence and my the spirit of me and to know that I'm happy that they're here good morning good morning and welcome to welcome to Dollywood I just remember t

he first day opening I was scared to death that nobody was going to come I kept looking at the parking lot you know like a kid having a party you know and you invite your friends I don't know if any of them show up that's kind of how I felt then and when I saw the car at all coming in I was excited but of course it's just been so great nobody could ever imagine it being like you know what it has become but that's because God has put all the right people in all the right places at just the right

time so we have a wonderful crew that have helped me build it all through the years bye [Music] bye you know what you think about it in this area if it hadn't been for you in many ways it would not be providing what it is to people an opportunity for Education an opportunity to have a really good living think about when you were a kid and living here well I do think about that a lot I'm very moved by that very humbled by that to think that that in this country you know that dreams can come true

that you can come from just right up the road here as a poor little kid you know and family of 12 kids and just regular people just trying to make a living and then here I am back but that was one of the reasons I wanted to have a park to do something when I started to make it I thought if I ever didn't make it I wanted to bring something back to my home to really because this was a poor area always has been you know not so much now as it used to be When We Were Young because I wanted to be able

to provide jobs for people and we have you know the whole in the whole County [Applause] employees and to employ people in the state of Tennessee which makes me feel real proud because when we started Dollywood that was one of the things that I wanted to do for here in this area was to provide jobs for my neighbors and friends and family a lot of my family works you know at Dollywood either performing or in other jobs as well but it makes me feel good to know that I've had a part in the growth

of the area up here because this is my home you know I love it I love being a Tennessee girl and especially a Smoky Mountain girl foreign there's a lot of greatness in this County not just me in Dollywood but we didn't invent the Smoky Mountains they were pretty popular before I got here and so there were millions of people that would come at the Smokies every year and then Pigeon Forge was not that built up at the time but then Dollywood of course really helped with that but we really I just fe

el like Gatlinburg Sevierville Pigeon Forge and you know we're just all like a like a family we're all in the same thing and I'd like to feel that I'm part of all that and that I'm just proud that I've been able to do something great for my people and for all people not just mine but anybody that comes here so and they come year round so much so that trip advisor named Dollywood the number one theme park in the U.S that's based on customer reviews Dolly gives full credit to the staff of almost 4

000 people at the park people like Tim Barry who started at the park as a 15 year old and now is Vice President of human sources there has been so much growth in the physical part like where we're sitting right now used to be a parking lot and the place where I started isn't even there anymore because we've you know torn it down and grown and added it's more than doubled in size uh you know it's more than doubled in attendance so it's just fun to watch the growth and be a part of that why do yo

u think people love Dollywood so much compared to other amusement parks because think about it there were amusement parks in this spot before but why did this one succeed I think the difference for Dollywood is the genuine employees that we have that's one of the first things that we look for in our employees they just need to be genuinely friendly and what that does is reflects Dolly's genuineness she wants people to experience what she got from the Smoky Mountains and the the Smoky Mountains i

nspired her to be who she is and she wants other people to experience that and I think they can through the hosts that we have and interact with the one feature here at Dollywood that I think is really touching is that once you've been here 30 years you get your own place in the park tell me how that made you feel it was really special and the thing is it's mine is is a very common story we have over 60 signs hidden throughout the park that represent people who have been here 30 or more years an

d so I I'm one of over 60. it's almost like a scavenger hunt to go around and distinguish well that's just an ordinary decoration sign but that's a sign that represents one of our long-term employees so it's fun to be a part of that and just really honored to be part of the legacy of the park [Music] and so many of the people that that started here still work here a lot of them retire from here this is our 38th season and that's amazing Eugene Naughton is president of Dollywood and he told me Do

lly with the help of others also invests in the people who work at the park last year you probably recall she announced a 100 College paid tuition program called grow you so anyone working for us at the park day one is eligible to go back to school cost three and to be able to improve themselves and no strings attached by the way so if they achieve their four-year degree and they want to go work somewhere else the only requirement is is working at a hug them wish them well and ask them to pay it

forward wherever they're going to be so it's just it's fun to get a chance to be able to do things like that easiest way to explain it if you think about the Imagination Library a lot of people don't realize we're at the largest book distributor in the world we deliver over 2 million books a month to children ages zero to six right out of a warehouse down the street from my office and it comes from the book plate comes from Dolly so right there you begin to have a new generation of people start

to really learn who Dolly Parton is and what she represents and then I grab them into our portfolio and have a wonderful multi-generational experience so people like me and you we can come here with our grandkids and have a wonderful time you hear the entertainment shows in the background so not everyone has to ride rides to have fun here they can also come enjoy wonderful food braid chopping here but also great entertainment [Music] Dolly Parton the rock and roll star when we returned she give

s us the inside scoop on her new rock album and tells us what inspired her to give it a shot I'm sincere about the project and it's really good it's some of the best work I've ever done with some of the greatest artists of some of the greatest iconic songs ever plus why she and her husband chose Ringold Georgia to tie the knots some 57 years ago [Music] thank you [Music] well I would only be in your way [Music] I will always love you [Music] can you believe it it's hard to believe that song is 5

0 years old but it has done well every you know every 10 years or so somebody else comes out with it as a as a hit or we play it again I'm the only person that's ever had a number one song Twice you know we're the same with the same song I did it when I had it out first time in the whenever that was 50 years ago and uh and then when I did Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with the Burt Reynolds it became number one again then I had a top 10 songs a duet with uh with Vince Gill and then of course u

h Whitney and different people keep recording it so it's just the song That Just Gonna live on forever like nine to five I guess fine by me I get my royalties Lord knows I need the money you know my famous joke caused a lot to look this cheap yeah Dolly has parked her tour bus you actually can spend the night at Sweet 1986 for a price at the Dollywood dreammore Resort but don't think she's retiring I will never retire I will always rewire like you said because every I reinvent myself as they say

all the time I'm about to do a rock and roll album gonna be rock and roll star at 77 years old which I find I get a kick out of that but I'm sincere about the music I'm sincere about the product and it's really good it's some of the best work I've ever done with some of the greatest artists and some of the greatest iconic songs ever like what well like Paul McCartney uh sang with me and play piano on Let It Be and Ringo play the drums uh we've got John Fogerty singing with me we got Stevie Nick

s and we've got Jen Joan Jett playing the guitar and singing with me we got all kinds of we got Elton John and we've just got every you know all kinds of great artists I'm doing a lot of songs then they sing it with me on them so we've got actually we're going to do like a big box set there's 30 songs actually that we've recorded but anyhow point is I know what I seem to know what to do and when they when all that little controversy about the Hall of Fame when I didn't want to be in it because I

didn't think I had to earned that I just felt like when you say the Hall of Fame you think it's like uh who people have spent their whole life in rock and roll you know and like I've spent mine in country I'll take anything to give me a country because I feel I've earned it if they'll give it to me because I work at that but then I thought well if I'm going to get it anyway I need to do a rock album I don't want nothing that you know that I don't earn so I'm going to see if I can earn it so tha

t's kind of why I did the album well I find it interesting because now your voice sounds more rock than it did when you first did I Will Always Love You Yeah well that's because you grow as you couldn't but I can still go back though some of my my favorite music of all is Mountain Music old folk Old World music that's best suited for my voice you know for my little natural voice my mountain of voice but through the years I've I've just tried to develop and grow into that and I've through the yea

rs I've strengthened my voice because I never quit singing and even though I'm not touring when you had mentioned that earlier I never I just meant I wasn't going to do those long six eight week tours overseas and stuff I still perform I still do like some weekend shows I do uh charity shows and I do uh enough to kind of you know get uh you know get that emotion out of me I love it when I'm out there in front of the crowd and I can do that anywhere I just can't really go on tour I just I've done

that I'm so thankful to God and to you for allowing me to see my little Smoky Mountain dreams come true because I used to always dream about that living here in the hills and it's like God has been good to me and so have you and I just wanted to sincerely from my heart uh thank you so much for forever forever I dreamed that I would be a success I wanted to be a success and I've always said as a joke but it's it's actually true that I've dreamed myself into a corner because you can't just see ok

ay I'm done now you know the dreams came true so there you really have to live up to all the things that you've seen and you have so many opportunities that come from every dream a new dream comes from bad and a new one from that so it's just really it just goes on and on and I just love to work I always said good luck to today in our press conference that I live on spiritual and creative energy and that dispers me on because and I love to work I love what I do I never did it for the money I alw

ays wanted to make a lot of money but I would still be doing it if I was just working as a waitress saving my tips to do a demo to send it to Nashville with some of my songs truly I would it's just that I've been blessed and I'm grateful for it and I just I just love working the other love of her life is her husband Carl Dean they got married in Ringgold Georgia almost 57 years ago for a good reason well because I'm from Georgia I have to say y'all got married in Ringgold Georgia we got married

in Ringo because we had planned a wedding and the reason that we went to Ringgold because I didn't want it in the Tennessee papers that we got married because um I was had just signed a contract and the record label wanted me to wait for a year to get married because I spent all this money so I went that weekend and got married Durango Georgia that's why we went to Ringo and then a year later when the guy everything was going really good the head of the label said see ain't you glad you you know

you didn't get married because things are going so well I said I got married the same weekend you told me not to you've always been sassy well I didn't wasn't doing it to be sassy I was in love and I thought well we're not gonna I'm not gonna let somebody else dictate that I knew that love could only help me you know I wasn't gonna like let the business you know just like I never do now I never let business take over what's what I feel right in my heart and in my soul and that that love was rea

l [Music] always [Music] thank you David and thank you we'll see you out on the park all right bye-bye when we returned while you'll never catch Dolly on a ride at Dollywood and she shares one of her favorite foods to eat at the park my personal favorite is not a recipe of my own we even talked about it when I did when I did my Christmas special from here then the legendary rock band Foreigner says farewell I go one on one with lead singer Kelly Hansen before the band gives Atlanta one last show

[Music] when I was a little girl these uh things here were exactly what I used to dream about all these Bears all these butterflies all these bees and frogs because we were just part of nature just being country kids and I used to pretend like I was flying out of the holler flying to different parts of the world to see what was out there beyond the holler and of course I finally was able to spread my wings and explore the whole world and no matter where I go always take my family and the Smoky

Mountains with me Dolly has dripped big her whole life and she's not stopping now we're going to have new dreams all the time we've got several more Resorts that we hope to build and a campground at some point and we'll continue to build rides and areas we're continuing buying properties around here we still have a lot of land that we haven't developed yet so every year we get together and we brainstorm and we dream and we come up with with the right things so as you can see our dream is doing g

ood I ask God to bless everybody that's you know that I work with and and to bless me as well so so far we're doing all right you know the other big thing that we have opening this year is heart song Lodge and Resort I am really excited about that it looks a little muddy up there now going to construction and I hate a mess but it ain't going to be a mess for long [Music] Dollywood's sight sounds and smells grab your senses there's a cinnamon bread the fudge whatever you have a taste for it's the

re Dolly's favorite food well we have all sorts of great things we actually have a lot of recipes the stone soup people love at the restaurant but my personal favorite is not a recipe of my own it's the funnel cakes we even talked about it when I did when I did my Christmas special from here uh every we talked about the phone cakes two or three times and now they can't keep them you know but now everybody wants to travel again but they're just good and fun but all the food is good here and at th

e resort at the dreammore resort we have top a top shelf and I mean the food here people come from all over the county to eat at our restaurant not just the guests that come to the park but it's just really it's just really good roller coaster Big Bear Mountain opens in May it's 3990 feet in length with a waterfall turns and tunnels and it hits a top speed of 48 miles per hour and there's even more it was still under construction in March now you all know as well as you know my name I'm not goin

g to be riding that thing I don't want my hair to fly off right on the actual television or something I got tickled today when you said you're not getting on the roller coaster because you didn't want to lose your hair but well that's true and there's several things I don't I don't like to ride the rides there everybody knows that about me in the early days you know I had to and I thought I ain't doing this because I I get I have a tendency to have motion sickness too and then I'm a little bit c

laustrophobic I don't like to be you know closed in and I just think well I just have too much to lose I just make a joke of it you know but my boobs can fly out my hair can fall off any number of things could happen to me on those rides so no point in having that like I said on National Television is there no no [Applause] but there is one ride Dolly loves when she's in the park at the end of the day she is a one car parade the DeWitt is loaded with flowers the sidewalks are loaded with people

young and old sometimes six rows deep just to get a glimpse of Dolly too all right all right thank you thank you thank you [Applause] they wave their hands display their homemade signs to tell Dolly how much she's loved and appreciated and she responds with waves and smiles hoping everyone had an experience they won't forget and she knows how she wants them to remember her I want to be remembered as a good person a person that tried to to do good try to make the most of every good thing I was gi

ven every all my talent but I'm very proud of the Imagination Library where we give books to children I think that'll be as big a part of my legacy as my songwriting and and my singing I just want to I just want to be remembered so hopefully for a whole lot of things [Music] Dolly Parton will not be forgotten because of her music and her big heart her rock and roll album comes out this fall while Dolly has no plans of retiring the rock band Foreigner is getting ready to kick off their farewell t

our right here in metro Atlanta coming up lead singer Kelly Hansen tells us what fans can expect as they say goodbye for this Barrel tour we came up with a new idea where we would have youth acapella choirs open the show the winner is going to get voted on and the Winner's going to win a PA system from Bose and every and we contribute money to the choirs because that's the one of the reasons we started doing this was to raise awareness about the lack of funding and school music program plus we t

ake you back to the sights and sounds of Dollywood [Music] you're as cold as ice you're willing to sacrifice our love the band Foreigner has been around since 1976 with Kelly Hansen as their lead vocalist since 2005. 400 snow Foreigner to the music charts with five of their albums going multi-platinum and 14 singles reaching the top 20. you'll hear those songs when they take the stage in Alpharetta this summer but right now it's time to go one on one with Kelly Hansen so Metro Atlanta is going t

o be your first stop after your Las Vegas residency correct why Atlanta well you know I think when you're putting together a tour you you try to put together these anchor points and then you connect the dots to create a tour and there's so many factors that go into it enabling uh the minutia of a tour with multiple buses and trucks and all that kind of stuff connecting all around the country like we have two rigs that we use so sometimes those crisscross because sometimes we'll play on the east

coast and the next day we got to play on the west coast the truck would never get there so this happened to be a good place to start to be able to Anchor Us in this position and start off on this side of the country so have you Pro so tell me about that what is it you like about the Atlanta audience well I always uh the places that we play here are usually kind of outdoor places which is always nice in summertime and uh even though sometimes it can get really hot I'm a hot you know uh temperatur

e person so I like that which is funny considering I have a place in England which is not hot but it's always a great crowd here there's great food here everyone's really warm and friendly and I really like that so when you talk about food I know you are a foodie yes and I know you know you won a contest for your cooking but what kind of food do you really enjoy when you're at home and kicking back well uh kind of like I am in regards to music or or the Arts or movies or literature I I'm not a f

avorites type of person but I like appreciating something for what it is on its own and so I like to jump around uh different food categories and ethnicities and styles and uh because I enjoy the whole process of it so in fact it makes it better for me to move around because I don't get stuck in one place so I don't have like a favorite thing um there are things that I make I make a Bolognese a lot I'll do all kinds of different chicken dishes and Mexican food and Asian stuff so I just jump arou

nd a lot I like I like all the things individually so do you get you some Southern Fried Chicken when you hear you know what that's something to consider I hadn't thought about that but that might be something I might do yeah because you know southern food when you're talking about being in the South and in Georgia Southern food would call it greens and all that sure yeah well I eat very little so why do you eat very little uh is that old metal herbalism you know I gotta get in my tight jeans ev

ery night on stage so what does it feel when you're doing your songs and the M sings along that's pretty amazing and many times I don't hear them all the time but I if I watch something on YouTube or see a playback of someone filming from the audience you can really hear the audience sing along but I have these uh special molded earphones that are like headphones that I get my mix in so I'm hearing a full resounding mix so sometimes I don't hear the people but there are other times where it's ab

solutely evident we played in Bulgaria for the first time and and they sang every song from top to bottom and that was kind of wild makes you feel good yeah yeah well you know when I was learning about you Mick said that he started the group he wanted to be a combination of British Rock r b and blues how would you really Define the music of Foreigner I think it is a blend of those things but in particular um because there was a very English rock sound and there's a very American rocks I like to

just for example southern rock you know it's a very uh different than an English sounding Rock but the the r b part I think is kind of what myth is in here kind of like what I am in here too and when you can blend those together and then create Arrangements which are the parts that the instruments play they're not always playing the same thing it's an intricate tapestry of musicality That's Unique in this band and one of the things I've always loved about this band is that the arrangements are s

o particular and so special Ben's young and older part of the sellout crowds at Foreigner concerts when we return Kelly tells me how they continue to gain fans that span multiple Generations foreign ER has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide and their fan base is diverse and multi-generational yeah I think that's partly because a lot of song placements in movies and commercials and TV shows like stranger things oranges new black or Glee or all kinds of stuff but uh has it has made people

aware of the band when maybe they didn't and then they'll go to the to the internet and they'll find the catalog and go oh there's some great songs here and and I know that some of the the younger people that are coming to the shows know the words and so they're not just being dragged there by their parents they they know the words and that means they're listening to the song well when I was growing up my mom always used to listen to the pop radio station uh as she drove her GTO that's right and

our you know and and she would always have on the the pop songs and um so as a singer some people might not know this but as a singer sometimes you you you hear bands differently I always thought of a singer as being a singer in front of a band like Frank Sinatra you know or like Ella Fitzgerald or some something like that rather than a band of members that are all equally in the thing together and it wasn't until I started singing in a band where I started to understand that but all of my stuf

f before that was hearing singers in front of a band that's how I perceived it so uh you know all my early stuff was a lot there was that pop stuff then there was a lot of r b stuff my dad liked to play in the blue stuff my mom and dad used to have a collection of albums with Ramsay Lewis or or whoever it was and um I remember them going to parties what they used to do back in the days they used to leave the house with a bunch of albums under their arm that they would take to the party and then

when they're having their party they play everyone played all their albums and stuff so I remember that and that was kind of the early thing in my head so what is the southern rock and the r b you listen to well I listened to a lot of 70s stuff and I listened to a lot of uh I lost I listened to a lot of like combo Jazz stuff from the 50s and 60s because I just it's what I like um I don't like stuff that's too complicated and I like stuff that I'm familiar with so I'm not analyzing it part of the

part of the problem with being a musician sometimes is when you hear something new you're analyzing it rather than just enjoying it and if I place some old Aretha or something that I that I know I don't have to analyze it I can just be in it okay so that makes me think and you really relax with music at home I can when I'm cooking too I like that a lot you know I'll just I'll put on I put on a lot of old stuffs that could stuff that I grew up with or stuff that I know and okay you once said tha

t cooking is similar to writing songs how well if you think about it think of it this way um your pots and pans or your instruments your ingredients are your Melody and lyrics and you can put combinations together to create a beautiful song and in that way it's the same kind of creative style but you don't have a record company breathing down your neck and you don't have pressure of having to please you know thousands of people it's just it's just you know a fun thing to do but it is very simila

r in that way so now I'm going to play with you okay all right first question what part of performing on the road makes you feel hot blooded oh okay and ice cold okay all right um well obviously temperature would have to factor in I mean sometimes when we're playing in the summer in the south uh in August and if the Sun is not completely down yet and the humidity is up humidity is good for singing but um it can be very very tough on those really hot days so I TR I tend to try to find ways to dre

ss on stage where I'm where it's lighter for me because I'm putting out a lot of energy I'm moving around a lot the pure Act of sing high energy you know rock song it really does work up your blood pressure and all that kind of stuff but we've done some very very cold shows I'll give you an example we played first of all we played at the foot of Mount Eiger in Switzerland that was really cool and then we also played on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls on New Year's Eve oh no in the rain [Music

] so you want cold as ice that was cold as I wow how did you determine that you knew what love was well being that I just got married at 59 almost three years ago um I think there was I never really understood until it was just right and there isn't a there isn't a questionnaire you can fill out there isn't a magic thing that tells you when it's right but then all of a sudden sometimes you just know and I think that's why it's so magical and why everyone's trying to always find it so did you pro

pose with her with uh I've been waiting all my life for a girl like you no uh actually we were on the phone she was making tacos laughs I never posted her like that during the early part of covid and so uh we weren't actually together so so I call retirement requirement okay so you all have said this is really gonna be it you're gonna go to Europe in 24 and finish up here through 23 and then head off to Europe right just rewirement look like for you well I mean I have a lot to do before I get to

that place I have a lot of shows I got to perform I have a lot of things I have to do but I what I do want to uh with my wife and my family figure out what our next chapter is um and come up with those um those answers because when I've been on the road doing this for almost 20 years nine months out of the year uh away from home and uh so it doesn't give you a lot of chance to plan out the next place and if um but I want to spend more time living my life because there are different types of peo

ple on the road there are people who are like Road people who like that's what gets them makes them happen is they have to be on the road doing it it makes their world complete and I have other passions other things I like to do and and I want to live life and I want to make sure that I do it wisely and give myself time and not wait too long to where things are too difficult well those passions other than cooking cooking um I um I'm a motorcyclist and I like to work on those and and old cars and

things like that um uh and uh I like the pride of home ownership I like to actually fix things around the house and do things and uh so I enjoy doing that and I always don't have enough time to do it and I really hate having to pay someone else to do it there's a cheap side Frugal yeah that's Frugal yeah I think of requirement for you too because everyone knows you like this would you ever consider cutting your hair sure I think I would yeah in fact I'm due for one really bad right now I've bee

n away from my from my stylist for a while so uh yeah I would and you know I'm in I'm in this kind of uh very interesting place I'm not so well known that people stop me and walked walking on the street most places but I'm I'm not not known at all so I'm in this magical middle place I say coming up how Kelly got his start in the business plus giving back through music education the contest that will land some lucky Metro Atlanta students a spot on stage with Foreigner this summer Kelly is doing

what he loves now but that wasn't always the case you know I was found out in reading that you started out singing when you were 17 and that you know you really didn't think that was going to be your life but right well I um I because I started singing accidentally with a with a friend who had a band and he asked me to sing with him we were on the beach and so he always brought the guitars we sang on the beach and he asked me to come sing with the fan and a couple months later I was the lead sin

ger of the band and I was at a time where I didn't know what I wanted to do after I got out of high school and I was really struggling and starting to panic about what am I going to do and I fell into this and I said wow it seemed that I have some type of ability to do this so it was just kind of happenstance so I got to know growing up in Hawthorne with you know a beach boy living up the street right did you ever meet him and try to sing with him no but a funny thing is is that we just did a gi

g uh I think it was the beginning of last year was a private show that we did up at the top of the mountain in Malibu um with Beach Boys oh come on so I got to meet Mike love and and uh but uh that's something I never would have thought of when I was younger that was just completely out of out of my Spectrum one thing that is not out of his view is the need to support music in schools with the Grammy foundation for many years we've been working with the Grammy foundation and and prior to covid w

e would have a lot of Youth choirs come on stage and sing with us during I want to know what love is which was really really great and when Kobe came along we couldn't really do that anymore we couldn't have a bunch of teenagers on stage and I don't want to get sick and have to throw you know 30 people and you don't want to get them sick yeah right so um but for this Barrel tour we came up with a new idea where we would have uh youth acapella choirs submit uh videos of themselves to the local ra

dio station and a couple of them a couple of them are going to come and open the show uh and then uh because we're gonna be playing with lover boy so they're going to come on before lover boy and then the audience is going to somehow we're gonna figure it out how they're getting the Winner's gonna get voted on and the Winner's going to win a PA system from Bose which is really great and every and we contribute money to the choirs because that's the one of the reasons we started doing this was to

raise awareness about the lack of funding and school music programs and when and when budgets get cut that's the first thing that they cut so we want to give them a little bit of money raise a little bit of awareness they get to have uh I get to see their faces when when they're on stage and I get notes and emails and texts from band directors or choir directors and parents saying you know how much it meant to their kids and it's been really I think we get the better end of the deal on it so bu

t I wanted to make sure everyone knew about that and that's going to be happening during that whole Live Nation Tour so you talked about the importance of music education in schools um when you look at the state of music as it is now and looking at the different genres where do you see a need well I would like to see more of an emphasis on being good at what you do rather than being famous for what you do and um it's too easy now to make a record in your bedroom with not very much talent it's a

lot harder to really be good at what you do and pound the pavement and pay your dues and really understand when you get a break how valuable that is and how you need to treasure it like I've had in my life I've been around the block a few times and I've been really really fortunate as all the guys in the band have been we understand how rare and valuable that is and so I think that's really the only way you can appreciate it plus I think that there's um got music making now is far more technolog

ical than it used to be so I think that that's uh something that would be really helpful to be able to understand the technological part of it [Music] the farewell tour starts in metro Atlanta in July and will end in Europe in 2024. the travel and the singing can take a toll on Kelly's tenor voice but he's learned how to protect it well there's uh it it takes a lot of mental work on my part because I have to make sure that the show is the Apex of each day and that I don't stay up late telling Ro

ck stories you know uh in a bar somewhere and I can't yell too loud I can't laugh too loud I really have to take care of my voice so my on tour of speaking style is different than my off tour speaking style I have to sometimes tell people listen I'm not angry with you but the atonal sound of my voice is just me saving my voice so uh because sometimes people can think that I'm somehow not happy or not excited about something you and your research is that your scarves and you are wearing one today

you are your Saving Grace explain that well I usually have a scarf or two with me on the road because um there's so many temperature changes that happen when you're traveling if you go on an airplane when you get on sometimes it's really really hot and then when you get up in the air it's really really cold so um I can take the scarf off when it's hot and I can wrap the scarf around me so I breathe in warm air when it's cold and that really helps me because I don't like to have the air blowing

down my throat that's that dries you out but isn't it also a good way when you're on a plane to be Incognito well it's a great way to be able to fall asleep snoring without people taking pictures of your open mouth it's a new thing they're doing on flights now is they're announcing that um you you can film and take photos but if you're going to include anyone else like a crew or anyone else in the plane you have to ask for permission they're doing it in the announcements uh at the beginning of f

lights now and after 28 years of singing the same songs how does Kelly keep it fresh it all depends because there are a large amount of variables from night to night even though we're playing a similar set of songs [Music] um and those can affect how I feel the song that night like is it a big crowd small crowd indoor outdoor uh is it is it warm or is it cold uh is the stage made of wood and makes it sound really good I really love a wood stage it's my favorite um or do I have a particular mix t

hat night that sounds really good to me all of those things can change how a song feels from night to night so one night this song might feel really good the audience really is with us on it another night it might be another song but I just like to say that I I see these songs as a beautiful basket of fruit and I am very fortunate to be able to choose an Apple today and prepare tomorrow and they're and that's this catalog it's so amazing and if you're a singer that you couldn't dream this or pay

for the opportunity to sing this catalog song I'm very very fortunate so it still feels like the first time [Laughter] that was churning away in your mind the whole time I was dancing you made it happen tickets are on sale now for the July 6 Foreigner concert at Ameris Bank Amphitheater brought to you by Live Nation when we come back more of the Milestone celebration from Dollywood [Music] foreign thank you for joining me and I hope you'll join me every Sunday at 8pm on Peachtree TV from Monica

Pearson one on one where you get to know the persons behind the celebrity I want to thank the folks at Dollywood for their Hospitality I made this trip 38 years ago to talk to Dolly when the Park first opened and I was amazed to see how much the park has grown over the years the celebration at Dollywood continues with the flower and food festival going on now through June 11th it's springtime in the smokies with more than a million marvelous balloons unique foods and Whimsical shows now we leav

e you with more sights and sounds from our adventure at Dollywood [Music] thank you I'm in Dollywood welcome to Dollywood the theme is I will always love you it's the 50-year anniversary of that song but when you think about Dolly Parton you always think about love what she's done for her community and how people love her even from the littlest person up to the oldest Dolly Parton people always say I Will Always Love You [Music] are you always thinking about drugs [Applause] no actually I live o

ff of creative and spiritual energy and I just love what I do and I just pray that God will lead me and kind of show me what to do and and I think anytime you're working on good things it energizes you and I don't if somebody said how come you never get old I said well I've got time to get old [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] back then when I did that interview we I think we did it in like a little trailer and I said to you what do you look like when you don't have on your h

air and makeup and you said I look like hail and then you turned around and said to me what do you look like and I gave you your answer back [Music] oh y'all are sweet thank you thank you thank you so much you're the best thank you for being here no I'm enjoying this a month oh good to meet you too have a good day [Music] that's interesting [Music] thank you so much [Music] you even smell like oranges there we go you were so sweet good to see you good to see you too thank you all [Music]