TOC: What’d those major labels tell you?
Dolly Parton:They just said, “You’re too old.”

TOC: Just flat-out said it?
Dolly Parton:Or something like that. It’s like, “You’re not of the age with what’s happening with country.” But I had had so many hit records on my own and duet records with Porter Wagoner for years, so I didn’t begrudge it. I understood making way for new people. But I never gave up.

TOC: Loretta Lynn successfully teamed up with White Stripes a few years ago. Would you ever pair up with a younger rock group like that?
Dolly Parton:That was a great album and I was proud of her for doing that. I get asked to do that all the time, but I just am not willing to do that. After I’m dead and gone, I want my records to be more like, this is what Dolly was thinking, rather than just someone using me to enhance something they’re doing.

TOC: Your career took off when you sang with Wagoner in the ’60s and ’70s. Why’d you break from him?
Dolly Parton:I had always intended to be my own star, not just a girl singer in someone else’s group. I just told him, I said, “Now, I want to do my own thing my own way.” And so we just argued and fought over that a lot. He was stubborn, I was stubborn, and so I just said, “I’m going.” And I wrote the song “I Will Always Love You” to tell him I would always love him and appreciate him.

TOC: That’s still often thought of as Whitney Houston’s song—do you think you’ve been adequately recognized as a songwriter?
Dolly Parton:She took that little simple song and turned it into something spectacular. It was only after she did that people started to realize I was a serious writer. And a lot of people did pay attention with songs like “9 to 5” and “Jolene.” So it’s hard to say ’cause I’ve always had such an overexaggerated look, phony looking and big tits, big hair, big personality. A lot of people can’t get past that.

TOC: On your new album you sing, “I’ve always been misunderstood because of how I look.” How much has that misunderstanding been of your own making?
Dolly Parton:It’s all been of my own making. I’m not a natural beauty, and as a poor country girl, you long to be beautiful. You don’t know style, you don’t have taste, so you tend to go on the more gaudy side. But that’s how I still feel most comfortable. And I know a lot of people look at me and think, Well, you just look like a whore. I know that I’m not, but it’s how I look. But it’s the way I choose to look.

TOC: Do you think that look encouraged people to take you less seriously?
Dolly Parton:Yes, absolutely. But I figured if my work was good it would stand on its own, and I was gonna have some fun doing it.

TOC: You seem really comfortable with your gay fans. On your live-concert CD, Live and Well, you say the drag queens in the audience look more like you than you do.
Dolly Parton:Oh, they do sometimes. I have a huge gay following, and I love ’em. In fact, I’m gonna do a dance record, and one of my favorite ones I ever wrote is called “Just a Wee Bit Gay.” It is so funny and so cute, and my gay fans are gonna love me for it.

TOC: The Tennessee mountains aren’t exactly a haven for sexual outsiders. Where do your views on sexuality come from?
Dolly Parton:Well, that comes from me being an oddball myself and people persecuting me for being who I was. I used to get my ass whipped all the time for wearing makeup or wearing my clothes too tight.

TOC: As a kid?
Dolly Parton:As a child, yeah, in a religious family. But I just was different. I think that everybody belongs to God and to themselves, and it’s a sin not to be who you are.

Dolly Parton plays the Chicago Theatre May 8 and 9.