Music: On the Rock Road with Dolly Parton

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"What other star do you know who would eat at the counter with the band?" Guitarist Rod Smarr is talking about the big little blonde on the stool waving back at the truckers. She looks like something Andy Warhol might have created in homage to both Marilyn Monroe and Mae West. She is in fact Dolly Parton, the reigning queen of country music.

Dolly has been on the road since January. Touring has been a way of life for her for a decade, but this time it is different. She has split with her mentor and partner Porter Wagoner. She has replaced her Travelin' Family Band—including two sisters, two brothers, one cousin—with the rock-savvy Gypsy Fever band. This week she reaches the Roxy in Los Angeles to begin a series of appearances at the citadels of U.S. rock. At 31, Dolly is out to become, in the hyperbole of the trade, a megastar. That means she wants the rock audience. Curious about how the quest was going, TIME Correspondent Jean Vallely accompanied Dolly part of the way. Vallely's report:

Dolly's bus is equipped with a color TV, cassette player, reel-to-reel tape deck, CB radio and ice chest (soft drinks, beer and wine). It has two bathrooms and sleeps eleven. Dolly has her own room. There is a closet for her 20 costumes and four wigs. About the only way the bus looks like a bus is that it has the familiar lighted sign: WATCH STEPS.

At 8 a.m. the bus pulls into a Holiday Inn in Battle Creek, Mich. It has been traveling all night from Peoria, 111. Several band members drag themselves into the clean sheets of the hotel. Dolly sleeps on the bus until 2:30 p.m. She appears in the hotel dining room looking perfect and is promptly mobbed. A woman named Ruby asks for Dolly's autograph. Dolly signs. An hour and many autographs later, Ruby gets up to leave. Dolly yells, "Bye, Ruby. Have a nice day." Ruby is radiant.

Hot Pink. A Dolly Parton concert is a treat, like a hot-fudge sundae after a month of dieting. As the lights come up, the band tears into Jackie Wilson's old rhythm-and-blues specialty Higher and Higher. Dolly is backstage strutting about, slapping her thighs, her hands, an amplifier, anything. Suddenly, on cue, she leaps onstage and takes Higher and Higher even higher.

Those who have never seen Dolly gasp. That mountain of a teased blond wig and the hot-pink, jeweled jumpsuit are spectacular. Only five feet tall, she totters atop five-inch gold heels. Swinging into All I Can Do, she catches the eyes of the people in the front rows and plays to them, talking, teasing.

Next comes Jolene, which has a haunting Ghost Riders in the Sky flavor. People recognize this song, a big hit for Dolly in 1973. "This is about a woman who tried to steal my man," Dolly cries out. "She pulled my wig off and almost beat me to death with it. I fought that woman like a wildcat. I had another wig, but I didn't want another man." People love it. The flash of Instamatic cameras is almost as blinding as Dolly's finery. It is not a Nikon crowd.

To change the beat, Dolly heads for a tall stool. Hoisting a leg, she pauses. "You know, these britches weren't always this tight—only since I got into them." That draws whoops but she cries out, "Let's hear it for the britches that held up!" The folks let her hear it.