Jad Abumrad (“Radiolab”, “Dolly Parton’s America”)

Jad Abumrad (“Radiolab”, “Dolly Parton’s America”) – American Multiverse

To create the podcast series “Dolly Parton’s America”, Jad Abumrad and his producer Shima Oliaee took nine trips into the “Dollyverse”—that complex American multiverse of music and culture that surrounds country singer Dolly Parton. In this episode Jad and host Jason Gots talk about some of the astonishing discoveries he made along the way.

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If you’d told me a couple months ago that a podcast about Dolly Parton could move me deeply and raise all kinds of questions that go straight to the wounded heart of America today, I guess I would have been skeptical to say the least.

But that skepticism might be exactly the point. America is an image factory. Country music. Rock and Roll. New York City. Nashville. We paint with big, broad brushes. And if we’re not careful, we miss a lot of the details.

My guest today is audio storytelling wizard Jad Abumrad. He’s the creator and a host of Radiolab, More Perfect, and now, of Dolly Parton’s America – a nine part podcast series that achieves all those aforementioned implausible things. Jad’s trips into the Dollyverse with his co-producer Shima Oliaee reveal the country singer as something between a bodhisattva and one of those fairytale mirrors that tell you the truth about yourself.

– Jason Gots

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