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Comment by sollewitt | Hacker News Reader

The guitar is also immaculate slowed down and that was her too. I always thought it was some hotshot Nashville session musician. One of the best guitar licks of all time.

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She was certainly a fine guitarist, but Wikipedia says you were right first time, it was a session player called Chip Young.

Dolly wrote the lick herself, and when she was in the studio with the session players, they wanted her to show them how to play it [0].

She ended up having Chip Young lay it down on the record since her long fingernails made it difficult to nail consistently. This is also why if you watch videos of her playing guitar she plays in open tunings [1].

0: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/31/dolly-parton-r...

1: https://www.guitarworld.com/features/how-does-dolly-parton-p...

I still carry the rather 20th century idea that a performer of almost any kind also ought to have some sort of other talent in addition to their main one. The versatility of that sort of thing is one of the things that should separate a pro from the rest. I generally count "professional level musician" on more than one instrument as fulfilling that contract... perhaps one of the easier of the options, but it still carries that versatility advantage. Another example that I'm quite fond of is famous comedian Steve Martin performing Dueling Banjos with Kermit the Frog. The combo of two professional entertainers playing off of each other combined with the music skills creates the opportunity for a creative routine.

Brian Cox's other talent, in addition to being a Rock Legend, is being an accomplished physicist.

Brian May, too.

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