American singer-songwriter, actor, and philanthropist Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19, 1946. Her lengthy career in country music is her main source of fame. Parton began her career as a successful composer for other people. She went on to have a career spanning more than fifty years, earning her the title of “country legend” and selling over 100 million albums globally, making her one of the all-time best-selling musicians.
She has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years and 44 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any singer. The songs “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colours,” and “9 to 5” are just a few of the almost 3,000 songs she has written.
Dolly Parton: Quick Facts
- Birth Name: Dolly Rebecca Parton
- Birth Date: January 19, 1946
- Birth Place: Tennessee, United States
- Gender: Female
- Career: Singer, Songwriter, Actress, Philanthropist
- Most Known For: Dolly Parton is a Grammy-winning musical legend whose hit songs, such as “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colours,” and “9 to 5”, have made her a fixture on the country and pop music charts for decades.
Early Life
On January 19, 1946, Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in Pittman Centre, Tennessee, in a one-room cabin on the Little Pigeon River. She is the fourth of Avie Lee Caroline and Robert Lee Parton Sr.’s twelve children.
“Lee” Parton’s father struggled as a sharecropper in the East Tennessee highlands before managing a small tobacco plantation along with the surrounding land. He also supplemented the meagre revenue from the farm for the family—which she called “dirt poor”—by working construction jobs.
Parton attributes her musical prowess to her mother, who despite her frequent illness was able to take care of the household and amuse her kids with old ballads and folklore from the Smoky Mountains.
Parton’s family relocated from the Pittman Centre neighbourhood to a farm up on neighbouring Locust Ridge when she was a little child. There were most of her most treasured childhood memories made. Dolly Parton began creating music before she could read. She wrote her first song shortly after receiving her first guitar from a relative.
She began her professional career at the age of ten, including appearances on radio and television programs in Knoxville, which is about an hour away from her house. Three years later, Parton made her Grand Ole Opry debut.
Determined to pursue a career in music, she relocated to Nashville the day following her high school graduation in 1964. Soon after arriving, she signed with Combine Publishing, where she began her career as a songwriter. She frequently collaborated on songs with her uncle Bill Owens, and during this time, they wrote several chart-topping hits, including two Top 10 hits for Bill Phillips, “Put It Off Until Tomorrow” and “The Company You Keep.”
Early Country music success
In 1967, Parton’s singing career really got going. She co-starred on The Porter Wagoner Show at this time alongside country music star Porter Wagoner. Together, Parton and Wagoner produced several country singles and rose to popularity as a duo.
Her friendly demeanour, little height of five feet, and attractive curves garnered a lot of attention, but behind them was a visionary artist who was also astute in business. Parton has safeguarded the publication rights to her song catalogue from the beginning of her career, earning her millions of dollars in royalties.
Parton’s collaboration with Wagoner facilitated her signing an agreement with RCA Records. Parton had a number of hitting songs before her first No. 1 country hit, “Joshua,” a bluegrass-inspired song about two lonely people who fall in love, came out in 1971.
More No. 1 singles came next, such as the melancholic 1973 single “Jolene,” which features a lady pleading with another attractive women not to take her guy, and the 1974 tribute song “I Will Always Love You,” which paid homage to Wagoner when the two parted ways in the music industry.
Presley wanted to record a cover of the song and Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s notorious manager, sought to get Parton to transfer half the song’s publication rights over to Presley, but Dolly refused.
The ethereal “Love Is Like a Butterfly,” the thought-provoking “The Bargain Store,” the spiritual “The Seeker,” and the upbeat “All I Can Do” were among the other popular country songs from this era. She was honoured with the 1975 and 1976 Country Music Association Awards for Female Vocalist due to the breadth of her captivating repertoire.
Her first breakthrough hit came in 1977 with the upbeat yet melancholic song “Here You Come Again,” which was a tribute to a lover who was returning. Along with peaking at No. 3 on the mainstream charts and at the top of the country charts, the song also won the singer-songwriter her first Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
Then came other heartfelt No. 1 country songs, such as “Heartbreaker,” “It’s All Wrong, But It’s Alright,” and “Starting Over Again,” a ballad penned by disco icon Donna Summer. Parton has had a lot of success with her partnerships throughout the years. Her duet with Kenny Rogers, “Islands in the Stream,” brought her another huge hit in 1983. She collaborated with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on the Grammy Award-winning album Trio four years later.
Campaigns and Transition to Pop
Parton had a string of country songs between 1974 and 1980, with eight of her tracks peaked at number one. The numerous musicians who have covered her songs, including popular and crossover acts like Olivia Newton-John, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, are evidence of her effect on pop culture.
In an effort to take her music outside of the country music genre and gain more recognition outside of it, Parton started a high-profile crossover push. She started collaborating closely with Sandy Gallin in 1976, and for the following twenty-five years, Gallin was her personal manager.
Following the underwhelming crossover debut of New Harvest, Parton turned to well-known pop producer Gary Klein for her subsequent album. The outcome, Here You Come Again (1977), topped the country album chart and peaked at number 20 on the pop chart, becoming her first million-seller.
For her album Here You Come Again, Parton was awarded a Grammy Award in 1978 for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. “Heartbreaker” (1978), “Baby I’m Burning” (1979), and “You’re the Only One” (1979) were among her other singles; they all peaked at the top of the country chart and the pop Top 40.
Her album sales continued to be robust into the mid-1980s, as seen by the country Top 10 hits for “Save the Last Dance for Me,” “Tennessee Homesick Blues,” “God Won’t Get You” (1984), “Real Love” (another duet with Kenny Rogers), “Don’t Call It Love” (1985), and “Think About Love” (1986). She joined with Columbia Records in 1987 when her contract with RCA Records expired in 1986 and was not renewed.
Continued Fame
For the 1992 movie The Bodyguard, Whitney Houston recorded Dolly Parton’s song “I Will Always Love You.” Parton’s song reached new heights of fame thanks to Houston’s rendition; it topped the pop charts for 14 weeks and went on to become one of the all-time greatest-selling songs. When Anderson Cooper asked Whitney how she used her song earnings, she replied, that she used it and “bought a lot of cheap wigs.”
Parton collaborated with Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn on the album Honky Tonk Angels the next year. In 1995, Parton sang Vince Gill’s now-famous song “I Will Always Love You” again as a duet. After that, Parton, with a little assistance from Patty Loveless and Alison Krauss, revisited the music of her Appalachian origins with The Grass Is Blue (1999).
In 1999, Parton’s sixth Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album was awarded to the record. Parton received two more Grammy Awards in 2001 for the song “Shine” from her album Little Sparrow. She was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame that same year.
Parton kept writing and recording, and in 2008 she came out with Backwoods Barbie. Two country hits from the album, “Better Get to Livin'” and “Jesus & Gravity,” were released. 2011 saw the publication of Parton’s album Better Day, which featured versions of songs she had written for the Broadway version of the 9 to 5 movie.
A Holly Dolly Christmas, Parton’s first holiday album in thirty years, was released in August 2020. It included cameos from artists such as Willie Nelson, Miley Cyrus, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Michael Bublé.
Parton, who was nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame earlier that year, made her first rock music album, suitably named Rockstar, known when she revealed intentions to release it in November 2022. The album, which debuted on November 17, 2023, includes collaborations with several rock musicians in addition to versions of well-known rock songs.
Parton’s renditions of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” and Prince’s “Purple Rain” are among the covers. The new CD has tunes by a number of musicians, including Pat Benatar, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Sting, and Lizzo.
Movie Career and other Ventures
Parton’s mainstream career may have peaked in the 1980s. She debuted in a movie with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the 1980 comedic blockbuster 9 to 5. She portrayed a secretary in a film that brought attention to workplace inequality, who, with the help of her two coworkers, schemes to overthrow her conceited and misogynistic employer.
Parton not only co-starred in 9 to 5, but she also made soundtrack contributions. With one of the most enduring opening lines in the annals of popular music, the title track turned out to be another No. 1 smash for Parton on the mainstream and country charts.
Parton was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won two Grammy Awards for “9 to 5”: Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The next year, Parton featured alongside Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise in the musical film The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, which helped bring her song “I Will Always Love You” to a wider audience.
In the musical comedy Rhinestone (1984), Parton costarred with Sylvester Stallone as a country music performer who attempts to make a successful career out of an irritating New York City taxi driver (played by Stallone).
Along with hosting her own variety show in 1976 and 1987–1988, Parton has continued to work as an actor throughout the years, appearing in a number of films and television shows, such as Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992), Unlikely Angel (1996), Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002), and Joyful Noise (2012).
Parton took a different turn in the 1980s as well. She started her own theme park, Dollywood, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in 1986 after putting her large fortunes into a number of business endeavours.
In addition to the Dollywood theme park, Parton is a co-owner of The Dollywood Company, which owns and runs a variety of real estate and entertainment facilities. These include the Dream More Resort and Spa, Dollywood’s Smoky Mountain Cabins, the supper event Dolly Parton’s Stampede, and the waterpark Splash Country at Dollywood. Parton’s 50% ownership of the Dollywood amusement park is said to be valued at about $165 million.
Personal Life
Since 1966, Parton and Carl Dean have been wed. Two years prior, the pair had met at the Wishy Washy, a laundry in Nashville. The couple even renewed their vows on their 50th wedding anniversary. The former owner of a Nashville asphalt road paving company, Dean has always avoided the spotlight and hardly ever goes to events with his spouse. Jokingly, Parton has stated that he has only ever seen her perform once.
Parton has never been a parent, but she and Dean raised a number of her younger siblings in Nashville, so her nieces and nephews called her “Uncle Peepaw” and “Aunt Granny”; the latter term eventually became the name of one of Parton’s food establishments in Dollywood. Miley Cyrus, an actress and singer-songwriter, has Parton as her godmother as well.
Conclusion
Dolly Partons rise from a cabin, in Tennessee to becoming a country music superstar is a tale of talent, determination and passion. Her exceptional songwriting skills and unique voice have earned her adoration in the music world while her charitable endeavors have won the hearts of many. Through timeless classics like “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You ” Parton has not established herself as a legend but has also opened doors for future artists. Her narrative reflects triumph, over challenges highlighting the significance of having dreams and conveying stories through music. Dolly Parton stands as an icon spreading hope and embodying the enduring essence of country music.
