Note: Tribute originally published on David’s Substack.
The sound of Dolly Parton’s voice is one of my first memories. My Kentucky mother loved Dolly’s Coat of Many Colors and would always stop what she was doing when that song came on the radio. The whole house would go quiet, filled with nothing more than Dolly’s plaintive vocals and the spare instrumentation that accompanied her. It’s a heartbreaker of a song. It’s a song about being poor, about a little girl with a patchwork jacket made for her by her mother. It’s also a song about being proud of what you do have, especially when loving care went into the design. I never experienced that kind of poverty, but as a kid from a holler in Kentucky, I was only a single generation removed from it. I could feel that song in my bones and in my family’s stories.
Dolly Parton did almost everything in her life with a deceptively simple demeanor. Her voice was pure Smoky Mountain Tennessee, and her manner was delightful, yet challenging. She was born into the world of men, but outplayed them at their own game. The fourth of twelve children, Parton was a homespun fighter from the start. She began her legendary career in country music as a songwriter for others, scribing hits for Bill Phillips and Skeeter Davis. With the encouragement of Johnny Cash, she decided to make records as a performer, even though many in Nashville thought her lilting, tremulous soprano a poor fit for country music.
In 1966, she recorded her first hit, “Dumb Blonde” (written by Curly Pittman), a tune that turned the pejorative on its head. Parton would go on to turn all conventional wisdom on its head. It might have been what she did best. Parton’s big break would come in 1967, when Porter Wagoner chose her to join his syndicated variety show. Parton was not well received at first. As the replacement for the popular Norma Jean, she would sometimes perform with the studio audience chanting for her predecessor. No matter, though. Before long, Parton would eclipse the careers of Norma Jean and Wagoner by a mighty distance.
Her stay on the Porter Wagoner Show would last seven years. Over that time, Parton and Wagoner combined for twelve top-ten hits on the country charts as a duo, but Parton also established herself as a solo artist. From 1970 to 1972, Parton landed four top-ten singles of her own. In 1973, she would produce an extraordinary one-two punch with her number-one singles, Jolene and I Will Always Love You. Legend states that Parton wrote I Will Always Love You and Jolene on the same day. Parton later said that she wasn’t sure whether she wrote them both on the same day, or just in the same short period of time. It matters little. Those two songs are a career by themselves. Between 1974 and 1979, a slew of hits followed, most of which she wrote herself. With Here You Come Again, she crossed over to the pop charts, peaking at number three.
Due to her iconography, Parton is seldom spoken of as one of the great songwriters of her era. This is a great mistake. Nashville is a country music factory where most performers don’t write and record their own songs. That includes the men, but it is especially true of women. In the history of the art form, only Loretta Lynn is comparable to Parton as a female singer/songwriter. I don’t know that any man comes close.
By 1980, Parton had become so famous that Hollywood came calling. With the feminist workplace comedy 9-5, Parton ended up co-starring in one of the biggest hits of the decade. And who were those co-stars? Only the legendary Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. It was Parton’s first movie role, and it was Fonda and Tomlin who had to keep up with her. Along with a leading role, Parton was also commissioned to write the theme song/title track for the film. In doing so, she came up with one of the greatest opening verses in the history of popular music:
Tumble outta bed, and I stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin’
Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin’
The folks like me on the job from nine to five
Her wondrous, pensive delivery of the verse before bursting into the song’s huge earworm of a chorus perfectly captured what it is to wake up every day and go to work for a man who doesn’t appreciate you. In many ways, with her self-deprecating humor (she often made jokes about her plastic surgeries and her ample bosom), cheerful smile, and unfailingly sweet affect, Parton was an unlikely feminist. But in word and deed throughout her life, she most certainly was. She built her success on her own steam, talent, and wiles. Through her publishing business and her theme park Dollywood, Parton became the wealthiest person in all of country music, and I don’t know that a bad word has ever been said of her.
But Parton didn’t seek to enrich just her own life. Parton stood up for the poor, minorities, and her fervent LGBTQ+ fanbase without ever offending the (conservative) core of country music. But then, she was the core of country music, wasn’t she? Besides, how could anyone get mad (let alone stay mad) at Dolly? There was a true humility at play in her life. In 2022, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominated her for induction, she sweetly and authentically suggested she hadn’t done enough work in rock and roll to deserve the honor. The Rock Hall left her on the ballot, and she was selected as part of the 2022 class. In an attempt to earn her rock and roll bona fides, she wrote a new song, which she performed at the induction ceremony while hitting power chords on her guitar. It may not have been her greatest song, but it surely charmed all those in attendance or watching at home.
As if to prove to herself that she could rightfully exist in rock and roll, she followed up her performance with a 39-song rock album (titled, ever so subtly, Rockstar), full of mostly easily recognizable cover songs. Her take on Purple Rain is one of the finest this side of the original.
An original. That is how Dolly Parton will be remembered. Over a career that spanned more than sixty years, she conquered the worlds of music, television, film, stage, business, and anything else that she set her mind to. She did it with flair, kindness, and, most significantly, a mighty, mighty talent. She was the realest of the real. The best of the best. The truest of hearts. That understanding landed immediately. All you needed to do was hear the sound of her voice coming through a tinny RCA radio at the age of five.
We will not see another like her.
Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026. She was 80 years old.
