DOLLY PARTON – THE UNDISPUTED COUNTRY MUSIC QUEEN (JANUARY 19, 1946 – AUGUST 25, 2026)

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19, 1946 in Pittman Center (near Sevierville), Tennessee. She was the fourth of 12 children born to Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Parton in a poor Appalachian farming family.

Music played an important role in Dolly's early life. She learned folk songs and church music from her mother; her earliest public performances were in the church, beginning at age six. At seven, she started playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight, her uncle bought her first guitar and she sang on local radio and TV shows starting as a child. She debuted as a performer at a young age 13 in 1959, when she was introduced by Johnny Cash in Grand Ole Opry.

Dolly Parton moved to Nashville immediately after graduating from high school in 1964 and gained widespread fame performing as a duet partner on Porter Wagoner's television program “The Porter Wagoner Show” from 1967 to 1974.

Dolly wrote and recorded many songs including classics “Coat of Many Colors” (1971), “Jolene” (1973), “I Will Always Love You” (1974), “Here You Come Again” (1977), “9 to 5” (1980), and “Islands in the Stream” (1983). She has sold over 100 million records, won 11 Grammy Awards (including her 2011 Lifetime Achievement Grammy) and received 55 Grammy nominations, the third-most nominations of any female artist and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2022).

Dolly Parton developed “blonde bombshell” persona early in her career, and soon she became famous for her towering bouffant hairstyle, buxom physique, and glitzy dresses.

In the 1980s Dolly Parton delved into acting and appeared in several successful films, including the comedy Nine to Five (1980; which was also called 9 to 5); The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982); and Steel Magnolias, which was a comedy-drama. She guest-starred in many TV series and appeared in several feature films and TV movies in the 1990s and 2000s.

Dolly Parton was also successful in business, opening the Dollywood Appalachian-themed amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, in 1986 and the Imagination Library, which she launched as the global children's literacy program in 1995, mailing millions of free books to children.

Dolly married Carl Dean in 1966 after meeting him on her first day in Nashville in 1964; they had no children but remained together until Carl’s death in 2025. Dolly Parton passed away after a "brief battle" with cancer in Nashville on August 25, 2026, at the age of 80.

EMEKS MUSIC