On 19th January 2026, singer songwriter Dolly Parton celebrates her 80th birthday.
Her incredible catalogue of songs appear ohave been recorded by Dolly herself and have been covered by a wide range of Artists as well as being used in musicals.
Alongside her career in music, Dolly is also an actor, businesswoman and philanthropist, giving particular support to reading programmes.
Her work has been acknowledged through eleven Grammy Awards and three Emmy Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award. In November 2024, Dolly Parton was named the Greatest Country Artist of all Time by Billboard.
Our blog celebrates her life and work.
Dolly Parton
Born on 19th January 1946, Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of twelve children born to Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton Snr. Parton was born in Pittman Center, Tennessee on the banks of the Little Pigeon River. She has credited her father for her business abilities and her mother’s side of the family for her musical talent.
Parton commented in her 2020 book:
“So it was just natural for my mom to always be singing. My mother had that old-timey voice and she used to sing all these songs that were brought over from the Old World. They were English, Irish, Welsh, folk songs where people tell stories.”
Parton has captured the challenges of her poor upbringing in her songs, including ‘Coat of Many Colours’.
Parton was brought up in the Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee and was part of a congregation pastored by her grandfather, Jake Roberts Owens. This was where she first performed at the age of six. She began playing a homemade guitar at the age of seven before her uncle bought her first real guitar when she was eight.
She went on to perform on local TV and radio and made her first recording at the age of 13, ‘Puppy Love’, for Goldband Records. She appeared at the Grand Ole Opry where she met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her musical ambitions.
Parton attended Sevier County High School. She graduated in 1964 and moved to Nashville the next day. This was a key moment, not just in her music career, as on her first day in Nashville, she met her future husband Carl Dean.
Parton’s early career
Parton started her career in Nashville as a songwriter, working with her uncle Bill Owens. They wrote a number of songs that reached the top 20. When she signed to Monument Records at the age of 19, she was launched as a Pop singer, despite her wish to be a Country singer. But in 1966 the label allowed her to record country songs, releasing ‘Dumb Blond’ in 1967 which reached number 24 in the charts.
Porter Wagoner invited Parton to appear in a regular slot on his TV show and he convinced his record label, RCA Victor, to sign her. Her first release on this label was a duet with Wagoner which reached the top 10 of the Country chart. The duo worked together for a number of years and although their duets did well, Parton’s solo work did not meet the same success. However in 1970, her recording of ‘Mule Skinner Blues’ reached number 3, while her next single, ‘Joshua’ topped the chart in February 1971.
During the early 1970s, Parton wrote and released some of her most famous, enduring songs including ‘Coat of Many Colours’ and ‘Jolene’ in 1974. ‘Jolene’ was her first big hit in the UK, reaching number 7 in the charts in 1976.
In 1974 Parton left Wagoner’s show. The move inspired another of her most famous songs, ‘I Will Always Love You’, which was written as a farewell and thank you to Wagoner. Elvis Presley was interested in recording the song, but when Parton discovered that he expected half of the publishing rights to the song, she refused. This decision demonstrated her business acumen and made her millions of dollars over the years.
Parton was voted Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in both 1975 and 1976.
The move to Pop
Later in the 1970s, Parton made a conscious decision to move from a pure Country sound to a more mainstream Pop sound. This saw her getting more involved in the production side of recording, and her first entirely self-produced album was “New Harvest...First Gathering” released in 1977. It included covers of the hit songs ‘My Girl’ and ‘Higher and Higher’.
Parton worked with Pop producer Gary Klein on her next album, “Here You Come Again”, which helped cement her Country reputation while establishing her as a Pop artist. It also won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1978.
Television appearances continued, including a special with Carol Burnett and roles as host on a number of programmes celebrating music.
Parton co-starred with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the film ‘9 to 5’ in 1980 as well as writing and recording the theme song which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
In 1983, Parton spent two weeks at number 1 with the song ‘Islands in the Stream’, a duet with Kenny Rogers, written and produced by Barry Gibb.
Despite strong record sales throughout the early and mid-1980s, and being inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986, RCA Records did not renew her contract in 1986. The following year, she signed with Columbia Records.
Award-winning success
In 1987, Parton released “Trio” with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. It was a huge commercial success, selling several million copies. It won the Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
In 1989, Parton starred in the film ‘Steel Magnolias’, a hit with critics and audiences.
A cover of Parton’s song ‘I Will Always Love You’ was featured in the film ‘The Bodyguard’ starring Whitney Houston, who recorded the soundtrack to the film. Both the single and the soundtrack album were hugely successful.
Throughout the 1990s Parton continued to write and release music both alone and with various musical partners. She was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 1999.
Her success continued into the 2000s with well-received singles and albums. In 2001 her writing achievements were acknowledged with her induction into the Songwriting Hall of Fame and in 2005 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by the US Government.
In 2007, Parton launched her own record label, Dolly Records.
In 2008, ‘9 to 5: The Musical’ premiered in Los Angeles, hitting Broadway in 2009. Although it was not an initial hit, it toured the US and premiered in the UK in 2012, later opening in the West End and touring the UK.
In October 2009, Parton released “Dolly”, a four-CD box set featuring 99 tracks spanning most of her career. In 2011 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy. New albums and world tours kept Parton busy, and in 2014 she performed for the first time at Glastonbury. In 2016 she was honoured with the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement Award at the CMA Awards.
Parton continued partnering with established and upcoming artists, including co-writing ‘Rainbowland’ with her god-daughter Miley Cyrus for Cyrus’ sixth album. This was followed by Parton’s 2023 album “Rockstar” where she collaborated with artists such as Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Sting, Elton John, Sheryl Crow and Lizzo.
In November 2022, Parton was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She had initially declined the nomination, believing that the accolade was purely for the Rock and Roll genre.
In November 2024, Parton was named number 1 in Billboard’s staff list, The 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time.
Parton’s husband, Carl Dean, died in March 2025, just two months before their 59th wedding anniversary.
Parton’s wider interests
Parton is a co-owner of The Dollywood Company which operates Dollywood theme park and other attractions.
In 1988, Parton set up the Dollywood Foundation. It initially gave scholarships to local high school students, but in 1995 it developed the Imagination Library, which sends age-appropriate books to children every month up to the age of five. Initially set up to support Sevier County in Tennessee, the project now distributes books to over 1,800 local communities in the US, Canada, Ireland and the UK. In 2016, the foundation launched My People Fund to support those impacted by the Tennessee wildfires.
Parton has also been involved in production companies, including Sandollar Productions, which produced several high profile films and TV series.
Further Reading
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