Dolly wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” on the same day. Had I contributed even a part of a verse in either song I would have considered my songwriting career illustrious. It’s the musical equivalent of designing a Chevrolet Corvette and a Ford Mustang before and after lunch. Possibly the most valuable 9 to 5 clocked by any American in history. Both songs sit back unchallenged in the great American songbook. Both songs have generated tens, maybe hundreds of millions in royalties. And, remarkably, they weren’t even Dolly’s most famous pair.
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!” She quipped, with her typical self-deprecating charm. And just one of the hundreds of her zingers now resurfacing on social media. The Queen of the South had a tongue so sharp she could disarm any of her subjects. If she had decided to pursue only comedy, I’m sure we’d have known her name. “Nobody notices I’ve got a great ass too!”
Instead she chose music.
Or maybe music chose her. She was just five years old when she composed “Little Tiny Tasseltop” with her mother Avie, about a corncob doll. Dolly was the fourth of twelve kids raised by sharecropper and construction worker Robert Lee Parton and his wife and homemaker Avie Lee Caroline Owens.
Her parents had married young, aged 17 and 16 in 1939, and raised twelve children in poverty, first in a one-room cabin, later a small farm in Locust Ridge in the Appalachian foothills of East Tennessee.
“We were very proud people, people with a lot of class. It’s country class, but it was a great deal of class. Most of my people were not that educated. But they are very, very intelligent. Good common sense. Horse-sense, we called it.”
In 1959 she recorded and released her first single “Puppy Love”. Written with her uncle Bill Owens when she was only 11. Her grandma Rena Owens accompanied little Dolly on the 30-hour bus trip to Goldband Records in Lake Charles, Louisiana, just to record it. Even before she heard it back on the radio, she’d had the music bug.
And so the sweet soprano of the Smoky Mountains began her dazzling music career. 49 studio albums released and over 100 million sold worldwide. She scored 25 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart – a record for a female artist. Her songs were covered by Whitney Houston, The White Stripes, Olivia Newton-John, Beyoncé and her goddaughter and distant cousin Miley Cyrus, to name but a few.
When she came to Glastonbury in 2014, Britain’s music Mecca, she may as well have been the headline act. Tens of thousands swarmed the Pyramid Stage to catch a glimpse of Her American Majesty. A record crowd and the talk of the weekend, with millions more around the country tuning in on the BBC. She was as beloved in my country as in her own.
Dolly was the American dream in a plastic cup. And don’t for a second mistake that as any sort of slight on her style. She had a splendour and sumptuousness only post-war America could conjure. I don’t imagine it’s easy to make ostentatious cosmetics look elegant. And she did so with ease. Always worn with her signature self-deprecating charm: “If I’d’ve been born a man, I’d’ve been a drag queen.”
But her talents did not, of course, end there. JK Rowling eulogised her passing:
“Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library was the best contribution to child literacy ever made by a celebrity.”
The Imagination Library, launched by Dolly in 1995, mails a free age-appropriate book monthly to children from birth to age five. Inspired by her father, who was illiterate, she began by mailing free books each month to kids in her home county of Sevier County, Tennessee. Over 300 million books have since been distributed globally. The Dollywood Foundation have confirmed that the programme will keep going, even after Dolly’s passing.
Even King Charles and Queen Camilla have paid tribute to the American Queen. They had a Household Division band perform Dolly’s classic ‘9 to 5’ outside Buckingham Palace this morning and posted their condolences, “Remembering the late, great Dolly, who brought joy, comfort and inspiration to so many - including the millions of children given free books through her Imagination Library. We will always ❤️ you.”
And here we see that Dolly was a hero for all people. From the impoverished children of the American South to the Royal households of the Old World. For southern conservatives she personified grace and wit, kindness and community. For northern liberals she had glamour, openness and style. So talented a singer one forgets that if she was judged just as a songwriter, comic or indeed philanthropist she would be deemed world-class.
Americans don’t like monarchs, but for her they made an exception. A woman of the people. The essence of the South. She was a sort of divine contradiction. A prima donna with humility. A self-effacing diva. Winsome and regal. Never has so much plastic looked so wholesome.
“First thing you do when you get out of bed in the morning?” She was once asked in a television interview.
“I usually get up, put on my clothes and go home”
Rest in Peace, Dolly Parton. You were a treasure to us all.
WM
Really lovely tribute. R.I.P
Loved this. Really nice tribute! 💜