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Dolly Parton has died
Songwriter of I Will Always Love You, Jolene and 9 to 5 also invested millions in child literacy, Covid-19 vaccine development and other causes
Alexis Petridis on Dolly Parton’s peerless career which turned country music cliches inside out
Country music legend Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – latest updates
Dolly Parton, one of the greatest singer-songwriters in country music who was also much cherished for her philanthropy, has died aged 80.
Her death was announced by nephew Brian Seaver on Instagram. “I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now,” he said. “It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness.”
So gifted that she wrote two of the 20th century’s greatest songs – Jolene and I Will Always Love You – in a single day, Parton’s songwriting was characterised by its vivid storytelling, emotional acuity and melodic strength, all sung with strident clarity. From an eventual catalogue of hundreds of songs, she scored a record 25 US country No 1 singles and 47 albums in the country Top 10 . She crossed over into the pop charts with 9 to 5, a US No 1 in 1980; balanced her music career with acclaimed acting, twice earning Golden Globe nominations for her roles; and her Imagination Library literacy scheme donated more than 150m books to children.
This was all done with considerable panache, rhinestoned glamour and towering hairdos, with her immortal assertion regarding her appearance – “it takes a lot of money to look this cheap” – the most quoted example of Parton’s ready wit.
Parton was born in poverty in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, the fourth child to a mother who would have 12 children by the age of 35, and a father who was a farmer and construction worker. One of her best-loved songs, Coat of Many Colours, was about her mother creating patchwork clothes; Parton’s first guitar was cobbled together from a mandolin with bass guitar strings. Her first proper guitar was given to her aged eight by her uncle, and she went from singing in church, to appearing on local television aged 10, to cutting her first record aged 13. That year she appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, the concert hall in Nashville at the centre of country music, and her performance was introduced by Johnny Cash. “I’ve always believed things would go well, and I dreamed that they would even before I was in high school,” she later said. “I always wanted to be a star. It just seemed natural to me.”
After graduating high school in 1964 she moved to Nashville and started out as a songwriter rather than performer. The following year she was signed as an artist and initially moulded as a pop singer, without success; after she was allowed to switch to country, she scored back-to-back hits and released her debut album Hello, I’m Dolly. In 1966 she married Carl Dean – who died in 2025, with the couple renewing their vows in 2016 to mark 50 years together.
Beginning in 1967, a duet partnership with country singer and TV personality Porter Wagoner helped her star continue to ascend, and she had her first country No 1 in 1971 with the song Joshua.