by Kevin Burton
Sometimes at the movies, the writers ask you to suspend disbelief. For one 70s song, I couldn’t do it.
The song is “Jolene” by Dolly Parton.
In a quivering delivery, Dolly begs this Jolene character, “please don’t take my man.” I just never could buy that.
I thought, what woman on God’s green earth is going to be able to take a man away from Dolly Parton? A man she intended to keep anyway!
So that song should have been passed along to another singer. Although, I guess not, because I just learned Dolly also wrote Jolene.
Now I was only 10 in 1973 when Jolene was released. My eyes were not fully opened to the wonders and nuance of the whole boy-girl thing. But when it came to Dolly, I knew enough. I had seen her on the late-night TV talk shows and I saw the way men reacted to her.
I knew she was a big, big deal. And as time passed, that big deal only got bigger. I mean, flip through your music collection and tell me which of those artists has a theme park named after them.
So naturally much of the world stopped in its tracks yesterday when it was announced that Dolly had died, at age 80.
A lot of people are called “beloved.” Dolly Parton was and still is, truly, beloved.
“In a video statement shared to Instagram Tuesday, Parton’s nephew Bryan Seaver — the son of Cassie Parton and Parton’s head of security for more than two decades — shared the news that Parton had died,” wrote Yahoo entertainment reporter Kaitlin Reilly. “He said the video announcement was something that his aunt asked him to do “years ago.”
Parton’s death comes months after she announced that she was canceling her Las Vegas residency due to “health challenges.”
“While Seaver did not disclose details around Parton’s death, he reflected on her legacy, which included opening doors for ‘generations of singers, songwriters, musicians, and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent’ and changing history,” Reilly wrote.
“She has always been on your television, your record player, your CD, and on your phone playlist, becoming an extended part of your family, whether you liked it or not. Our family and the team she has entrusted with her legacy will work diligently to ensure her spirit will live with us forever,” Seaver said. “Dolly was a farmer, just like her daddy. He farmed the soil. She farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”
Having blonde hair, really big boobs and wearing really high heels of course will get you far in the United States. But you don’t get to where Dolly got on that alone. Dolly grew throughout her career to be way more than the babe of the moment, the flavor of the month. She was a cultural icon and an American national treasure, in an era when those are in short supply.
Paul McCartney said it’s “hard to imagine” a world with Dolly. Elton John called her “unique and irreplaceable,” both quoted by the BBC. You will be hearing tributes like that for some time now. Dolly was a phenomenon.
“Known as the Queen of Country, Parton built a successful career that spanned decades, during which she became one of the most honored female country performers of all time,” Reilly wrote. “She received 10 Grammy Awards plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, andshe holds the record for a female artist with 25 number 1s on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.”
“Parton was the fourth of 12 children, born to Avie Lee Caroline Owens and Robert Lee Parton Sr. on Jan. 19, 1946, and grew up in Locust Ridge, Tenn. She often credited her uncle Bill Owens for encouraging her to pursue music after buying her a guitar and getting her a role on a television variety show in Knoxville when she was 10.”
“After graduating from high school in 1964, Parton moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music. She met her husband, Carl Dean, on her first day in the city, at a laundromat. The two would wed in 1966and stay married until his death on March 3, 2025,” Reilly wrote.
“Parton’s big break came in 1967 when Porter Wagoner asked her to replace his duet partner, Norma Jean, on the syndicated TV series The Porter Wagoner Show. The Country Music Hall of Fame credits Parton’s ‘hourglass figure, outrageous outfits, and angelic voice’ for why she performed so well as Wagoner’s cohost.”
“Parton signed with RCA Records as both a solo artist and Wagoner’s partner, and her first solo No. 1 hit was ‘Joshua’ in 1971, which led to the success of ‘Jolene,’ ‘Love Is Like a Butterfly’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ in 1974. The latter song, which she wrote in honor of Wagoner after she left his show earlier that year, would go on to become a number 1 pop hit when Whitney Houston covered it in 1992 for The Bodyguard soundtrack.”
“Parton herself crossed over to the pop charts with her recording of “Here You Come Again” in 1977. Her song “9 to 5” was the title song of the film of the same name and marked Parton’s film debut in 1980. She starred alongside Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. The song won two Grammys and was Oscar-nominated. She starred in a number of films, including The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas with Burt Reynolds in 1982 and Steel Magnolias with Sally Field and Julia Roberts in 1989.”
She also opened Dollywood — a theme park that became a significant tourist attraction and helped fund her nonprofit Dollywood Foundation, which supports local schools and scholarship programs — in East Tennessee in 1986. The foundation launched Imagination Library in 1995, and the program now mails millions of free books to children in multiple countries,” Reilly wrote.
Parton was philanthropic in many ways. After the 2016 Sevier County wildfires, the My People Fund raised and distributed more than $12 million. Parton also donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, for COVID-19 vaccine research.”
Parton would go back to her roots and record several bluegrass albums throughout the early 2000s, after being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999. She founded her own label, Dolly Records, in 2007 and wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway adaptation of 9 to 5, earning her a Tony Award nomination in 2009,” Reilly wrote.
“Dolly was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and in 2025 and won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” Reilly wrote.
Dolly has been quoted as saying she didn’t mind dumb blonde jokes because, “I know I’m not dumb…and I know I’m not blonde.” Every Dolly tribute should end with a smile.
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