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Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946[2]) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, author, and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music.
She has composed over 3,000 songs,[3] the best known of which include "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper for Parton, as well as an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", "9 to 5", and "My Tennessee Mountain Home".
As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, Gnomeo & Juliet, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel, and Joyful Noise. She is one of the most successful female country artists of all time; with an estimated 177 million in album sales, Dolly Parton is also one of the best selling artists of all time.[4] She is known as The Queen of Country Music.[1]
| Dolly Parton | |
|---|---|
 Parton in a Press Conference, 2011. |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Dolly Rebecca Parton |
| Born | January 19, 1946 Sevierville, Tennessee, United States |
| Genres | Country, country pop, pop, bluegrass, gospel |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, record producer, actress, author, musician, businesswoman |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, banjo, autoharp, piano, drums, appalachian dulcimer, harmonica, pennywhistle, recorder, fiddle, bass guitar, saxophone |
| Years active | 1955[1]–present |
| Labels | Goldband (1957–59) Mercury Records (1962–64) Monument (1965–67) RCA (1967–86) Warner Bros. (1987) CBS (1987–95) Rising Tide (1995–97) Decca (1997–98) Sugar Hill (1999–2006) Dolly Records (2007–present) |
| Associated acts | Cher, Brad Paisley, Reba McEntire, Porter Wagoner, Cat Stevens, Kenny Rogers, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Shania Twain, Juice Newton, Stella Parton, The Larkins, Altan, Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley Cyrus, Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Ricky Van Shelton, Vince Gill, Carrie Underwood |
| Website | dollypartonmusic.net |
Early years
Parton was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children of Robert Lee Parton, a tobacco farmer, and his wife Avie Lee (née Owens).[5][6]She has described her family as being "dirt poor".[7] She outlined her family's poverty in her early songs "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". They lived in a rustic, one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, just north of the Greenbrier Valley, in the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevier County, a predominantly Pentecostal area.
Music played an important role in her early life, and her grandfather was a Pentecostal "holy-roller" preacher.[8]
Career discovery
Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in the Eastern Tennessee area. By age nine, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. At thirteen, she was recording (the single "Puppy Love")[9] on a small Louisiana label, Goldband Records, and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. It was at the Opry that she first met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her to go where her heart took her and not to care what others thought.[10]The day after she graduated from high school in 1964, Parton moved to Nashville taking many traditional elements of folklore and popular music from East Tennessee with her.
Parton's initial success came as a songwriter, having signed with Combine Publishing shortly after her arrival in Nashville; [11] with her frequent songwriting partner, her uncle Bill Owens, she wrote a number of charting singles during this time frame, including two top ten hits: Bill Phillips' 1966 record "Put it off Until Tomorrow", and Skeeter Davis' 1967 hit "Fuel to the Flame".
Her songs were also covered by a number of other artists, including Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr during this period.[12]
Parton signed with Monument Records in late 1965, where she was initially pitched as a bubblegum pop singer,[13]; she released a string of singles, though the only one that charted, "Happy, Happy Birthday Baby", nonetheless did not crack the Billboard Hot 100.
Though she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, thinking her unique voice was not suited to the genre. It was only after her composition, "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," as recorded by Bill Phillips (and with Parton, uncredited, on harmony), went to number six on the country music charts in 1966, that the label relented and allowed her to record country.
Her first country single, "Dumb Blonde" (one of the few songs during this era, that she recorded but did not write), reached number twenty-four on the country music charts in early 1967, followed the same year with "Something Fishy", which went to number seventeen. The two songs anchored her first full-length album, Hello, I'm Dolly.
Marriage
On May 30, 1966, she and Carl Thomas Dean ( July 20, 1942 in Nashville, Tennessee) were married in Ringgold, Georgia.[14] She had met Dean at the Wishy-Washy Laundromat two years earlier on her first day in Nashville. His first words to her were: "Y'all gonna get sunburnt out there, little lady."[15]Dean, who runs an asphalt road-surface-paving business in Nashville, has always shunned publicity and rarely accompanies her to any events. According to Parton, he has only ever seen her perform once.
However, she has also commented in interviews that, although it appears they do not spend much time together, it is simply that nobody sees him. She also commented on Dean's romantic side claiming that he will often do spontaneous things to surprise her and sometimes even writes her poems.[16]
The couple partly raised several of Parton's younger siblings at their home in Nashville, leading her nieces and nephews to refer to her as "Aunt Granny". She has no children of her own. Parton is also the godmother of actress and singer Miley Cyrus.[17]
On May 30, 2011, they celebrated their 45th anniversary. Later, she said, "We're really proud of our marriage. It's the first for both of us. And the last."[18]
1995–present
Her 1995 re-recording of "I Will Always Love You" (performed as a duet with Vince Gill), from her album Something Special won the Country Music Association's Vocal Event of the Year Award for Parton and Gill.
The following year, Treasures, an album of covers of 1960s and '70s hits was released, and featured a diverse collection of material, including songs by Mac Davis, Pete Seeger, Kris Kristofferson, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell. (A number of the acts who wrote or initially popularized the songs appeared on the album). Parton's recording of Stevens' "Peace Train" was later remixed and released as a dance single, reaching Billboard's dance singles chart.
Her 1998 country-rock album Hungry Again was made up entirely of her own compositions. Though neither of the album's two singles, "(Why Don't More Women Sing) Honky Tonk Songs" and "Salt in my Tears", charted, videos for both songs received significant airplay on CMT.
A second and more contemporary collaboration with Harris and Ronstadt, Trio II (1999), was released and its cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" won a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.[21]
She recorded a series of bluegrass-inspired albums, beginning with The Grass Is Blue (1999), winning a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and Little Sparrow (2001), with its cover of Collective Soul's "Shine" winning a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The third, Halos & Horns (2002) included a bluegrass version of the Led Zeppelin classic "Stairway to Heaven".
Parton released Those Were The Days (2005), her interpretation of hits from the folk-rock era of the late 1960s through the early 1970s. It featured such classics as John Lennon's "Imagine", Cat Stevens's "Where Do the Children Play?", Tommy James's "Crimson and Clover", and Pete Seeger's anti-war song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?".
Parton earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Travelin' Thru," which she wrote specifically for the feature film Transamerica (2005). Because of the song's theme of uncritical acceptance of a transgender woman, Parton received death threats.[22] She also returned to number one on the country charts later in 2005 by lending her distinctive harmonies to the Brad Paisley ballad, "When I Get Where I'm Goin'".[21]
In September 2007, Parton released her first single from her own record company, Dolly Records, entitled, "Better Get to Livin'," which eventually peaked at number forty-eight on the Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. It was followed by the studio album, "Backwoods Barbie," which was released February 26, 2008, and reached number two on the country charts.
The album's debut at number seventeen on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart has been the highest in her career.[23] Backwoods Barbie produced four additional singles, including the title track, which was written as part of her score for 9 to 5: The Musical, an adaptation of her feature film Nine to Five.
After the sudden death of Michael Jackson, whom Parton knew personally, she released a video in which she somberly told of her feelings on Jackson and his death.[24][25]
On October 27, 2009, Parton released a four-CD box set entitled "Dolly" that features 99 songs and spans most of her career.[26] She released her second live DVD and album, Live From London in October 2009, which was filmed during her sold out 2008 concerts at London's O2 Arena.[27]
She is also working on a dance-oriented album, Dance with Dolly, which she hopes to release in 2010.[dated info][28]
Longtime friend Billy Ray Cyrus, singer of Brother Clyde, released their self-titled debut album on August 10, 2010. Parton is featured on "The Right Time," which she co-wrote with Cyrus and Morris Joseph Tancredi.
She said in 2010 that she would like to start recording a country-dance album in November, and that it should be set for release in 2011. On January 6, 2011, Parton announced her new album would be titled, Better Day.
In February 2011, she announced that she would embark on the Better Day World Tour on July 17, 2011, with shows in northern Europe and the U.S.[29] The album's lead-off single, "Together You and I," was released on May 23, 2011, and Better Day was released on June 28, 2011.[30]
In 2011, Parton voiced the character Dolly Gnome in the animated film Gnomeo and Juliet.
On February 11, 2012, after the sudden death of Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton stated, "Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston.
I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song, and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, "Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed."[31]
Source: Wikipedia
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