Chris Dicker - Dolly Parton Biography: The Queen of the Country Music, Dollywood and More

Dolly Parton Biography: TheQueen of the Country Music, Dollywood and More

Chris Dicker

Published By Chris Dicker AtSmashwords

Copyright 2017 ChrisDicker

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Table ofContents

Introduction

Dolly Parton was born on January 19, 1946, in Locust Ridge,Tennessee. Dollys father, Robert was a tobacco farmer and hermother Avie Lee was a singer in church. Dolly was the4 th out of 12children.

As many children broughtup in the South, her early exposure to music was in church. Dollysgrandfather was a Pentecostal preacher. Therefore, many of herearly performances singing in Church were with her mother andfamily.

Dolly described her familyas "Dirt Poor." In fact, she was in a television interview tellinga story about one of her songs that she wrote titled "Coat of ManyColors." The song tells how her mother stitched a coat out of ragsfor her daughter due to lack of finance. Dolly continued that withpatches and holes in her shoes, she excitedly went off school withher coat of many colors. She was laughed at and made fun of byother students for wearing a coat made of rags. This impacted herpersona in one way or another.

Dolly received her firstguitar at age 8, and by age 10 began performing on local radio andtelevision shows in Knoxville, TN. Three years later, at age of 13,she made her first Grand Ole Opry debut.

After graduating from highschool in 1964, she decided to move to Nashville. Her initialsuccess came as a songwriter, but she was not alone. She had asongwriting partner, her uncle, Bill Owens. During this time, shewrote many charting singles including two top ten hits.

By 1967, Dolly's singingcareer started to take off. She partnered with Porter Wagoner onhis show. As a duo, they recorded several hits, "Lost Forever inYour Kiss" and "Burning the Midnight Oil." As time went on, theyhad a professional break-up and in 1974 Dolly wrote a song about ittitled "I Will Always Love You."

She also had much successsinging duets with Kenny Rogers with hits like "Islands in theStream" and "Real Love."

Most successful artistswork hard to stand out from other artists and accomplish so muchearly on. For example, Dolly has been 21 years old to frame thebeginning of her career, and thats just the beginning.

Dolly Parton is theCo-Owner of Dollywood, a theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Itwas ranked as the 24 th most popular themepark in the United States.

She also has a literacyprogram called Dolly Parton's ImaginationLibrary non-profit organization. Theprogram involves shipping out one book per month to each enrolledchild into the program, until they enter kindergarten. Therefore,its estimated that the program distributes more than 8 millionfree books to children annually.

In 1999, she was inductedinto The Country Music Hall of Fame as she has created over 3,000songs. Dolly won 8 Grammy Awards, and added the Country MusicAssociation's "Entertainer of the Year Award" into herportfolio.

One of the most valuablethings Dolly possesses is her honesty and humor. These two virtuesattract fans, gaining credibility and likeability. In fact, Dollyssense of humor never stops to impress people. When she was askedabout one the surgeries she had, she responded that if she startedsagging, bagging and dragging, then she was going to nip it, suckit and tuck it, especially if she looked like a barn yard dog, ittook a lot of money to look this cheap. Hilarious.

In 1964, Parton pursuedher interest in music and moved to Nashville after high school. Shesigned with Combine Publishing and worked with her uncle, BillOwens. They wrote songs together, and Parton recorded harmonyvocals for his album. Her became popular when she starred withPorter Wagoner in The Porter Wagoner Show in 1967. She then landeda contract with RCA Records. Joshua (1971) became Partons firstNo. 1 country single, followed by Jolene (1973) and I Will AlwaysLove You (1974).

Partons life wasundeniably insular during her upbringing, but these boundariescollapsed to a great deal after she graduated from high school. Thevery next day following her graduation, Dolly moved to Nashville,home to the Grand Ole Opry and roughly 200 miles away from the landin which she was raised. The contrast was quite stark; her SmokyMountain locale was relatively undomesticated, while Nashville wasa moderately-sized city in which commercial culture reignedsupreme. Scores of aspiring country music singers have migrated toNashville in hopes of forging a career for themselves, and plentyof them continue to do so.

Fortunately for her,Nashville was not entirely new to Dolly, as she had performed atthe Grand Ole Opry four years earlier, and as she once noted, Alot of people don't realize I came out of the Smoky Mountains witha load of songs.

Also, Partons transitionwas made easier by the fact that her uncle, Bill Owens, accompaniedher and formed a songwriting duo with her. Though its oftenforgotten today, Partons initial success in Nashville occurred notas a singer but as a songwriter. Shortly after arriving in thecity, she and Bill Owens signed with Combine Publishing, and theywrote a series of successful songs, some of which would becomequite famous. In 1966, they wrote the hit song Put It Off UntilTomorrow (performed by Bill Phillips and Parton), and thefollowing year they wrote Fuel to the Flame, sung by SkeeterDavis.

Skeeter Davis

Some of Dollys writtensongs were also covered by Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr., whichwas a particular source of pride to Dolly Parton. In any event,Partons success as a singer has largely obscured her talent as asongwriter, and while she is deservedly more famous for herperforming, the fact that her initial success came through hersongwriting is evidence of her impressive acumen.

Kitty Wells

Given that she had beensinging since she was a child, its no surprise that Parton was notgoing to limit herself to songwriting, and upon her arrival inNashville, she sought a record company to sign with. Near the endof 1965, she signed with Monument Records, but it was difficult forher to secure a niche. This was during the height of the musiccraze known as bubblegum music, a brand of light rock, but sinceshe hailed from rural Tennessee, Parton had never performed thistype of music in the past. Nonetheless, it is not hard tounderstand why Monument might have foreseen her as a plausiblestar-in-the-making in this genre because bubblegum performers weretypically young, attractive, and wholesome in appearance, andParton met each of these criteria. At this point in her life, herimage was considerably different from what it would later become;she was blonde and rather innocent in appearance, and while shedressed in an openly feminine manner, her clothing choices were notas risqu as in later years. Most significantly, she had yet toreceive any of the plastic surgeries that would become inexorablyassociated with her image. The 19-year-old Dolly Parton appeared toembody the image of young American sensuality that would seeminglytranslate well to bubblegum music.