Singer/songwriter/actress Dolly Parton, one of the most successful artists in country music, has died at the age of 80 in Nashville, Tennessee. Her nephew and longtime security chief Bryan Seaver revealed the news. She had been admitted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center with kidney and autoimmune issues.
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19, 1946 in a one-room cabin in Pittman Center, Tennessee, the fourth of the 12 children of Robert Lee Parton Sr. and the former Avie Lee Caroline Owens. Her father was a sharecropper and later a tobacco farmer. She started singing and eventually writing songs as a child. After graduating from Sevier County High School in Sevierville, she moved to Nashville. Her first success was a songwriter, sometimes in collaboration with her uncle Bill Owens.
In 1967, country music entertainer Porter Wagoner invited Parton to join his TV show The Porter Wagoner Show and his road show, staying on the former until 1974. She then started a successful solo career, with songs such as Jolene, I'll Always Love You, Here You Come Again, and Two Doors Down. In 1980, she starred in the movie 9 to 5, for which she wrote and sang its title song. She later collaborated with many other artists, including Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt on their album Trio. Although Parton was known musically mainly for singing and writing, she also played instruments such as the guitar, piano, banjo, dulcimer, fiddle, recorder, autoharp and saxophone. She also starred in more movies, including as Rhinestone, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk.
Soon after arriving in Nashville in 1964, she met asphalt paving businessman and Nashville native Carl Dean outside a laundromat. They were married two years later in Ringgold, Georgia. It was the only marriage for both. They had no children. Dean passed away in 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment