American country music legend Dolly Parton, singer of “Jolene” or “9 to 5”, has died at 80, her family announced in a video on Tuesday.
“My family and I shared a lifetime of beautiful memories with Dolly, but so can you. She has always been present on your television, your record player, your CDs or in the playlist of your phone, thus becoming a full member of your family,” said her nephew in a video published on the star’s X account, who had been known to be ill for some time.
Dolly Parton “paved the way for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians and dreamers from all walks of life,” he added. The singer’s family did not specify the cause of her death. Her husband, Carl Dean, whom she met when she was 18, died last year.
By writing 3000 titles, 100 million records sold
In May, the American singer had already announced the postponement of several concerts, citing health problems. In a video posted on Instagram, she explained that her recovery was on track, but that she was not yet ready to return to the stage.
From his pen emerged some 3,000 titles, including classics like “Jolene” (1973) and “I Will Always Love You” (1974), a song covered by Whitney Houston which made it a global success.
During her 60-year career, the “Queen of Country” released dozens of albums, sold more than 100 million records and placed her songs at the top of the country charts more often than any other singer.
She was even crowned in the pop category, with a song like “Islands in the Stream”, and starred in Hollywood blockbusters like “How to Get Rid of Your Boss” (1980), for which she also participated in the recording of the soundtrack, and “Women’s Gossip” (1989).
Dolly Parton largely helped define how a woman can control her image in a predominantly male industry, becoming a musical landmark in the United States whose songs have been covered endlessly.
Her silhouette, her haircuts and her outfits helped to forge her legend. And she fought against sexism in her own way: without violence, by capitalizing on her warm side and her business acumen to amass one of the biggest fortunes in the American music scene. “I love makeup, I love clothes and it suits my personality,” she told NPR radio in 2001.
Excellent guitarist
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on January 19, 1946 in a cabin in Sevier County in the depths of Tennessee, the fourth of a poor family of twelve children. She quickly trained in music, first singing to the chickens outside the family shack in the Appalachian mountains then, at the age of 13, on the legendary stage of the Grand Ole Opry, in Nashville, whose country radio show was broadcast throughout the country.
An excellent guitarist, it is her soprano range, whose vibrato sometimes fades into a wounded murmur, which has won over the critics. After graduating, she moved to Nashville, the capital of country music, and quickly joined Porter Wagoner’s music show, which allowed her songs to resonate in millions of American homes and made her, at 21, one of the most popular figures on the American music scene.
She released “Coat of Many Colors” in 1971, a simple song with biblical themes, addressing how her mother overcame poverty. But it was his ballad “I Will Always Love You”, a delicate tribute to his former stage partner Porter Wagoner, composed after their professional estrangement in 1973, which achieved international success. Its cover by Whitney Houston for the “Bodyguard” soundtrack in 1992 became one of the best-selling singles of all time.
A great philanthropist
The singer opened her own amusement park in 1986 (“Dollywood”), near where she grew up. With several million visitors per year, the place becomes a commercial success. An accomplished entrepreneur, she launched a publishing house, radio station, restaurants… and a perfume, “Dolly”, at the age of 75.
To combat illiteracy, it donates some 100 million books to children in need around the world. And she is donating $1 million in 2020 to Vanderbilt University, in her native Tennessee, which helped develop Moderna’s anti-Covid-19 vaccine. She did not have children, explaining in an interview that her songs “will sustain her when (she is) old.”
In 2021, she revealed that she declined the Presidential Medal of Freedom offered by Donald Trump, the highest civilian distinction in the United States, explaining that she did not want to go to Washington during the Covid-19 pandemic. “I’m not even sure I deserve it,” she told NBC. “But it’s a nice compliment to those who think maybe I deserve it.”
