Dolly Parton, the American country music singer who rose from poverty in Tennessee to become a US cultural giant with hits like “Jolene” and “Coat of Many Colours”, has died at 80, her family said Tuesday.
“Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus,” her nephew Bryan Seaver said in a video on social media.
He said the multiple award-winning artist had “opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians, and dreamers from every walk of life.”
The family did not give a cause of death, but the singer-songwriter — who was also an actress, philanthropist, and extraordinarily successful businesswoman — had spoken about her recent ill health. Her husband Carl Dean died last year.
President Donald Trump ordered the lowering of American flags to half-staff across the United States for a week for Parton, calling her passing a “true loss for millions of people”.
“There has never been anyone like her, and never will,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network.
In May, Parton had announced the cancellation of a series of Las Vegas concerts, citing ongoing health concerns. In videos posted to her social media accounts, she said that while treatment for an unspecified illness was going well, she was not ready to be performing on stage.
Parton lived her entire adult life in the heart of Americana, folk and country music. The day after graduating from high school, she struck out for the country music capital Nashville.
By 1967, at age 21, she was among the most recognised figures in American music, having joined Porter Wagoner’s syndicated country music television show that broadcast her voice and face into millions of US homes.
Parton was prolific in a career spanning six decades, during which she penned some 3,000 tunes.
They included the soundtrack smash hit “9 to 5”, “Islands In the Stream”, and the iconic ballad “I Will Always Love You”, which became an international success for Whitney Houston.
Releasing 49 studio albums and more than 100 compilation and collaboration albums, she earned the title of “queen of country music”.
“By her example, we believed that anything was possible. She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history,” her nephew said.
Parton — never one to downplay her striking looks — essentially wrote the book on how a woman can rule the airwaves in a male-dominated industry, ultimately becoming an American treasure whose songs were covered by the likes of Shania Twain, Sinead O’Connor and the White Stripes. (Channels)
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