Dolly Parton, beloved US country music icon, dies at 80

Dolly Parton, a United States country music icon who won the adoration of fans around the world with her compelling songwriting and vibrant personality, has died at the age of 80. Parton’s publicist said in a statement on Tuesday that the famed musician had passed away peacefully in Nashville, Tennessee. 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,” he added. Throughout her career, Parton wrote hundreds of songs, including classics such as “Jolene”, “9 to 5”, and Coat of Many Colours”, and won a degree of acclaim and public affection that few artists in the modern era have been able to match. With enormous blonde wigs, sparkling outfits and a self-deprecating wit, Parton became one of the best-known country music artists in the US, rising to the heights of stardom from her humble beginnings in a log cabin in the southern US state of Tennessee.

She gave her first musical performances in church, where her grandfather was a preacher, and appeared at the age of 13 at the storied country music venue the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, where she was introduced by Johnny Cash as “a little girl here from up in East Tennessee”. Raised as one of 12 children by a father who had quit school to work on a farm and struggled with reading, she later started an education nonprofit called Imagination Library that sent free books to children across the state. Such endeavours helped further endear Parton to the public.

Fans reacted with sadness to news of her death on Tuesday, sharing anecdotes about her widespread appeal and history of personal warmth and generosity. US President Donald Trump announced on social media that he was ordering flags to be flown at half-staff for a week in honor of Parton. She came from poverty to become the most important native of Tennessee,” Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, to which Parton was inducted in 1999, said in a statement.