Dolly Parton Was One of the Biggest Stars in the History of Country Music. She Wanted to Be Remembered as a Songwriter

On a snowy day in 1946, a doctor rode his horse to a one-room cabin in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains, where he helped deliver a baby girl. The parents, too poor to pay for his services, handed the man a sack of cornmeal. In exchange, the doctor handed them Dolly Parton.

Later, Parton would frequently reflect on her early years, explaining that her humble beginnings shaped the person she became. Although her parents rarely expressed their love through words, their affection for their children—Parton was one of 12—was abundantly evident. They sang songs, told Bible stories and whittled toy cars out of wooden thread spools.

There’s an awful lot that is never said out loud,” Parton recalled in her autobiography. Instead of saying “I love you,” for example, a father might give his son a “light punch on the shoulder,” she wrote. Later in life, when she told her father she loved him, “He responded in the usual nonverbal, look-at-the-ground Parton way, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” she recalled.

Parton, who died this week at age 80, was one of the biggest stars in the history of country music, and carefully selecting the right words—the words that would stir the listener—was her specialty. In songs about family, she focused on small domestic details (“I remember gingerbread my momma used to bake / I remember homemade toys that daddy used to make”). When she sang about working-class life, listeners believed she had lived it (“Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen / Pour myself a cup of ambition”).

She wrote skillfully about both lost love (“Do you ever recall these old memories at all, or do I ever cross your mind?”) and enduring romance (“Love is like a butterfly, as soft and gentle as a sigh / The multicolored moods of love are like its satin wings”). Parton is beloved for many reasons—for her larger-than-life presence, her collection of more than 350 wigs, her folksy humor, her philanthropy, her ability to transcend genres, her Dollywood theme park. Everything that I am starts with that song.” Parton’s mother taught her children church music alongside traditional ballads, which had been passed down from family members who immigrated to America from the British Isles.

When she got her first guitar, she wrote a tune called “Life Doesn’t Mean Much to Me,” inspired by a conversation she overheard about young men who died in battle. By 10, she was appearing on local radio and TV stations, and she performed at the Grand Ole Opry for the first time at 13. Quick facts: Singing at the Grand Ole Opry At her high school graduation, when Parton announced that she was “going to Nashville to become a star,” the audience “erupted in laughter,” she recalled.