Dolly Parton obit: Why fans of the ‘Queen of Country’ will be singing ‘I will always love you’

“After bravely facing a brief battle with cancer, Dolly departed her Earthly life today at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones,” her publicist, Marcel Pariseau, said in a statement.

Last year her husband, Carl Dean, had passed away at 82. They had been married for 58 years. By her account, he was her greatest love, her anchor and the wind beneath her wings.

Parton’s passing was also announced by Bryan Seaver, her nephew (son of her sister Cassie) and head of security, in a moving video statement released on social media. “Dolly…opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians, and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent…She never saw a door she couldn't open, and the door she opened made and changed history,” he said, adding, “Dolly was a farmer just like her daddy. He farmed the soil. She farmed songs and happiness. Dolly called me and said she wants to rest in a beautiful bed of plush cotton because after a life wearing heavy rhinestones, she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest.”

Letting her voice lead

Born in 1946 in a poor farming family that lived in a one-room cabin near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 children. According to accounts, at her birth, there was no cash to pay the attending doctor, so he was compensated for his troubles with a sack of cornmeal. Parton later wrote a song honouring the good doctor in her album My Tennessee Mountain Home (1973).

For someone who was all of five feet tall, Parton had an oversized impact on the world of music and, indeed, the world at large.

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She wrote her first song at six, performed on television at 10 and did her first recording a year later. She became a professional songwriter at 16, writing songs for other singers. A few years later, in 1967, she released her debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly. That kickstarted a successful career spanning over six decades, during which she wrote over 3,000 songs, won 10 Grammy Awards, and was nominated for several Academy and Golden Globe Awards as well as a Tony. Her greatest hits include ‘Jolene’, ‘Coat of Many Colors’, ‘9 to 5’, and ‘I Will Always Love You’. She acted in several films, including 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982). Parton also played the recurring guest role of Aunt Dolly, the fictional godmother to Miley Cyrus's character, Miley Stewart, in Hannah Montana (Cyrus and Parton are seventh cousins, once removed).

For jazz singer, vocalist at the multi-genre music band Parvati La Cantante and image consultant Parvati Mohanakrishnan, Dolly Parton “has always been an inspiration”. “Not just because of her music”, she says, “but because of her voice. As a singer myself, I know what it means to have a distinct voice that’s unmistakably yours. She always led with that voice, and it always caught me, held me, pulled me in. Her music has carried me through heartbreak, through comebacks, through some of my lowest moments and through the highest highs as well. But more than that, she has taught me to be original, to be strong and to let my voice lead, before anything else.”

Musician Remo Fernandes posted this heartfelt tribute on his Facebook page: “She was beautiful… she was funny… she was a great singer and guitar player… she was a great philanthropist… and most importantly to me, she was a great songwriter. Goodbye, Dolly Parton.”

The late country music performer had a flamboyant persona, all wild wigs and dripping rhinestones. In a 1978 TV interview, when quizzed about her staggering sartorial choices (her “extreme clothes”), Parton was unfazed. “I don't like to be like everybody else…I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable,” she said, “I just decided that I would do something that would at least get the attention. Once they got past the shock of the ridiculous way I looked and all that, then they would see there was a part of me to be appreciated. I'm very real where it counts, and that's inside…I can afford to…diddle around with make-up and clothes and stuff, because I am secure with myself.”

Nikhil Sardana, cultural commentator, says, “As a lifelong fan of Dolly Parton, what has always struck me is how easy it was to underestimate just how extraordinary a musician she was. Beneath the wigs, rhinestones and larger-than-life personality was one of the great songwriters of the modern era, with an extraordinary instinct for melody and storytelling. What made Dolly unique was her complete lack of cynicism. She could be funny, glamorous, vulnerable and profoundly sincere, often within the same song. Her music crossed genres and generations because she understood people.”

Of her most well-known songs, Sardana adds, “‘Jolene’ is a masterpiece of emotional economy: jealousy, insecurity and vulnerability conveyed with remarkable simplicity. ‘I Will Always Love You’ is equally extraordinary, its restraint making it far more powerful than sentimentality ever could. I have a particular affection for ‘Coat of Many Colors’, which transforms childhood poverty into something deeply universal, and ‘9 to 5’, which shows her ability to turn an everyday frustration into an irresistible pop song.”

Parton the philanthropist

A life as richly lived as Parton’s is replete with anecdotes. One such is about her most famous song.

In 1967, the same year she launched her debut album, Parton joined The Porter Wagoner Show, a weekly TV programme and road show, headlined by the eponymous country music entertainer. Parton left the show in 1974 after a heady seven-year run. It’s an understatement that Wagoner didn’t take it well, which prompted Parton to write ‘I Will Always Love You’ as a farewell song to him.

The story goes that shortly after, Elvis Presley wanted to do a cover of the song, but his pushy manager wanted half the publishing rights. That deal fell through, but, in 1992, Whitney Houston sang it in The Bodyguard. Houston’s version is the largest-selling single by a female artist of all time. Parton used the millions of dollars she earned in royalties from that cover to create an office complex in a Black neighbourhood in Nashville. She called it “the house that Whitney built”.

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Arjun Sagar Gupta, founder of a jazz club chain in Delhi-NCR, says, “My introduction to Dolly Parton was through her song ‘Jolene’, an evergreen anthem like much of her incredibly vast body of work. She reached musical heights in her career few artists can ever achieve...an almost revered status, an induction into both the country music and rock and roll hall of fame. Her impact went far beyond music, for me, and her Imagination Library project is an inspiration for long-lasting impact.”

He adds: “She appealed to everyone because she never took a political side by stating she was an entertainer, not a politician. Her wit, her music, her work outside music and her global appeal will ensure she remains embedded in human history and culture for the generations ahead.” More recently, Parton donated a million dollars in April 2020 to the Vanderbilt University Medical Center for research that led to the development of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

For her many fans across the globe, the light went out of their lives with her death on August 25. Go gentle into that good night, Dolly Parton. We will always love you.