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  2. Yes, legend, superstar, songwriter supreme, entertainer. I spent a long number of years explaining to many people that she we all of these and not some sort of dressed up cartoon character. A splendid 80 years.

  3. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”. She was one of a kind, an entertainer to her fingertips but always coming across as warm, human and self-deprecating. RIP Dolly.

  6. Saw her at the NEC 15 years ago. She told all the jokes we’d heard before, and saved all the big hits for a very predictable encore. Nobody cared, we all had a great night anyway. Brilliant entertainer.

    • “In 1995 she created the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, in which any child under the age of 5 would be sent a free book each month, and involved herself in conservation efforts and has donated large sums of money to a hospital in the East Tennessee region. She has also been a vocal supporter of LGBT rights, and a $1 million donation she made to Vanderbilt University is said to have been key to the development of the Moderna COVID vaccine.”

      God almighty

    • My father was a huge country fan in the ’70s & ’80s, but not the good stuff. Dolly’s Little Sparrow album single-handedly cured me of my C&W blindspot.

      I have a DJ set at the local school in a couple of weeks, “Shine” is going in the box, as is “9 To 5” (obviously).

      • I’m afraid that I retain a blind spot where Dolly’s music is concerned. I admired her philanthropy and her philosophy; I admired her self-deprecation and mischievous sense of humour; her life story was astonishing, starting where she did and ending where she did; but I still have a Dolly-shaped hole in my record collection and it’s likely to stay that way. My loss, I’m sure.

        • I know exactly what you mean. I still largely have a C&W-shaped hole in my collection, having had to listen to the awful ’70s & ’80s syrup for 15 years or so. But I’m now quite partial to Bluegrass.

          Dolly-wise, it is Coat of Many Colours, a Best Of and two of the three bluegrass albums.

            • My dad worked on the tracks and his weekends were spent starting work on Saturday morning and finishing whenever the job was done. BBC Radio London broadcast a Country show for two hours on Sunday morning, and it was my job to record it on both sides of a C120 cassette.

              My O-level homework was soundtracked by schmultz by George Jones & Tammy Wynette and the like. Occasionally there was something half-decent, but it was rare.

        • It’s a funny thing, I love Americana (may have mentioned it on here before) but I loathe C&W. Everything from 80s ‘hat acts’ to old-time schmaltzy tearjerkers are anathema to me. Which is strange, because there are a lot of grey areas and crossovers. Dolly sits a little too far on the wrong side of the fence, but she was clearly a great songwriter, a lovely person and her work on Trio was indeed exceptional.

          • You loath George Jones, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Waylon etc? Real country? Curious because I get not liking 80s pop country (though I do like some of it) or the Nashville stuff. But the roots stuff is brilliant. I think.

          • @Boneshaker I remember having quite a negative view of country music especially in the form of Country’n’Irish which is appalling. What converted me was the Channel 4 series “the A to Z of C&W”, presented by Hank Wangford. It opened my eyes to the many sub- genres and showed the appeal. I see that all episodes are available on Youtube.

              • A question for @boneshaker: Given “Americana” is a made up word to give people, who think they don’t like country, a word to explain away country music that they like, where do you draw the line between them?
                Anyway, who’s for an executive order to rename it ‘Ontariana’? Especially as so much good country music comes from Canada.

                • Crikey, I thought I’d sneaked my comment in when the thread was done and dusted! I love Johnny Cash and some of the others mentioned above, but it’s ‘showbiz’ country I can take or leave, and that includes a lot of the 80s and 90s hat acts as well as any contrived tearjerkin’, schmaltzin’, God-fearin’, line-dancin’, Stetson-wearin’ and yee-hahin’. Americana encompasses authentic American roots music of all colours, not just country, and often the connection is tenuous at best.

                  I like the Ontariana idea, and it’s often occurred to me that some of the artists I like best are from north of that particular border. Canadiana maybe?

  13. Will anyone have a bad word to say about Dolly Parton? Great songwriter, singer and entertainer, someone who was probably always the smartest person in the room but wore that intelligence lightly and with humility; a generous benefactor; someone who always steered her own course. RIP Dolly.

  17. I think she’s wonderful. I love the early songs such as Joshua and Coat of Many Colours which are so simple and direct and moving as much as the later stuff and obviously the return to bluegrass is lovely. When I heard the news last night I felt rather tearful actually. In fact Coat usually stirs up the dust… There’s a good documentary about the Trio on YouTube but I love this – Dolly tap dances around a nosy interviewer whilst remaining authentic and true to herself.

  18. We had Radio 4 on this morning. Jo Whiley was being quizzed about interviewing Dolly.

    Mrs F said “I didn’t know Dolly Parton wrote I Will Always Love You. I thought it was Whitney Houston.”

    Mrs F is not on the Afterword…

  22. from today’s Popbitch

    Best Dolly anecdote we’ve seen: “A roadie once told me about working on one of Dolly Parton’s tours years ago: on the first day of rehearsals she arrived and gathered the whole crew around to introduce herself. She then lifted her shirt and said, ‘There they are, now you’ve seen ‘em, let’s get to work’.”

  27. It was Dolly’s TV production company Sandollar that was responsible (with partner companies) for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer film, TV series and spinoff series “Angel”.

  28. Remarkable how many people loathed her, largely because the tinsel’n’tits image, her warbular voice another. I get that, being no fan of solo Dolly as self-presented. But her work with Linda and Emmylou is superb, bar the bowdlerised Goldrush, along with myriad appearances on tribute albums to various country buddies. And she could certainly write a decent song, even if it took others to confirm it. Check out Just Because I’m a Woman, the songs of Dolly Parton. I suspect there’ll be a glitzier bells and whistles tribute concert and album along in a minute, but it won’t be as good.

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