Almost immediately after news of country musician Dolly Parton’s death became public, fans and admirers across the world rushed to express how much she meant to them. Admirers ranged from President Donald Trump to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to popstar Sabrina Carpenter to professional stuntman and prankster Johnny Knoxville.
Her “universal approval rating” is part of her legacy, University of Virginia pop culture expert Jack Hamilton said.
Parton – singer, songwriter, entertainer, philanthropist and entrepreneur – died Tuesday in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer. She was 80. She began performing on TV at age 10, made her first recording at 11, and was a professional songwriter at 16. She sold more than 100 million records, won 11 Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award, and earned two Golden Globe nominations.
“The word ‘iconic’ is overused, but she’s someone who fits the definition,” Hamilton, an associate professor of media studies, said. “She’s the last major cultural figure whom people feel just overwhelmingly positive about.”
Part of Parton’s appeal came from the larger-than-life image she created. Bedecked in rhinestones, with her blonde hair piled high and her nails artificially long, Parton embodied what she called “a country girl’s idea of what glamour was.” Parton grew up outside Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. She famously played guitar wearing pink acrylic nails on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1979. She was also, Hamilton noted, remembered for kindness.
“She was always in the public eye, but unfailingly graceful and charming,” Hamilton said.
Her talent as a musician and songwriter extended beyond her public persona.
“I think of a song like ‘Wildflowers,’ which was a song she performed with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, but is really Dolly’s song,” Hamilton said. “It sounds tossed off, but it’s a perfect song. Ninety-nine point five percent of songwriters will never write anything as good as that. It’s a perfect song.”
He described her as having one of the most distinctive voices of her generation, comparing her to singers like Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, whose voices are instantly recognizable.
For much of the genre’s history, country music didn’t experience much “crossover,” meaning it didn’t mingle with other kinds of music, and DJs rarely played it on pop or rock radio stations. Parton broke the barrier between genres.
“Country music, aesthetically speaking, is conservative. It’s preoccupied with tradition and its own past,” Hamilton said. “You have these totemic figures like, say, Hank Williams, and people say nobody will ever measure up to him, or that music needs to return to that. Dolly fit into that tradition and had a lot of respect for it, but she was a modernizer in a lot of ways. She had an incredible pop sensibility.”
People who wouldn’t ordinarily tune into country radio became fans of hers. Even one of her greatest hits, “9-to-5,” is not a country song, Hamilton argued, leaving aside Parton’s East Tennessee accent.
“It’s really more of an R&B pop song. Everything about this song is basically uptempo, dance music,” he said.
Parton was a prolific songwriter, the writer behind what became Whitney Houston’s runaway hit, “I Will Always Love You.” Houston blended genres as well, but is best known as an R&B and soul musician. Tina Turner and Miley Cyrus, Parton’s goddaughter, have both recorded songs Parton wrote.
“She pulled music into interesting directions that I think only someone with her breadth and depth of musical knowledge could have,” Hamilton said.
Country-inflected music is ubiquitous today. Beyoncé released a country album, on which she covered Parton’s “Jolene.” Taylor Swift’s crossover from country musician to pop hitmaker is owed partly to Parton, Hamilton said. Sabrina Carpenter, in addition to remixing “Please Please Please” to include a Dolly Parton feature, has clearly borrowed from Parton’s signature look, wearing bedazzled body suits and voluminous blonde wigs. Even indie darlings like Phoebe Bridgers are borrowing from country music.
“Country music had this reputation for a white, rural listenership, and then it started to change in the ’90s and 21st century,” he said. “Dolly Parton is a huge figure in that historical trajectory. It’s impossible to imagine it without her.”
Hamilton said most contemporary popular musicians owe something to Parton and would cite her as an influence. But even people who don’t know her name have been affected by her.
“There’s this sense of generosity that pervaded everything she did, whether that was being gracious publicly and giving people her time, or whether it was through philanthropic work,” Hamilton said.
During the pandemic, Parton donated millions to medical research. When wildfires devastated East Tennessee, she established a fund to provide families with $1,000 per month for six months after they lost their homes. She also donated millions to relief from Hurricane Helene. Most prominently, Parton’s Imagination Library provides free books to children each month from birth until age 5. UVA Health Children’s partners with the nonprofit.
“That is her defining legacy. My kids have no clue who she is, but they have books from the Imagination Library,” Hamilton said.
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