The Transcendence of Dolly Parton
The Atlantic · LC · trust 35/100
The late singer was perhaps the only person in the United States who commanded nearly universal affection.
Tom Hill / WireImage / Getty August 25, 2026, 5:12 PM ET Share Save This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
It almost didn’t matter what: class, gender, region, musical genre, partisanship. She transcended boundaries in all of them. During an era when politicians act like pop stars, pop stars are expected to engage in politics, and politics divide fiercely, Parton was perhaps the only person in the United States who commanded nearly universal affection. Her death today, at 80, leaves an absence that no contemporary cultural figure could dream of filling.
Parton’s origin story was, in the most literal sense, a rags-to-riches tale. She was born in a one-room cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee, one of 12 children of an illiterate sharecropper father. She memorialized her impoverished childhood in “Coat of Many Colors,” which tells of how her mother sewed a jacket from rags. When she wears it to school, “with patches on my britches / and holes in both my shoes,” her classmates mock and laugh at her. Rather than a hard-luck story, this is a triumph. Parton gets the last laugh: “But they didn’t understand it and I tried to make them see / That one is only poor only if they choose to be.” The song showcases one of the keys to Parton’s success: the ability to bare her soul while keeping a sense of humor and a smile.
Her rise to fame began when she was hired by the rhinestone-adorned country singer Porter Wagoner as a “girl singer” in his act. Parton quickly demonstrated that she had more than an attractive face and voice, writing a string of successful songs, such as “Jolene” and “My Tennessee Mountain Home.” One indication of her songwriting talent was that her most famous song was a bigger hit for another singer. Parton had initially hoped that Elvis Presley would record “I Will Always Love You,” but she refused his manager’s demand to give Presley songwriting credit, and she cut the song herself. It topped the country charts twice, but after Whitney Houston rerecorded the song for The Bodyguard ’s soundtrack in 1992, it was a No. 1 pop hit for weeks.
The country singers and collaborators Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton pose for a portrait with their backup band, the Wagonmasters, circa 1968. Wagoner is wearing a Nudie Suit designed by Nudie Cohn of Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors. (Michael Ochs Archives / Getty) Today, little separation exists between country music and the mainstream, but the genre garnered much less respect when Parton’s career began. She helped tear down old prejudices in an era when many music listeners might have professed to like “anything other than country.” Her success helped pave a path for later crossover stars such as Shania Twain and Taylor Swift. She pursued her own genre experimentation, too, collaborating with a range of artists. When she was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2022, she protested that she wasn’t a rock musician and tried to withdraw from consideration. When the hall refused, she announced with appealing humility that she would earn the honor by making a rock album—her 49th and final—with guests including Joan Jett, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney.
Parton always maintained her connection to rural southern music. Few country stars could claim a more authentic origin. She kept her down-home accent and platinum-bouffant hairstyle, and she spoke openly about her abiding Christian faith. These traits may have allowed her to take stands that might otherwise have been controversial. (She also avoided electoral politics, and declined Presidential Medals of Freedom from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.)
Like her predecessor Loretta Lynn, she cultivated a no-nonsense strain of feminism in her lyrics. In 1980, she starred alongside the outspoken liberals Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in the movie 9 to 5 , a workplace comedy in which three women conspire to get even with their sexist-pig boss. Parton agreed to take the role if she could write the theme song, and the track has proved even more enduring than the film. “It’s a rich man’s game no matter what they call it / And you spend your life puttin’ money in his wallet,” she sang. Was this working-class grievance or progressive economics? Radical feminism or mass-market entertainment? Why not both?
From left : the American actors Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, and Lily Tomlin on the set of the film 9 to 5 , directed by Colin Higgins, in Los Angeles in 1979 (Steve Schapiro / Corbis / Getty) Parton was beloved by the gay community, and she reciprocated that affection . She also quietly fostered change using her fortune. In 1986, she opened Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and the theme park became the largest job provider in the area. In 1995, she launched Dolly’s Imagination Library. Starting first in her native Sevier County, and then expanding around the United States as well as in a few other countries, the program mails a book each month to children from birth to age 5, to encourage literacy and a love of reading. In 2020, she donated $1 million to help fund the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, then proudly received the shot.
In her middle age, during a perhaps less enlightened time in American society, Parton was often a punch line. Her voluptuous chest and many plastic surgeries were frequent fodder for jokes, and Parton perfected the trick of playing along with the gags while also subverting them. One of her earliest singles is titled “Dumb Blonde,” but it warns, “This dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” In a 2002 New York Times interview, she said, “Hopefully people can see beneath the hair to know there’s a brain, beneath the boobs to know there’s a heart, and behind all the other stuff to know there’s some…
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