The ever-talented American singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, who has established herself as a pioneer in the country music genre, is known to have started her career as a songwriter first. After getting tired of being away from the spotlight, the singer finally decided to shock her audience with her voice and her gorgeous looks.
Her career was kickstarted in 1967 when she first put out her debut album titled Hello, I’m Dolly, which had her ruling over the charts and her fans till the end of the 1960s, her success following her throughout the 1970s and the 1980s.
Critics and fans call the seventy-seven-year-old iconic singer a ‘country music legend’ who has managed to sell more than a hundred million records, adding her name to one of the best-selling artists ever. Born in 1946, the singer was not all that well-off as the fourth child in a family of twelve children, but we have only ever heard her talk about how great her family, especially her father, was.
She has revealed warm stories about how her parents looked after their family and how they have molded Parton into who she is today. Having grown up listening to her mother’s bedtime stories of the Smoky Mountain and other old ballads, the singer had admitted they had some influence on the stories she tells in her songs.
Her song titled My Tennessee Mountain Home is inspired by the youth that she spent on the farm and woodland where her father used to work. She has, more than once, sung about her poor family in her songs like ‘Coat of Many Colours’ and ‘In The Good Old Days.’
Parton’s Start
The singer has seen real struggle in her life and has managed to rise above it all. Having been exposed to singing and music, in general, only when she was six years old, it seemed destined for Parton to make a career out of it. After getting her first ever guitar from her uncle at just eight, the singer could be spotted singing publicly on The Cas Walker Show, appearing on radio and television.
It was Johnny Cash, the famous country singer-songwriter, who pushed young Parton to continue with music, after which she, along with her uncle Bill Owen, put out songs like Bill Phillips’s Put It Off Until Tomorrow and Fuel to the Flame. She wrote for artists like Kitty Wells and Jank Williams Jr. only when she was no more than nineteen.
Her contract with Monument Records initially did not let her record country, but they soon gave in, and Parton put her first-ever country single titled Dumb Blonde. While the song did not make much impact at first, it was still a part of the singer’s official debut album.
Singer Porter Wagoner, in 1967, invited Parton to not just join his organization but also to be a part of his television program, The Porter Wagoner Show. The audience took its sweet time warming up to Parton, but it all eventually led to her getting signed by RCA Records.
While, on one hand, her duets with Wagoner were consecutive hits, her solo songs were almost always ignored. By the time 1970 rolled out, the two decided to have Parton put out her solo songs, and finally, her first number-one song, Joshua, was released. She continued to release hits after hits, but the one song that completely blew her off the charts was Jolene.
Her Solo Career
By 1974, she had three songs, Jolene, I Will Always Love You, and Love Is Like A Butterfly, topping the country music charts. Halfway through the 1970s, she made a switch to the mainstream pop genre, after which she put out her first million-selling album, Here You Come Again, which even got her the Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
Ever since then, it has been very rare for any one of her songs to not get charted. The singer has become a mainstream artist through her country music talent. She has been nominated for slightly more than fifty Grammy Awards, out of which she has taken home a proud twelve.
While being a singer-songwriter is her main job, Parton is known to have ventured out into other fields as well. She has taken to writing music for the musical in 2008, 9 to 5: The Musical, a show that we would not include as one of her major successes.
Other Ventures
Parton has also invested heavily in local businesses in Tennessee, one major investment being The Dollywood Company, which is responsible for running the iconic theme park also called Dollywood, a dinner theatre, Dollywood’s Splash Country, the Dream More Resort and Spa, and so much more located in Pigeon Forge.
She also co-owns the Sandollar Production company, known for producing films and series like Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Father of the Bride: Part I & II, and a lot more. With the singer using her wealth actively to either support local places or to make more money for herself, she has recently made another surprising revelation to fans.
Parton’s Exciting Announcement
She excitedly revealed to fans the news of her new restaurant that she planned on setting up in Panama City Beach, Florida, by 2025. An interactive restaurant, it is going to be a tourist hotspot in itself. This Pirates Voyage Dinner and Show is her third installment to an already established chain, the talent hunt for which shall begin sometime in the middle of 2024.
The restaurant will be a dream and a world of its own with pirates, mermaids, and performers indulging in pyrotechnics and acrobatics, altogether putting up a successful family show, the song for which will be written by none other than Dolly Parton herself.
She is known to have opened similar restaurants in the US before, and they are located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and, of course, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, a place she has expressed much appreciation for many times. The restaurant is believed to have built space for seating around a thousand guests for dinner and the extravagant show, which she promises will be over the top.
Wanting to start the construction sometime in January of next year, the legendary singer has a great vision in her mind. She wants everything from the four-course pirates-inspired feast to the indoor theatre to the structure of the building as a whole. Everything will be ‘overboard,’ according to Parton.
The opening of this restaurant will bring up job opportunities, including three hundred positions. The iconic singer dreams big and never fails. Fans are excited to see just how this new addition to her business venture will turn out when it opens in the spring of 2025.
