Dolly Rebecca Parton had a difficult childhood.
She was born January 19, 1946, in a
one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee. She is the
fourth of twelve children born to Avie Lee Caroline (née Owens;
1923–2003) and Robert Lee Parton Sr. (1921–2000). As of 2021, Parton has three
deceased siblings. Parton's middle name comes from her maternal
great-great-grandmother Rebecca (Dunn) Whitted. Parton's father, known as
"Lee", worked in the mountains of East Tennessee, first as a sharecropper and later tending his own small
tobacco farm and acreage. He also worked construction jobs to supplement the
farm's small income. Despite her father's illiteracy, Parton has often
commented that he was one of the smartest people she had ever known in regards
to business and making a profit.
Parton's mother, Avie Lee, cared for
their large family. Her 11 pregnancies (the tenth being twins) in 20 years made
her a mother of 12 by age 35. Parton credits her musical abilities to her
mother; often in poor health, she still managed to keep house and entertain her
children with Smoky Mountain folklore and ancient ballads. Avie Lee's family were originally
from Wales and they sang the old songs of the immigrants who had moved to southern Appalachia over a century earlier. Avie Lee's
father, Jake Owens, was a Pentecostal preacher, and
Parton and her siblings all attended church regularly. Parton has long credited
her father for her business savvy, and her mother's family for her musical
abilities. When Parton was a small girl, her family moved from the Pittman
Center area to a farm up on nearby Locust Ridge. Most of her cherished memories
of youth happened there. The farm acreage and surrounding woodland inspired her
to write the song "My Tennessee Mountain Home" in the 1970s. Years after her
parents sold the property, Parton bought it back in the late 1980s and her
brother Bobby helped with restoration and new construction.
Parton has described her family as
being "dirt poor". Parton's father paid the doctor who helped
deliver her with a bag of cornmeal. She outlined her family's poverty
in her early songs "Coat of Many
Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". For six or
seven years, Parton and her family lived in their rustic, one-bedroom cabin on their
small subsistence farm on Locust
Ridge. This was a predominately Pentecostal area located
north of the Greenbrier Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains. Music played an
important role in her early life. She was brought up in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), in a
congregation her grandfather, Jake Robert Owens, pastored. Her earliest public
performances were in the church, beginning at age six. At seven, she started
playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight, her uncle bought her first real
guitar.
Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and
television programs in the East Tennessee area. By
ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. At 13,
she was recording (the single "Puppy Love") on a small Louisiana
label, Goldband Records and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, where she first
met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her to follow her
own instincts regarding her career.
After graduating from Sevier County
High School in 1964, Parton moved to Nashville the next day. Her initial
success came as a songwriter, having signed with Combine Publishing shortly
after her arrival with her frequent songwriting partner, her uncle Bill Owens, she wrote several
charting singles during this time, including two Top 10 hits: Bill Phillips's "Put It Off
Until Tomorrow" (1966) and Skeeter Davis's "Fuel to the Flame" (1967). Her
songs were recorded by many other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr She signed
with Monument Records in 1965, at age 19; she initially was pitched as a bubblegum pop singer. She released a string of singles, but the only one
that charted, "Happy, Happy Birthday Baby", did not crack the Billboard Hot 100. Although she expressed a desire to
record country material, Monument resisted, thinking her unique voice with its
strong vibrato was not suited to the genre.
After her composition "Put It Off Until
Tomorrow", as recorded by Bill Phillips (with Parton, uncredited, on
harmony), went to number six on the country chart in 1966, the label relented
and allowed her to record country. Her first country single, "Dumb
Blonde" (composed by Curly Putman, one of the few songs during this era that she recorded
but did not write), reached number 24 on the country chart in 1967, followed by
"Something Fishy", which went to number 17. The two songs appeared on
her first full-length album, Hello, I'm Dolly.
Although she was dirt poor as a
child, Dolly’s career has made her a very rich woman. Her net worth has been
estimated at $650 million – but she is still s humble person.
Parton, 75, said she was "honored and
humbled" by the gesture but doesn't think it's the right timing.
"Given all that is going on in the world,
I don't think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time," she
said in a statement on Twitter.
In January, state Rep. John Mark Windle, a
Democrat, introduced a bill to
create a statue in Nashville recognizing Parton for "her for all that she
has contributed to this state."
The statue was to be financed by gifts, grants
and donations.
Windle told The Chattanooga Times Free Press that
his bill had received a lot of support. He credited the backing to not only
Parton's music but her philanthropy.
"It shocked me the amount of the response
we've had," he told the outlet in an interview earlier this month, saying
that Tennesseans "love Dolly Parton, not just because she's a great
musician. She's a caring, compassionate and just a decent person. She takes
care of her community; she takes care of her state. And she does it
selflessly."
The country music
superstar, who grew up in the area, said through a spokesman that her
foundation will provide each person with $1,000 a month for six months.
While exact numbers
remain unclear, the donation is expected to assist hundreds of people and could
amount to $2 million, said David Dodson, president of The Dollywood Foundation.
So far, officials
say some 700 homes in the area have been damaged or destroyed.
"Like
everybody, Dolly was heartbroken," said Dodson during a press conference
in Gatlinburg. "It is a big dream but Dolly is the chief of big dreams.
Dolly never attended college, but her
most lasting legacy involves books.
Inspired by
her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library
in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five
countries and gifts over 1 million free books each month to children around the
world.
To date,
nearly 2,000,000 children have registered, and she has given away 163,000,000
books., far more than James Patterson, who has given away 3,000000 books and
$70 million dollars to support education.
Dolly’s
music will entertain us for decades to come, but her most lasting contribution
will be the Imagination Library, a lasting tribute to her father, who never
learned to read or write – but was the smartest person the she every knew.
https://imaginationlibrary.com/
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