August 30, 2026 / 10:11 AM EDT
/ CBS News
Perhaps only Dolly Parton could dress like a flag – and still be taken seriously by a ship full of sailors. Only Dolly.
Tributes poured in from everywhere this past week for the singer-songwriter, hailed as the queen of country music, who died Tuesday at the age of 80. Jane Fonda called her "the voluptuous embodiment of empathy." Taylor Swift said she was "true grace and true grit, all in one dazzling person."
Everyone has a Dolly story – and her story was everyone's in return.
"I got to be pretty famous pretty quick," she told "Sunday Morning" in 2022. "And I was very excited about that. Before I got that job, though, I had no car, no phone, no nothing. I've known the pain of that, and the joy of that."
In her nearly 70 years of entertaining, she managed to bridge just about every gap. A poll taken five months before her death revealed 70% percent of Americans had a favorable view of Dolly Parton — that was the highest approval rating for any other luminary on the list by far.
Her warmth and wit, her unshakable honesty, and that Tennessee timbre that flowed like whiskey in songs about heartache, faith and fear, made Dolly Parton a once-in-a-generation talent. She was family, whether you liked country music or not.
"9 to 5" was one of some 3,000 songs she composed over her lifetime, from country, to gospel, to bluegrass. Legend has it she wrote "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" back-to-back.
Dolly Parton performs "I Will Always Love You":
It's all pretty remarkable, especially given that Parton couldn't read sheet music. But for her, songs came from the heart, not the page, as she once told Dan Rather for "Sunday Morning" in 2004:
"People like me, especially songwriters, people that live – in order to be a writer, you're extremely sensitive. You have to leave yourself wide open, you know, to every feeling. But by doing that, you leave yourself very vulnerable to everything. Everything I do, I feel to the nth degree. I can't eat just a little; I have to eat the whole thing. I can't feel just a little; I have to love all the way … everything I do, I throw myself completely into it."
Born in a two-room log cabin in the hills of Tennessee, Dolly Rebecca Parton was the fourth of 12 children. She says they were "dirt poor" and lived a country life you'd only understand if you'd lived it yourself. She said, "I'm pretty sharp. I'm not educated and I'm not that intelligent, but I'm smart, I'm country smart. You know how they say somebody's 'street smart'? I feel like if I've got to tell you, I'm country smart."
Music, she says, was always around – especially at church, where she started singing at only six.
Dolly Parton performs "Coat of Many Colors":
"My mom's people were all musical," Parton said. "And so, we played and sang at every funeral, every wedding, every shindig going on in town. Everyone in my family was, you know, in that."
