Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, author, businesswoman, and humanitarian, known primarily for her work in country music. Parton's recorded music during the mid-to late 1990s remained steady, though somewhat eclectic. Her 1995 re-recording of "I Will Always Love You" (performed as a duet with Vince Gill), from her album Something Special won the Country Music Association's Vocal Event of the Year Award. The following year, Treasures, an album of covers of 1960s/70s hits was released, and featured a diverse collection of material, including songs by Mac Davis, Pete Seeger, Kris Kristofferson, Cat Stevens, and Neil Young. Her recording of Stevens' "Peace Train" was later remixed and released as a dance single, reaching Billboard's dance singles chart. Her 1998 country-rock album Hungry Again was made up entirely of her own compositions. Although neither of the album's two singles, "(Why Don't More Women Sing) Honky Tonk Songs" and "Salt in my Tears", charted, videos for both songs received significant airplay on CMT. A second and more contemporary collaboration with Harris and Ronstadt, Trio II, was released in early 1999. Its cover of Neil Young's song "After the Gold Rush" won a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999.[32] Parton recorded a series of bluegrass-inspired albums, beginning with The Grass Is Blue (1999), winning a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and Little Sparrow (2001), with its cover of Collective Soul's "Shine" winning a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. The third, Halos & Horns (2002) included a bluegrass version of the Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven". In 2005 she released Those Were The Days consisting of her interpretations of hits from the folk-rock era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including "Imagine", "Where Do the Children Play?", "Crimson and Clover", and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"[32] Parton earned her second Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Travelin' Thru", which she wrote specifically for the feature film Transamerica (2005). Due to the song's (and film's) uncritical acceptance of a transgender woman, Parton received death threats.[35] She returned to No. 1 on the country chart later in 2005 by lending her distinctive harmonies to the Brad Paisley ballad, "When I Get Where I'm Goin'".[32] The music-competition reality-television show American Idol (since 2002) has weekly themes and the April 1–2, 2008, episodes' theme was "Dolly Parton Songs" with the nine then-remaining contestants each singing a Parton composition. Parton participated as a "guest mentor" to the contestants and also performed "Jesus and Gravity" (from Backwoods Barbie and released as a single in March 2008) receiving a standing ovation from the studio audience. In September 2007, Parton released her first single from her own record company, Dolly Records, titled, "Better Get to Livin'", which eventually peaked at No. 48 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart. It was followed by the studio album Backwoods Barbie, which was released on February 26, 2008, and reached No. 2 on the country chart. The album's debut at No. 17 on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart was the highest in her career.[36] Backwoods Barbie produced four additional singles, including the title track, written as part of her score for 9 to 5: The Musical, an adaptation of her feature film Nine to Five. After the sudden death of Michael Jackson, whom Parton knew personally, she released a video in which she somberly told of her feelings on Jackson and his death.[37][38] On October 27, 2009, Parton released a four-CD box set, "Dolly", which featured 99 songs and spanned most of her career.[39] She released her second live DVD and album, Live From London in October 2009, which was filmed during her sold out 2008 concerts at London's The O2 Arena.[40] In 2010, she was said to have been working on a dance-oriented album, Dance with Dolly, but as of June 2015 the album had not been released.[41] With longtime friend Billy Ray Cyrus, Parton released their album Brother Clyde on August 10, 2010. Parton is featured on "The Right Time", which she co-wrote with Cyrus and Morris Joseph Tancredi. On January 6, 2011, Parton announced that her new album would be titled Better Day. In February 2011, she announced that she would embark on the Better Day World Tour on July 17, 2011, with shows in northern Europe and the U.S.[42] The album's lead-off single, "Together You and I", was released on May 23, 2011, and Better Day was released on June 28, 2011.[43] In 2011, Parton voiced the character Dolly Gnome in the animated film Gnomeo & Juliet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Parton Image By Kris Harris King (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

• published: 18 Jun 2016
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