The music that made Dolly Parton a global icon

It was 1967, and country musician Porter Wagoner was introducing a guest on his weekly TV show.

The camera cuts to a woman with big, blonde beehive, wearing a magenta mini dress with the same shade of lipstick to match. It was in that moment a star was born.

Her name was Dolly Parton. In the following decades after that performance, Parton went on to become the “Queen of Country”.

But as musicologist and professor of music at Hamilton College in the US, Lydia Hamessley told The Conversation Weekly podcast, Parton’s music drew inspiration from across the board.

I heard so many resonances in her music of old-timey Appalachian or mountain music.

Her expressive way of singing felt like she had grown up hearing people singing in a particular way, that had such a heart to it and such a power to her voice.

Hamessley, who wrote a book on Parton’s songs and interviewed her as part of the research, said Parton’s real gift rested in her ability to tell a story.

[Dolly told me] she thinks of her songwriting as her workshop, and I was really intrigued by that idea.

She’s very instinctual as a songwriter. She sparks ideas, a turn of phrase, a little snippet of a melody. And then, “Oh, what can I do with that?”. She’ll work around it and everything. She can come up with the song, but then she’s not done.

I think of her as an artisan as well as an artist.

Disclosure statement and credits

Lydia Hamessley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Newsclips in this episode from The Porter Wagoner Show, Dolly Meets The Kids, Dolly: Live in London O2 Arena, Halos & Horns.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written Gemma Ware and produced by Isabella Podwinski. Mixing by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl.