Dolly Parton: How She Turned Country Clichés Inside Out — SkimNews
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- Dolly Parton deflected Barbara Walters' notorious 1977 ABC question — "Do you ever feel that you're a joke?" — with "the joke's on the public," insisting she could change her image "any time" and was "sure of my talent."
- Parton's pre-1977 catalog already included Jolene, I Will Always Love You, Coat of Many Colours, and Down from Dover, which country radio banned over its unmarried-mother storyline and stillborn-baby ending.
- Parton was writing feminist-leaning songs like Just Because I'm a Woman and When Possession Gets Too Strong years before Loretta Lynn's 1975 single The Pill ignited controversy over Nashville's treatment of women.
- Parton left duet partner Porter Wagoner when her success began eclipsing his — triggering a $3m lawsuit — and turned down Elvis Presley after his manager demanded a cut of I Will Always Love You's songwriting royalties.
- Parton's late-1970s pop crossover produced Here You Come Again (No. 3) and 9 to 5 (No. 1), turning her into an international star without losing her Nashville standing; 1983's Islands in the Stream with Kenny Rogers followed.
- Whitney Houston's 1992 cover of I Will Always Love You became the biggest-selling single of all time by a female artist, while Jolene alone has been covered nearly 90 times by artists ranging from the White Stripes to Strawberry Switchblade.
- Parton emerged as the godmother of modern pop-country — Taylor Swift called her "a force of evolution," she co-wrote on goddaughter Miley Cyrus's 2017 album Younger Now, duetted with Sabrina Carpenter on Please Please Please, and delivered a spoken-word intro to Beyoncé's Jolene redux on Cowboy Carter.
Why it matters: The piece reframes Parton not as a kitsch novelty but as a strategic artist who weaponized her image to smuggle feminist songwriting and outsider ambition past a Nashville establishment that underestimated her. The material consequence: a half-century catalog whose songs became cross-genre standards (Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, ~90 covers of Jolene) and whose stylistic DNA now runs through Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Sabrina Carpenter.
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