Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton married Carl Thomas Dean, a business man on 30 May 1966 in Georgia. The couple does not have children. Dolly Parton is the godmother of American singer Miley Cyrus.

Dolly Parton was born on 19 January 1946 at Sevier County in Tennessee, USA. She was the fourth of twelve children born to Robert Lee Parton, a farmer and construction laborer and Avie Lee. She later described her family to be economically backward.

Dolly Parton’s family was inclined towards music and she took up singing from her mother. She credits her uncle Bill Owens for supporting her for taking music as a career at a young age.

After graduating from high school in 1964 she moved to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue her career in music.

Dolly Parton began her professional performances at the age of 10 through television and radio shows in Knoxville, Tennessee. Later her career began flourishing in the year 1967 when she partnered with entertainer Porter Wagoner for the Porter Wagoner Show. This partnership also helped her in receiving a musical contract from RCA Records.

RCA Records released her first single as a duet partnered with Porter Wagoner, a cover of Tom Paxton’s song ‘The Last Thing on My Mind’ which was released in 1967 and reached the country top ten in early 1968. The following six years witnessed an unbreakable top ten singles from this partnership.

In 1971, Dolly Parton earned her first No.1 Country singles hit with the song ‘Joshua’. She had many more hit singles and duets in the following years which included songs like ‘Coat of many Colours’, ‘Burning the Midnight Oil’ , ‘Touch Your Woman’ and ‘The Right Combination’.

In 1973, Dolly Parton had the biggest hit until then with the single ‘Jolene’. The following year she released ‘I Will Always Love You’ – a country chart topper song that went on to be one of her signature songs.

In 1974, she had three country chart toppers to her credit – ‘Jolene’, ‘I Will Always Love You’ and ‘Love is Like a Butterfly’. Willing to pursue her dream of a solo career, Dolly Parton made the decision to end partnership with Porter Wagoner around this time. However, they remained in good terms and he continued to assist Dolly Parton with her records. They continued work on duet albums and their final work was in 1975 with ‘Say Forever You’ll Be Mine’.

Her song "I Will Always Love You", which was written, composed, and originally recorded by her and was the second single from her 1974 album ‘Jolene’ is her best-known song. Whitney Houston recorded a cover version of the song for the 1992 film 'The Bodyguard' and since then the song has become one of the best-selling singles of all time.