Dolly Parton and The Calling

Born to a “dirt poor” family as one of twelve siblings living in a one room cabin in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton had something of a gift for singing. So much so that she was featuring on local television and radio by the time she was ten, a mere two years after she'd gotten her first guitar. She continued performing at every chance she got and the moment that she graduated from high school, she moved out and relocated to her native state's capital Nashville to pursue a genuine career in music. Even when she was at such a young age, her first major success came as a songwriter, after she signed a deal Combine Publishing and wrote a number of hits for artists like Hank Williams Jr, and Skeeter Davis with her uncle Bill Owens. However, behind the scenes was never going to be enough for Parton.

In 1965 she signed a record deal proper with Monument records, the problem was the she was pitched to the label as a bubblegum pop singer when she really wanted to make country music. After releasing a few singles that sank without a trace, a composition of hers, “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”, became a huge hit on the charts thanks to Bill Phillips, who took it to number 6 on the country charts in 1966. As a result of this, Parton's label relented and allowed her to make country records from then on. Parton's story arguably begins there and right off the bat, her first two singles as a country artist went to number 24 (“Dumb Blonde”) and number 17 (“Somethin' Fishy”) respectively.

Her debut album “Hello, I'm Dolly” was released in February 1967, and Parton began building a reputation for herself as one of the most talented young songwriters around. Most notably attracting the attention of country veteran Porter Wagoner, who gave her an enormous leg up by featuring her regularly on his TV show and securing her a record deal with his label RCA. For the rest of the decade, the majority of her hit singles were duets with Wagoner, although from time to time solo singles of hers like “Just Because I'm A Woman” and “In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)” would break out and become legitimate hits of her own. However, her first bona-fide smash hit wouldn't come until 1973, and in a flurry of auburn hair and emerald green eyes, “Jolene” topped the country charts and broke into the Billboard Hot 100 for the very first time in Parton's career.

After professionally splitting from Porter Wagoner she wrote her second country number one single “I Will Always Love You”, and after she proved to the world that she was an artist with genuine staying power, Parton's star continued to rise and rise from then on. She began crossing over into mainstream stardom over the course of the 70's, with her 1977 album “Here You Come Again” breaking her all over again by selling over a million copies and cracking the top 20 of the Billboard 200. By the end of the decade, Parton's singles were regularly charting in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 while also colonising the country charts, and the height of her commercial clout came in 1980, when her single “9 To 5” became a triple number one hit, topping the country and adult-contemporary charts, and becoming her only single to top the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time.

Ever since then, Parton has become arguably the most iconic country musician since Johnny Cash, with a back catalogue to rival any iconic artist from any era and the name recognition to draw a crowd of over a hundred thousand people to her concert at the 2014 Glastonbury festival, half a century after beginning her journey in music. She remains at the top of her game, and she comes highly recommended.