{"id":2650946,"date":"2026-08-28T05:42:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dolly-parton-a-superstar-who-treated-her-songs-as-a-business-as-well-as-an-art\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T05:52:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T09:52:43","slug":"dolly-parton-a-superstar-who-treated-her-songs-as-a-business-as-well-as-an-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dolly-parton-a-superstar-who-treated-her-songs-as-a-business-as-well-as-an-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolly Parton: A superstar who treated her songs as a business as well as an art"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdolly-parton-a-superstar-who-treated-her-songs-as-a-business-as-well-as-an-art%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2650946&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Dolly Parton, an iconic American singer-songwriter and cultural figure, was celebrated for her heartfelt music, business acumen, and genuine kindness. Born in 1946 in poverty-stricken Tennessee, she rose from a humble background to international fame by writing hit songs like &#8220;I Will Always Love You&#8221; and &#8220;Jolene,&#8221; while fiercely maintaining ownership of her copyrights. Known for her distinctive look and resilient spirit, she built a diverse empire that includes hit records, a theme park, and philanthropic efforts such as the Inventiveness Library, which delivers millions of free books to children worldwide. Parton\u2019s warmth and talent earned her widespread admiration, and her legacy as a beloved artist and humanitarian endures following her death at age 80.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<article class=\"fn-body\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI will always love you \u2026\u201d If you have been alive in America at any point in the last half-century, you have heard those words in one of two voices \u2014 <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/dolly-parton\/\">Dolly Parton<\/a>\u2019s original, a spare country farewell written as a professional goodbye, or Whitney Houston\u2019s cover. Both belong to the same woman: the songwriter from a one-room cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains who refused to surrender half the publishing even to Elvis Presley, kept the copyright in her pocket, and watched it become one of the best-selling singles of all time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Parton, who <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4699862\/dolly-parton-dies-at-age-80\/\">died Aug. 25 at the age of 80<\/a>, was the rare American celebrity who seemed to be <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/white-house\/4699978\/dolly-parton-flags-half-staff-trump\/\">loved by everybody<\/a>. Country purists claimed her. Pop audiences loved her. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/hollywood\/\">Hollywood<\/a> fawned over her. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/children\/\">Children<\/a> who never bought a record cited her when a free book arrived in the mail. In a country that agrees on almost nothing, almost no one had a bad word to say about Dolly Parton.<\/p>\n<section class=\"explore-more-section\" id=\"wex-recommended-widget\">\n<div class=\"magazine-container single\">\n<h1 class=\"magazine-title mt-2\">Recommended Stories<\/h1>\n<p>             <i class=\"fa-solid fa-play icon\"><\/i>         <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-grid\">\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4703172\/cnn-picture-dolly-parton-impersonator-death-coverage\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>CNN uses picture of Dolly Parton impersonator during coverage of her death<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4702909\/former-border-patrol-chief-claims-wants-killed\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Former Border Patrol chief claims Trump administration wants him \u2018killed\u2019<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<div class=\"explore-card\">                         <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/entertainment\/4701242\/diner-en-blanc-picnic-returns-washington-dc-2026\/?itm_source=parsely-api\">                             <\/p>\n<div class=\"explore-thumb-wrap\">                                                                                                                                  <\/div>\n<h3>Diner en Blanc is back in DC \u2014 but where will it be?<\/h3>\n<p>                         <\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on Jan. 19, 1946, in Sevier County, <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tennessee\/\">Tennessee<\/a>, the fourth of 12 children in a household she later described as \u201cdirt poor.\u201d Her father, a sharecropper who never learned to read or write, paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal. The family lived for years in a one-bedroom cabin without electricity or running water \u2014 \u201ctwo rooms and a path,\u201d she liked to joke, \u201cand running water if you were willing to run to get it.\u201d Her mother sewed clothes from feed sacks and scraps. When schoolmates mocked a coat stitched from leftover rags, Avie Lee Parton told her daughter not to say they were poor: they were rich in kindness, love, and understanding. Parton turned the episode into \u201cCoat of Many Colors,\u201d the 1971 song that made her childhood American folklore.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-1\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-15\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-1\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\">Country singer Dolly Parton appears at a rehearsal session in Nashville on Nov. 11, 1982. (AP Photo\/Mark Humphrey)<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; data-large-file=&#8221;https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2026\/08\/localimages\/Obit.090226.jpg?w=696&#8243; height=&#8221;658&#8243; width=&#8221;1024&#8243; &#8220;https:><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Country singer Dolly Parton appears at a rehearsal session in Nashville on Nov. 11, 1982. (AP Photo\/Mark Humphrey)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She had been writing songs since childhood; her first, an ode to a corncob doll, went into a shoebox her mother kept. The day after she graduated from high school in 1964, she boarded a bus for<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/nashville\/\"> Nashville<\/a>. Three years later, she joined Porter Wagoner\u2019s <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/tv\/\">television show<\/a> and became one of country music\u2019s most visible duet partners. The partnership made her famous and then too large for it. She left in 1974, marking the departure the way she marked most turning points: by writing a song. \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d and \u201cJolene\u201d came on the same day. Both went to No. 1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What distinguished Parton from many singer-celebrities was that she treated the songs as a <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/business\/\">business<\/a> as well as an art. She founded a publishing company in the 1960s and held on to her copyrights. When Colonel Tom Parker told her that Elvis would record \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d only if she gave up half the publishing, she said no. \u201cThese are my songs \u2014 they\u2019re like my children,\u201d she later explained. \u201cAnd I expect them to support me when I\u2019m old.\u201d They did. Whitney Houston\u2019s 1992 cover spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100; because Parton still owned the song, the royalties came home to her. She never found herself having sold the catalog young and needing to buy it back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The same hard head for deals built an empire around the wigs and rhinestones. \u201c9 to 5,\u201d written for the 1980 workplace comedy she starred in with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, topped the country and pop charts. In 1986, she opened <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/dollywood\/\">Dollywood<\/a> in Pigeon Forge, a theme park meant as a jobs engine for the mountains she had left. It became one of the South\u2019s major tourist destinations. She sold more than 100 million records, notched 25 No. 1 country hits, won 10 Grammy Awards plus a Lifetime Achievement honor, and wrote more than 3,000 songs.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-2\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-16\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-2\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The money went back out as readily as it came in. Inspired by her father\u2019s illiteracy, she <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/education\/4699922\/dolly-parton-proud-imagination-library-literacy-children-expanded-other-countries\/\">launched the Imagination Library<\/a> in 1995, mailing a book a month to children from birth to age five. The program has given away more than 330 million <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/books\/\">books<\/a> in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. In 2020, she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She counted her blessings more than her <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/money\/\">money<\/a>, as she liked to say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/premium\/4685626\/vincent-pastore-1946-2026\/\"><strong>VINCENT PASTORE, 1946-2026 <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She designed the towering blond hair and cartoon silhouette herself, then disarmed anyone who sneered at them. She knew the look was a costume, and that the costume was a strategy: she described herself as \u201ca workhorse dressed up as a show horse.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-3\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-17\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-3\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For all the sequins, the life she built argued that glamour and grit were not mutually exclusive. The girl from Locust Ridge made the whole country sing her songs, read her books, and, against considerable odds, like her. She once suggested that the line most likely to end up on her tombstone was the one she had been delivering for decades: \u201cIt costs a lot of money to look this cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Daniel Ross Goodman (@DanRossGoodman) is a<\/em> Washington Examiner <em>contributing writer and teaches theology and religious studies at St. John\u2019s University. His next book,<\/em> Dante\u2019s Guide to Life: How The Divine Comedy Can Change Our Fortunes, Our World, and Ourselves<em>, will be published this fall by Angelico Press.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"wex-inarticle-ad wex-inarticle-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\">\n<div class=\"wex-ad-wrap wex-ad-art-dsk-inart-4\" style=\"min-height:90px\"><span class=\"wex-ad-label\" hidden>Advertisement<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3182201-25\" data-wex-ad=\"art-dsk-inart-4\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dolly Parton: From humble beginnings to legendary icon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2854,"featured_media":2650947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Obit.090226.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[34884,39469,42223],"class_list":["post-2650946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-country-music","tag-dolly-parton","tag-music-industry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Obit.090226.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2650946"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2650951,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650946\/revisions\/2650951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2650947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}