Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in rural Locust Ridge, Tennessee, to Avie Lee and Robert Lee Parton, the fourth of 12 children. The family lived in extreme poverty in a two-room cabin that didn't have electricity or running water.
It was among the many obstacles Parton overcame to become an American icon and a global superstar.
“She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history,” Parton’s nephew Bryan Seaver said in an Aug. 25 video announcing the singer-songwriter’s death.
But even after becoming an established star, Parton experienced challenges.
In October 1975, she was named the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year. Despite that, the following month her show at the Rochester Auditorium
Theater was less than well-attended, critic Mary Rita Kurycki wrote for the Democrat and Chronicle.
Parton put her heart and soul into the concert anyway, Kurycki said, giving Parton high praise for her singing, her songs and her ability to connect with the audience.
Parton’s 1977 performance at the Auditorium drew a much more mixed review from a different critic, who wrote that the singer’s appearance overshadowed her music, that some of her songs were maudlin (citing “Coat of Many Colors”) and that she likely would struggle to find an audience outside the country genre.
“Frankly, I don’t think the big break-through is going to come for Miss Parton,” Larry King wrote for the newspaper.
That was August.
In September, Parton released “Here You Come Again,” which crossed over from country music to the pop charts, reaching No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100 list and earning Parton her first Grammy Award.
In 1980, she released an even bigger crossover hit, “9 to 5,” from the movie of the same name in which she also starred. The song hit No. 1 simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Country Songs and Adult Contemporary charts and won two Grammys and an Oscar.
Amid her many philanthropic efforts, Parton's Imagination Library to promote literacy was one of her proudest.
The program sends free books to children through age 5, including in Rochester.
Since 2021, more than 4,600 children here have enrolled and more than 100,000 books have been mailed to local families, according to the organization’s website.
Reporter Marcia Greenwood primarily covers the grocery business and consumer-focused grocery news, as well as retail development, openings and closings. Send story tips to mgreenwo@rocheste.gannett.com. Follow her on X @MarciaGreenwood.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: As a singer and philanthropist, Dolly Parton touched lives in Rochester
