Dolly Parton Information Continued
Dolly Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio programming radio and television program television in East Tennessee. At age 12 she was appearing on "The Cas Walker Show" on WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, and at 13, she was recording on a small record label and appearing at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. When she graduated from high school in 1964 she moved to Nashville, taking many traditional elements of folklore and popular music from East Tennessee with her.
Dolly Parton is a hugely successful songwriter, having begun by writing country songs with strong elements of folk music in them based upon her upbringing in humble mountain surroundings. Her songs "Coat of Many Colors" and "Jolene" have become classics in the field, as have a number of others. As a composer, she is also regarded as one of country music's most gifted storytellers, with many of her narrative songs based on persons and events from her childhood. Dolly Parton has published almost 600 songs with BMI to date and has earned 24 BMI awards for her material. Despite originally being typecast in many circles as a "Country and Western" singer, Dolly Parton later also had commercial success as a pop singer and actress. Her 1977 album Here You Come Again was her first million-seller, and the title track became her first top-ten single on the pop charts; many of her subsequent singles charted on both pop and country charts simultaneously.
In 1987, along with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, she released the decade-in-the-making Trio album to critical acclaim (a second collaboration, Trio II, would be released in 1999). In 1993, she teamed up with fellow country music queens Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette for a similar project, the Honky Tonk Angels album.
