Overview
Books About Dolly Parton's Life
- Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics reveals the stories and memories that have made Dolly a beloved icon across generations, genders, and social and international boundaries. Containing rare photos and memorabilia from Parton's archives, this book is a show-stopping must-have for every Dolly Parton fan.
- Dolly Parton’s new memoir, titled Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics will celebrate the musician’s six decades of songwriting. Throughout the book, Parton explains and explores 150 of her best-loved songs and shares stories behind the music and lyrics.
- Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. The fourth of 12 siblings, Dolly Parton was born on a small farm in 1946; her father, Lee, paid the doctor a bag of grain.
The National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Heartland focuses her laser-sharp insights on a working-class icon and one of the most unifying figures in American culture: Dolly Parton.
Growing up amid Kansas wheat fields and airplane factories, Sarah Smarsh witnessed firsthand the particular vulnerabilities—and strengths—of women in working poverty. Meanwhile, country songs by female artists played in the background, telling powerful stories about life, men, hard times, and surviving. In her family, she writes, “country music was foremost a language among women. It’s how we talked to each other in a place where feelings aren’t discussed.” And no one provided that language better than Dolly Parton.
Smarsh challenged a typically male vision of the rural working class with her first book, Heartland, starring the bold, hard-luck women who raised her. Now, in She Come By It Natural, originally published in a four-part series for The Journal of Roots Music, No Depression, Smarsh explores the overlooked contributions to social progress by such women—including those averse to the term “feminism”—as exemplified by Dolly Parton’s life and art.
Far beyond the recently resurrected “Jolene” or quintessential “9 to 5,” Parton’s songs for decades have validated women who go unheard: the poor woman, the pregnant teenager, the struggling mother disparaged as “trailer trash.” Parton’s broader career—from singing on the front porch of her family’s cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains to achieving stardom in Nashville and Hollywood, from “girl singer” managed by powerful men to leader of a self-made business and philanthropy empire—offers a springboard to examining the intersections of gender, class, and culture.
Infused with Smarsh’s trademark insight, intelligence, and humanity, She Come By It Natural is a sympathetic tribute to the icon Dolly Parton and—call it whatever you like—the organic feminism she embodies.
Dolly Parton Autobiography Audible
In 1994 Parton published her autobiography, Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, which was a best seller in the United States. Parton’s contributions to the arts and culture of the United States earned her numerous awards from organizations beyond the music and film industry.
If you're a fan, you know. Dolly Parton has a wig for every day of the year. Or, at least, it's easy to feel that way. In 2016, the country goddess told Hallmark Channel why. 'I used to try to keep my own hair teased and as big as I liked it and having the bleach and all that, it just broke off.' The solution? 'I thought, 'Why not just wear wigs?' That way I never have a bad hair day. I have a big hair day, but not a bad hair day,' Parton recounted (via Taste of Country).
The songstress's passion for big hair dates back to her teenage years when Parton used to moon over pictures in Frederick's of Hollywood catalogs. As Parton explained in her newly released memoir, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics, 'I wanted to feel like the way I thought all the movie stars in Hollywood did' (via Today). And yet, sometimes, when she was not in front of the audience, Parton recorded music with her natural hair. Both in her memoir and on Instagram, Parton's published photos of one such session. When she did, she left her followers speechless.
What fans are saying about Dolly Parton's natural hair looks like
The photo that Parton published on Instagram is in black and white, so we can't be sure of its color. Our bets go to platinum blonde. 'I keep my hair the same color [as my wigs],' Parton told The Hallmark Channel, 'I keep my roots up for my husband. I don't want to look good for everybody else and then go home and look terrible.' Today pins the photo in question to 'around 1965.' And while Parton didn't admit to it being her real hair on Instagram, she did in her memoir.
Dolly Parton Autobiography Book
'My hair would never do exactly what I wanted it to do. So the wigs became kind of my trademark,' Parton wrote. That may be true. Her natural hair isn't poofy or particularly curly, like her signature wigs. In fact, it's not big at all. Instead, Parton's natural hair gives off a soft, elegant vibe. It's got body, it's got shine, it's got class, and her fans (that includes us, of course) are loving it. 'Looks 10 yrs younger without the wig,' wrote one admirer on Instagram. 'Your hair is stunning and you should wear it more,' seconded another. 'Dolly is beautiful just the way she is,' concluded a third.