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Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Recording Artist · Active 1959–present · Sevier County, Tennessee · dollyparton.com · Also a musician
Classic Country

Dolly Parton's catalog is primarily country-pop, but she has made some of the most important bluegrass records of the modern era. Her Picker's Guide entries center on the albums where she returned explicitly to the mountain music of her East Tennessee upbringing — records that introduced her songwriting to bluegrass audiences and brought traditional bluegrass to her mainstream country listeners.

  • Trio (1987) with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt was the breakthrough: a country-folk-bluegrass summit that sold over four million copies, won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Collaboration, and produced four country Top 10 hits. The record's acoustic sensibility introduced Alan O'Bryant's “Those Memories of You” to a mass audience.
  • Trio II (1999) followed with the same trio and won Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for “After the Gold Rush.”
  • The Grass Is Blue (1999) was her first full bluegrass album — acoustic, with Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Jim Mills, and Barry Bales. It won the IBMA Album of the Year and put Parton squarely into the bluegrass conversation.
  • Little Sparrow (2001) and Halos & Horns (2002) continued the acoustic streak, mixing original songs with bluegrass-style arrangements of traditional material and unlikely covers (“Stairway to Heaven,” “Shine”).
  • Her “mountain music” period produced IBMA Song of the Year (“The Grass Is Blue”) and cemented her influence on acoustic country songwriting.
  • Those Were the Days (2005) and subsequent releases returned to country-pop, but she has continued to record bluegrass-influenced material throughout the 2010s and 2020s.
  • Penned the original of “I Will Always Love You,” “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” and “Applejack” — songs that have been adopted into bluegrass repertoire through covers by Ricky Skaggs, The Whites, The Isaacs, and many others.
  • Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (1999), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2001), and received a Kennedy Center Honor (2006).

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