Until her passing on Tuesday, Dolly Parton may have been the only living person truly worthy of that old-fashioned designation, "America's Sweetheart." Her immense musical talent guaranteed her top-tier standing in country music and propelled her into a level of mainstream success that only a handful of her peers would match.Her charm, depth, beauty, sense of humor and radiant goodness made her a star across seven turbulent decades.
She was, as many tributes published since her death have noted, the one person whose presence everyone welcomed, no matter what hostilities their politics or social status otherwise inspired.Parton was our favorite aunt, our imaginary president.
She was also the composer of a career's worth of indelible hits that emblematized America's cultural life, and particularly the changing experiences of women, in ways that place her in an elite category: a songwriter whose greatest works, considered together, are their own version of the American songbook.The story of this country as told through Parton's best-known songs begins in the mid-1960s, when many aspects of the country she knew and loved so well were in flux.Her first charting country single, 1967's "Dumb Blonde," set the tone for her amiable but uncompromising version of women's liberation, distilling the frustration of countless underestimated women in the home and the workplace into an actionable rallying cry.This was one aspect of Parton, the adventurer whose insistent self-respect would carry her beyond any limitations others tried to impose on her.
The other, the keeper of home truths, surfaced in 1971's "Coat of Many Colors," an expertly embroidered portrait of Appalachian rural life that also stands as one of the most powerful reminders of poor people's dignity to ever grace the airwaves.With those two singles and others that quickly followed, like 1972's cozily erotic "Touch Your Woman" and the same year's pastoral "My Tennessee Mountain Home," Parton — the rare Nashville...