Dolly Parton, the singer-songwriter whose voice carried "Jolene," "9 to 5" and "I Will Always Love You" into the permanent record of American music, died Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee.
Her family explained that after a life wearing the heavy rhinestones that became her visual signature, "she finally deserves to be comfortable and have some rest," 10TV reported.
And I'm dehydrated," she said, adding that her doctor had advised her not to travel that week, per ABC News.
What separated Parton from most of her country-music peers was not just the size of her catalog but the breadth of it: she wrote her own material at a time when few women in Nashville were permitted to, crossed into film with "9 to 5" and "Steel Magnolias," and kept releasing new music into her seventies.
Nearly every one leans on a personal encounter (a phone call, a backstage moment, a private kindness) which is itself a data point about the kind of career Parton built.
Dolly Parton died Tuesday in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer, her family said. The singer-songwriter behind "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" leaves an 11-Grammy catalog, Dollywood, and a literacy program that has mailed more than 300 million free books to children.