Prior to the musicals’ premiere on the West End in London, Parton—who received both a Tony nomination & a Grammy nod for the original music she composed for its Broadway run in 2009—has seen the musical travel around the world. The timeless story launched a North American tour in 2010-11, a UK tour in 2012-13, 2017 and again in 2019, a Brazilian tour in 2015, a German tour in 2016 and again in 2018 and most recently ran on the West End in 2019-20.
Dolly Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA certified Gold, Platinum, and multi-Platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach No. 1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist, and she has 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. In 2014 the RIAA recognized her impact on recorded music with a plaque commemorating more than 100 million units sold worldwide – and in 2016 her No. 1 album Pure & Simple, which topped the Billboard Top Country Albums and Americana/Folk Albums charts and debuted at No. 1 in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia, added to that massive tally. She has garnered eight Grammy Awards, including a 2017 win with Pentatonix for their collaboration on her iconic 1974 hit “Jolene”; 10 Country Music Association Awards, including Entertainer of the Year; five Academy of Country Music Awards, also including a nod for Entertainer of the Year; four People’s Choice Awards; and three American Music Awards. In 1999, Parton was inducted as a member of the coveted Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2008 Parton launched her return to touring on a global scale with Backwoods Barbie World Tour, the first of many sold-out arena tours, returning her to Billboard Boxscore’s Top 10 Country Tours of the Year. Her 2016 movie “Christmas Of Many Colors: Circle Of Love,” was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Television Movie. In 2017, Parton released her first children’s album, I Believe In You, on Dolly Records through her partnership with Sony Music Nashville; the project’s proceeds benefit The Dollywood Foundation’s Imagination Library, a non-profit that since 1996 has provided more than 100 million books to children from birth to five years of age in the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK. In 2018, Parton received her first two Emmy Awards as the organization recognized her lifetime of giving with the Governor’s Award and the award for Best Community Service Program lauding her 2016 telethon “Smoky Mountains Rise,” which raised more than $13 million for her My People fund, which provided financial assistance to victims of massive wildfires in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Parton recently collaborated with producer Linda Perry on the soundtrack for the film Dumplin’ starring Jennifer Aniston and Danielle MacDonald with Parton as the executive producer. And Parton’s Dixie Pixie Productions is partnering with Warner Bros. Television to produce a series of television films to premiere on Netflix. She became the first Nashville-based artist honored as Grammy MusiCares Person of the Year during Grammy Week 2019. Next year will also mark the 35th anniversary season for Dollywood, her theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., which since 1986 has hosted more than 2 million visitors annually. Most recently, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Parton donated $1 million towards research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, partly funding the Moderna vaccine.
