Dolly Parton
OpenLife Nigeria reports that American music legend, Dolly Parton , has spoken on the uncertainty about a planned Las Vegas concert.
In clear term, Dolly Parton, 79, has postponed her upcoming Las Vegas concerts due to “health challenges.”
The music legend announced, although she stressed she is not yet ending her glittering career.
“As many of you know, I have been dealing with some health challenges, and my doctors tell me that I must have a few procedures,” the singer-songwriter posted on social media late Sunday, without disclosing specifics.
The “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” hitmaker kept her trademark humor intact, quipping that “it must be time for my 100,000-mile check-up, although it’s not the usual trip to see my plastic surgeon!”
“In all seriousness, given this, I am not going to be able to rehearse and put together the show that you want to see.”
Parton was set to perform six nights of sold-out shows in December at Caesars Palace. She revealed that the new dates are set for September of 2026.
She told her millions of followers that she would continue her projects in Nashville but would need “a little time to get show ready, as they say.
“And don’t worry about me quittin’ the business because God hasn’t said anything about stopping yet.”
Parton became a major star in the 1970s, with singles including “Coat of Many Colors,” and followed up with smash hits like “I Will Always Love You,” famously covered by Whitney Houston, and “9 to 5.”
Life History
Born on January 19, 1946 in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee, Dolly Rebecca Parton, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman.
After achieving success as a songwriter for other artists, Parton’s debut album, Hello, I’m Dolly, was released in 1967, commencing a career spanning 60 years and 50 studio albums.
Referred to as the “Queen of Country”, Parton is one of the most-honored female country performers of all time and has received various accolades, including eleven Grammy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and a Tony Award.
Parton has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Her music includes Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)-certified gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards. She has had 25 singles reach No. 1 on the Billboard country music charts, a record for a female artist (tied with Reba McEntire).
She has 44 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist and she has 110 career-charted singles over the past 40 years. Her forty-ninth solo studio album, Rockstar (2023), became her highest-charting Billboard 200 album, peaking at number three. Parton has composed over 3,000 songs, including “I Will Always Love You” (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper and an international hit for Whitney Houston), “Jolene”, “Coat of Many Colors” and “9 to 5”.
As an actress, she has starred in the films 9 to 5 (1980) and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), for each of which she earned Best Actress Golden Globe nominations, as well as Rhinestone (1984), Steel Magnolias (1989), Straight Talk (1992), and Joyful Noise (2012).
Parton is one of the few performers to receive at least one competitive nomination for each EGOT award (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).
With her Grammy and Emmy wins, along with her non-competitive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (an honorary Oscar), she is only a Tony Award away from achieving EGOT status.
She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984, the National Medal of Arts in 2004, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Academy Honorary Award in 2025. In 1986, Parton was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 2021, she was included on the Time 100, Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
She was ranked at No. 27 on Rolling Stone’s 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Outside of her work in the music and film industries, Parton co-owns The Dollywood Company, which manages a number of entertainment venues including the Dollywood theme park, the Splash Country water park and a number of dinner theater venues such as The Dolly Parton Stampede and Pirates Voyage.
She has founded a number of charitable and philanthropic organizations, chief among them being the Dollywood Foundation, who manage a number of projects to bring education and poverty relief to East Tennessee, where she was raised.
Early life
Being the fourth of 12 children of Avie Lee Caroline (née Owens; 1923–2003) and Robert Lee Parton Sr. (1921–2000), Parton’s middle name comes from her maternal great-great-grandmother Rebecca (née Dunn) Whitted.
Parton’s father, known as “Lee”, worked in the mountains of East Tennessee, first as a sharecropper and later tending his own small tobacco farm and acreage. He also worked construction jobs to supplement the farm’s small income. Despite her father’s illiteracy, Parton has often commented that he was one of the smartest people she has ever known with regard to business and making a profit.
Parton’s mother cared for their large family. Her 11 pregnancies (the tenth being twins) in 20 years made her a mother of 12 by age 35. Parton attributes her musical abilities to the influence of her mother; often in poor health, she still managed to keep house and entertain her children with Smoky Mountain folklore and ancient ballads. Having Welsh ancestors, Avie Lee knew many old ballads that immigrants from the British Isles brought to southern Appalachia in the 18th and 19th century.
Avie Lee’s father, Jake Owens, was a Pentecostal preacher and Parton and her siblings all attended church regularly. Parton has long credited her father for her business savvy and her mother’s family for her musical abilities.
When Parton was a young girl, her family moved from the Pittman Center area to a farm up on nearby Locust Ridge. Most of her cherished memories of youth happened there. Today, a replica of the Locust Ridge cabin resides at Parton’s namesake theme park Dollywood.
The farm acreage and surrounding woodland inspired her to write the song “My Tennessee Mountain Home” in the 1970s. Years after the farm was sold, Parton bought it back in the late 1980s. Her brother Bobby helped with building restoration and new construction.
Her earliest public performances were in the church, beginning at age six. At seven, she started playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight, her uncle bought Dolly her first real guitar.
The Parton family was well-fed despite their poverty and her 2024 cookbook Good Lookin’ Cookin’ (co-written with her sister Rachel) recalls numerous family meals. After graduating from Sevier County High School in 1964, Parton moved to Nashville the next day.
Music career
In 1956–1966 which defined her early work and songwriting, Parton began performing as a child, singing on local radio and television programs in the East Tennessee area.
By ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. At 13, she was recording (the single “Puppy Love”) on a small Louisiana label, Goldband Records, and appeared at the Grand Ole Opry, where she first met Johnny Cash, who encouraged her to follow her own instincts regarding her career.
Parton’s initial success came as a songwriter, having signed with Combine Publishing shortly after her arrival; with her frequent songwriting partner, her uncle Bill Owens, she wrote several charting singles during this time, including two Top 10 hits for Bill Phillips: “Put It Off Until Tomorrow” and “The Company You Keep” (1966) and Skeeter Davis’s number 11 hit “Fuel to the Flame” (1967).
Her songs were recorded by many other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr.
She signed with Monument Records in 1965, at age 19; she initially was pitched as a bubblegum pop singer.
She released a string of singles, but the only one that charted, “Happy, Happy Birthday Baby”, did not crack the Billboard Hot 100. Although she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, thinking her unique, high soprano voice was not suited to the genre.
After her composition “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”, as recorded by Bill Phillips (with Parton, uncredited, on harmony), went to number six on the country chart in 1966, the label relented and allowed her to record country.
Her first country single, “Dumb Blonde” (composed by Curly Putman, one of the few songs during this era that she recorded but did not write), reached number 24 on the country chart in 1967, followed by “Something Fishy”, which went to number 17. The two songs appeared on her first full-length album, Hello, I’m Dolly.
Grammy, Awards, Primetime Emmy, Academy, Golden Globe, Tony, Dumb Blonde, Curly Putman, Monument Records,
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