Dolly Parton Thanks Lifetime Achievement Award in Posthumous Video; Watch Here
Singer was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Music Association.
In a newly-shared video, Dolly Parton posthumously thanked the American Music Association (AMA) after being awarded this year's Lifetime Achievement Award. The video, shown above, was presented to the audience at the Americana Music Honors & Awards last Wednesday night.
"I am so honored to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. Roots music, or what it's now called Americana music, is what I grew up playing", she said. "I want to thank everybody at the AMA for recognizing me with this award. It’s a great honor, truly, and just know that I will always love you".
As reported by Variety, Emmylou Harris introduced the award, which was then followed by Dolly's video and a tribute sang by Brandi Carlile.
The country music icon behind hits like "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" before becoming a movie star with 9 to 5 (1980) and Steel Magnolias (1989), died in August with 80 years old. Born on January 19, 1946, in the small town of Pittman Center, Tennessee, Parton began performing as a child and recorded her first single, "Puppy Love," at age 13.
After a period behind the scenes, writing songs for major country names in the 1960s (Skeeter Davis and Hank Williams Jr. among them), her first solo album arrived with Hello, I'm Dolly, released in 1967, which produced the modest hits "Dumb Blonde" and "Something Fishy."
It wasn't until 1971 that "Joshua" and "Coat of Many Colors" gave her her first solo #1s on the charts. The latter, in particular, became one of the singer's signature songs, cementing her extravagant image — towering blonde wig, rhinestone-studded outfits — in pop culture.
"Jolene" arrived in 1973 to cement that success. The song, told from the point of view of a woman losing her beloved to another, who is vividly described in the lyrics, became a global hit, earning covers by Olivia Newton-John, The White Stripes, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé and many other artists over the years.
The following year, "I Will Always Love You" became another major country chart success for Parton. But it was Whitney Houston's version, recorded in 1992 for the film The Bodyguard, that turned the composition into a full-blown pop phenomenon — Parton herself admitted in interviews that she liked Houston's version more than her own.
