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"Find out who you are and do it on purpose. "Where do you even start with Dolly Parton? She is simply one of the biggest and most prolific entertainers alive. Nine Grammy awards across forty seven nominations, two Oscar nominations, ten CMA's, seven Academy of Country Music Awards, more top ten singles than you can count on your fingers and toes, and she even has her own theme park, Dollywood, drawing over three million visitors a year.

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The face of country music for more than five decades, combining the best heart-and-soul storytelling of the genre with a radio-friendly sound, there's not much Dolly hasn't done in the entertainment industry.

Tennessee Mountain Home

"You can be rich in spirit, kindness, love and all those things that you can't put a dollar sign on." Dolly was born Dolly Rebecca Parton in the Great Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee on January 19, 1946 to Avie Lee Caroline and laborer Robert Lee Parton Sr. The fourth of twelve children in a one room cabin, Dolly started from the humblest of beginnings. Although her family was very poor, Dolly cherishes the memories of her youth, attributing her success in equal parts to her father's mind for business and her mother's singing. She would go on to immortalize her time in the Smoky Mountains in songs like "My Tennessee Mountain Home" (1973), "Coat of Many Colors" (1971) and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)" (1969).

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Dolly would begin playing a homemade guitar at age seven, having already been performing in church since she turned six. Although stardom was still years ahead of the young singer, she would get a foot in the door at a young age, featuring on local radio and TV at just ten years old, recording her first single, "Puppy Love" at just thirteen years old for Goldband Records, based out of Louisiana. While still in her pre-teens she would find herself at the Grand Ole Opry, meeting Johnny Cash, who would give her the encouragement she needed to pursue a career in music.

Once Parton graduated from Sevier County High School, she devoted herself fully to her music, skipping any secondary education. She had never been that big a fan of the academic scene in the first place, of course, stating "I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it's just depressing to me. The poor little kids." However, she would eventually receive a Galaxy Award from the American Association of School Administrators, a National State Teachers Award, and a Child and Family Advocacy Award from the Teachers National Center for her work promoting childhood literacy.

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In the early stages of Dolly's career, she would be very prolific as a songwriter and singer, but ultimately fail to gain much traction at first, owing in part to her being branded by Monument Records as a teen-friendly pop singer at the age of nineteen when she signed with the label in 1965. This image simply didn't suit Dolly, and she failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 while producing this style of music.

Around this time Parton would marry Carl Thomas Dean, with whom she is still married to this day. Parton has remained private about her marriage and it is difficult to even find a photograph of the two together. We do know that the two have no children, with the closest Dolly has come to motherhood being her role as godmother to fellow country and pop star Miley Cyrus.

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True success would not come for the young singer until she was able to fully embrace her root as a country singer, and she would soon do just that on The Porter Wagoner Show (1967).

Country Star And Queen Of All Media

"When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they're not, then I try to set about trying to make them as good as I can 'cause I know I'm gonna have to live that day anyway. So why not try to make the most of it if you can? Some days, they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try."

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After her failed run at pop stardom, Parton would write "Put It Off Until Tomorrow" (1966) for Bill Phillips, and then go on to record "Dumb Blonde" (1967) and "Something Fishy" (1967), which both had a strong showing on the country charts, drawing the attention of TV host and country music icon Porter Wagoner, who would invite her to join the show as a regular performer.

From here, Parton's career would finally start to gain traction. Although her biggest hits in the late 60's would be duets with Wagoner, she would finally break the solo scene with a cover of Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues" (1970) which would skyrocket to number three on the country charts. "Joshua" (1971) would soon follow, landing at number one, and from there she would have a near-unbroken string of hits with "Coat of Many Colors" (1971), "Touch Your Woman" (1972) and "My Tennessee Mountain Home" (1973) to name a few. The biggest hits, of course, would be "Jolene" (1973), which would confirm Parton as one of the best singers and most soulful songwriters of her day, and "I Will Always Love You" (1974), which would set the charts on fire on release, and again when covered by Whitney Houston for the film The Bodyguard (1992).

"Of course, 'I Will Always Love You' is the biggest song so far in my career. I'm famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart."

To list all of Parton's credits and achievements since "Jolene" would take hundreds more pages, but a few points worth noting would be her foray into film, starring in the comedy-musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) as Miss Mona Stangley, and in the frank, humorous look at women in the workplace, 9 to 5 (1980) as Doralee Rose. She would also have a number of crossover hits in the 80's, including "Islands in the Stream" (1983) with Kenny Rogers, which would hit the top spot on a number of charts worldwide, including the US Billboard Hot 100 and US Adult Contemporary, establishing Parton as more than just a country star.

To this day, Parton stays busy, working on a biographical series for Netflix, continuing to write and record, and featuring in movies including Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005) and Gnomeo & Juliet (2011). After more than fifty years in the business, Parton shows no signs of slowing down—"Life is a song to me," she says.