Ohio State experts remember Dolly Parton’s legacy that expands beyond lyrics

Mia Ross
Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:57:51 +0000
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Dolly Parton performed at the Wilmington Public Library in Wilmington in 2022. Photo Courtesy of Jose F. Mareno via TNS

For over half a century, Dolly Parton’s influence has extended beyond the stage, altering the fundamentals of country music, pop culture and global literacy.?

The loss of Parton — who passed away Tuesday at the age of 80 following a brief battle with cancer, according to a New York Times article — marks the end of an era, prompting Ohio State faculty to examine how Parton transformed music and societal norms through a unique blend of talent, creativity and radical kindness.

“[Parton]’s work transforms the people around her, not just with her sound, but with her kindness,” said Isaac McCarthy, a graduate teaching associate and founder of Buckeye Stringband, Ohio State’s first Appalachian music ensemble. “I think that’s why her legacy has been so impactful.”

From Locust Ridge, Tennessee, Parton was raised in a musical household of 12 children. With early mentorship from her mother in church music and support from her uncle, Bill Owens, who gave her the first guitar she owned. Parton quickly became a part of the Knoxville television scene as a child, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame website.

Between 1965 and 1967, Parton recorded under Fred Foster’s Monument Records, securing her first top 40 hit with “Dumb Blonde” — a song that criticized and questioned female stereotypes, according to the website.

McCarthy said Parton’s decision to embody a heavily criticized persona was a radical move, and one that reshaped stigmas facing female artists, enabling her to empower a new kind of image.?

“Beyond the fact of legitimizing it, she amplifies it and destigmatizes it to the point where the critiquing of that persona is no longer valid because Dolly Parton exists as an antithetical argument to that critique,” McCarthy said. “That, to me, is deeply transformative, and let alone the fact that she’s also really good and consistent.”

Zach Compston, a music professor at Ohio State and the vice president of education and community engagement at Columbus Jazz — America’s oldest jazz nonprofit organization, according to the website — said that the music industry continues to recognize Parton for her lyricism and genuine skill.?

“Her contributions to American music are really unparalleled in the sense that she wrote amazing songs [and] she delivered them, as a musician, with the highest musicianship,” Compston said.?

Compston said Parton had a natural ability to modify music and her own vocals, within the production stages, to her unique vision.?

“Her singing and her delivery of the lyrics was always very personalized and she was very well known for the way she would bend certain notes and her inflection with the music,” Compston said. “She applied a real craft to not only the songs that she wrote, but the delivery that she had as a musician performing her own songs.”

For Compston, Parton’s musicianship also encouraged artists to draw from their own experiences and perspectives.

“The lessons that we can learn from someone like that is to put your personality and your story into your music,” Compston said. “She wrote her music from her point of view as a person, and you could hear it in not only the lyrics but the way she delivered the songs. The lesson there is, ‘Don’t ever run from who you are — make sure that who you are is represented in your art.’ That’s why we do this. I think Dolly Parton represented so much heart, so much grace and so much lived experience that comes through her music.”

Beyond her renowned music career, Parton’s legacy is deeply tied to her humanitarian work through The Dollywood Foundation.?

Its main initiative, the Imagination Library, provides free books to children from birth until age five, according to the website. Since its founding, the program has gifted over 332 million books to young readers worldwide.

“To see that she invested her money and her effort and her personality into early childhood literacy, you can tell your kids, ‘This came from [Parton] and this is someone who was brave and someone that was unafraid to get her hands dirty in trying to effect change and positivity,’” Compston said.?

McCarthy said despite the intense nature of her industry, Parton never let outside factors influence her or her music — leading her to establish a long lasting presence and impact.?

“[Parton] has really transformed the landscape around her, primarily through a sonic mission of kindness, which I think is really important, especially in a very cutthroat industry as country music,” McCarthy said.?