I didn’t know I loved country music until Dolly Parton sang to me

At my last newsroom in Nashville, Tennessee, I used to write an annual editorial naming a “Person of the Year.”

When I would solicit the public for ideas, the No. 1 choice was Dolly Parton. Every time.

Parton, the country music icon, philanthropist, and overall paragon of decency and empathy — who secretly married her husband, Carl Dean, in Ringgold — died on Tuesday at the age of 80.

I never met her myself during my nearly dozen years working in Tennessee, but in 2015 my husband and I saw Parton perform masterfully in one of country music’s sacred venues.

She played an acoustic set at the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, also known as the “Mother Church of Country Music.”

During her two-hour concert, Parton was spectacular, funny and made us feel like we were the only people in that venue.

She played a variety of instruments from the drums to the panpipes to the guitar, and she electrified, elated and enchanted the crowd. She performed mountain singing, showing off her beautiful range.

That night, she told one of her regular jokes: “It costs a lot money to look this cheap.”

In press interviews, Parton said her look was meant to be “a country girl’s idea of glamour.” Her album “Backwoods Barbie” directly took on her appearance, which she said came from an “honest place” as a girl who grew up in rural East Tennessee and did not consider herself a “natural beauty.”

That look would make her stand out as one of the few female artists in country music to break out as a star in her youth.

At the Ryman concert, she sang all her best songs, including “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You” and “Coat of Many Colors.”

The concert elicited a roller coaster of emotions. Hearty laughs. A flood of tears. Affection toward one’s neighbors, especially when we stood to take breaks from the Ryman’s famously uncomfortable wooden pews.

She was part of my country music education

Then-Gov. Bill Haslam (from left), Dolly Parton and former Gov. Phil Bredesen arrive at the Capitol for the 10th anniversary of the Governor's Books from Birth Foundation on Sept. 30, 2014, in Nashville, Tenn. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

I grew up in Chicago in a household with eclectic musical tastes — including classical, Latin, Broadway musicals and house music. Country music was not part of the mix, but I knew of Parton through her movie “9 to 5” and her collaborations with other artists such as Kenny Rogers.

When I was considering the job in Nashville in 2014, I asked a friend and former boss of mine if I had to like country music in order to live in “Music City.” She warned me: “No, but you better learn to appreciate it.”

In fact, I learned to love it and went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum multiple times.

One of the first exhibits I saw there was the famed 1980s collaboration between Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt.

Parton and the museum opened a new world for me

By the time I left Nashville for Atlanta in 2025, I had gone to the Grand Ole Opry; the Country Music Association Awards at Bridgestone Arena; several of the honky-tonks in the famed Broadway strip, including those affiliated with Garth Brooks, Miranda Lambert and Kid Rock; the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline museums; and marveled at the numerous tributes to Parton, whether at the Graduate Hotel in Midtown or the Legend’s Corner mural just north of Broadway near the famed Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge.

I also witnessed country music embrace diverse voices such as Mickey Guyton, The War and Treaty, Carin León and T.J. Osborne, while continuing to confront and contend with a legacy of racial, ethnic and other exclusion.

In Ken Burns’ 2019 documentary “Country Music,” Parton said the genre was universal: “You can dance to it, you can make love to it, you can play it at a funeral. It has something in it for everybody.”

Time for us to follow her example

Parton did not like talking about her politics, but she spoke her values through her words and actions — which included sending hundreds of millions of books globally to children 5 and under through the Imagination Library, involving herself through numerous charitable and civic activities, and encouraging fun through her entertainment ventures, such as the Dollywood Parks & Resorts theme park.

In 2016, when a wildfire ravaged the city of Gatlinburg and surrounding areas in southeast Tennessee — the artist’s home base — Parton came through again by offering families financial assistance to help them recover from the disaster.

That’s why The Tennessean newspaper named her and the heroes and survivors of Sevier County the People of the Year for that year — an editorial I was proud to write.

She truly deserved the honor every single year.

What’s amazing now is to see on social media the breadth of people who claim her as their own because she brought out the best in us.

“I’m not ready for a world without Dolly,” was a sentiment I heard from friends.

But now that she has passed away, it’s up to us to do a better job of loving and respecting each other. Always.