Women in Country: Icon Dolly Parton

March is Women’s History Month, so in celebration, each week we’ll take a look at some of the many women who broke barriers in the industry and helped pave the way for female artists today. This week we take a look at the most honored female country performer, Dolly Parton.

Dolly began her career singing on local radio shows in eastern Tennessee. After meeting Johnny Cash as a teenager at the Grand Ole Opry, who encouraged her to follow her dreams, she moved to Nashville the day after graduating high school. The rest, as they say, is history.

According to Wikipedia, she has written over 3,000 songs, has received at least one nomination from the Academy awards, Grammy awards, Tony awards, and Emmy awards each. She's an actress, author, businesswoman, and is known for her philanthropic work.

When Whitney Houston recording the song, 'I will always love you' in 1999 for the film 'The Bodyguard' many people didn't realize that Dolly had written the song. Here she is performing it live in 1974 with the person who inspired it, Porter Wagoner. She was leaving his show and he was pretty upset about it, so she wrote the song as a way of saying how thankful she was for all he did for her.

Dolly is the most honored female country artist of all time, she's had 41 Top Ten country albums, 25 number one hits, 25 RIAA certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum albums. Sales of her music has topped 100 million units worldwide.

She's won ten CMA awards, eight Grammys, 7 ACM awards, and three AMA awards. She ties Bruce Springsteen and Beyonce with 46 Grammy nominations. She won a Grammy for best Country Vocal Performance Female for this song in 1985.

She has also worked hard to give back to the area where she grew up. She co-owns the Dollywood Corporation which operates Dollywood as well as a variety of other businesses. She also began the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, which mails a book a month to every child enrolled from when they're born until they go to kindergarten.

Dolly announced, just last week, that she will be performing in more than 60 cities with her 2106 North American and Canadian Tour this summer. While she has played some select cities and venues over the past 20 years, this marks her first major tour throughout all of North America in over 25 years. She shows no signs of slowing down, and that's a great thing.

Thank you Dolly for showing us how to be successful and still be yourself, how to be at the top of your profession and never forget where you came from, and how to give back to others, no matter how small you may think the gesture is.