Dolly Parton Dies Aged 80: The World Pays Tribute to a Country Music Icon

Country music legend Dolly Parton has died at 80 after a short battle with cancer, her family confirmed, passing away at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center surrounded by loved ones. Tributes have poured in from across the globe, celebrating a career that spanned six decades, over 3,000 written songs and more than 100 million records sold.

Fellow artists led the outpouring of grief. Taylor Swift said a world without Parton hardly felt real, while Sir Paul McCartney praised her as an unmatched songwriter and performer. Katy Perry described her as someone worth modelling a life after.

Beyond music, Parton's legacy runs deep in literacy work. Her Imagination Library has sent free books to children in five countries, donating roughly 300 million copies. J.K. Rowling called it one of the greatest contributions any celebrity has made to child literacy, while the UK arm of the scheme confirmed it mails around 86,000 books monthly to British children and has no plans to stop.

Parton's UK ties ran deep too. The Band of the Coldstream Guards performed her hit "9 to 5" outside Buckingham Palace, and the Royal Family paid tribute to a woman who brought joy and inspiration to millions. She'd long held affection for British royalty, having met Queen Elizabeth II in 1977 and later recorded a message for her Platinum Jubilee.

Fans gathered at Nashville's Music City Walk of Fame overnight, lighting candles around her star, while her theme park, Dollywood, opened as planned on Wednesday, in keeping, staff say, with her belief that the show must go on.

Beyond the sequins and one-liners, Parton was also a shrewd businesswoman who fiercely protected her music rights, famously declining to hand over royalties to Elvis Presley's camp for "I Will Always Love You," a decision that later paid off handsomely when Whitney Houston's cover became a global hit.

What's your favourite Dolly Parton memory or song? Share it in the comments.

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