Another well-deserved honor.
This morning, it was announced that Dolly Parton would receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Americana Honors & Awards, which will take place on September 16th at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. She will accept via a virtual video message. Artists like Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison and Elvis Costello have won it before, and Robert Plant will join her as a fellow recipient of the award this year.
The Americana Honors & Awards are held annually, and as opposed to huge country award shows like the CMA Awards and the ACM Awards that celebrate mainstream country, the Americana Honors & Awards highlights genres like folk, country, blues, and bluegrass.
Names like Sturgill Simpson, Charley Crockett, Billy Strings, The Red Clay Strays and Tyler Childers (who famously criticized the award show) have all won awards over the past five years, and they definitely do a good job with clear that the Association has its finger on the pulse of what many consider the heart of today’s budding country, folk and Americana landscape.
Executive Director of the Americana Music Association Jed Hilly says that the association has “long admired” Dolly’s work as a “singer, songwriter and entertainer,” and they want to honor her for the legacy she’s carved out as a “songwriter and artist whose songs have shaped generations”:
“We at the Americana Music Association have long admired Ms. Parton’s work as a singer, songwriter, entertainer and one of the greatest ambassador’s music has ever known.
With all of her extraordinary accomplishments—from philanthropy to television, film and business—our desire is to honor Dolly for what has always been at the heart of her legacy: a definitive songwriter and artist whose songs have shaped generations.”
Dolly has of course taken a step back from the public eye over the last year or so, mostly due to ongoing health challenges, though she has made a few public appearances here and there. Her Broadway musical, Dolly: A True Original is slated to premiere in New York City in January, and she also continues her philanthropic work for her Imagination Library foundation, in addition to keeping her Dollywood theme park one of the best in the country.
In addition to this honor, Dolly will be recognized with the ACM Poet’s Award at the ACM Honors here soon, and while she unfortunately will not be there in-person for that either, Dolly will accept the honor via a special video message once again.
It goes without saying what an icon Dolly is, both for her music and everything she’s given back to the world, and I honestly feel like we could give her every award known to man and it would be right, so it’s great to see her being honored by so many groups because she really is a legend in every sense of the word.
