One of the last public messages from the country music icon.
On August 25, 2026, Dolly Parton sadly passed away at 80-years-old in Nashville Tennessee. Dolly had been dealing with undisclosed health issues for the last year or so, and she previously shared that she was having issues with severe kidney stones. Dolly’s reps confirmed she sadly died following a “brief battle with cancer,” though the specific kind was not revealed.
And last night, she was honored at the 2026 Americana Honors & Awards with the Lifetime Achievement Award, which was announced before she passed, so she had time to record a video message they played for the crowd.
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.
Introduced by Emmylou Harris, she gave a lengthy and beautiful speech about the impact Dolly made on the world:
“One of the many pearls, Dolly would call them rhinestones, of wisdom she imparted was her four-part motto: Dream more, learn more, care more, be more. Dolly was more from the very start. More than the odds anyone gave her growing up in poverty in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children.
More than the precocious ten-year-old who sang in a local TV show. More than just another pretty woman moving to Nashville with her guitar. and certainly more than the ‘dumb blonde’ she sang about, but never was. In 1967, Dolly got a good start on her big dream when she landed a gig as the girl singer with Porter Wagoner. Their duets were a hit on the show, and on the charts, but Dolly was nobody’s sidekick.
She wanted more, and she deserved more, and she set out to get it, always, always on her own terms. And we all know what happened when Dolly set her sights on something. She didn’t just succeed, she expanded the borders of what a musician could be. She was a country star, then a pop star, then a global icon.”
She continued, calling Dolly one of our “all-time greatest songwriters,” in addition to naming her many charitable and philanthropic contributions to the world:
“She was one of our all-time greatest songwriters, but she shined just as brightly on stage. She lit up the TV screen, and then she light up the movie screen. Her stunningly beautiful, pure mountain voice could make us cry, and then crack us up with a well-aimed, sometimes bawdy joke.
There was nothing Dolly couldn’t do, and so she did it. She opened Dollywood, a theme park that continues to provide a real economic boost to the area she grew up in. She created a relief fund that helped hundreds of family get back on their feet after teh wildfires ravaged east Tennessee a decade ago, we all remember those. And she saved lives all over the world by funding research that helped lead to a COVID vaccine. She did that.
Closest to her heart was her Imagination Library. It’s given out more than 300 million free books just so far, and that’s showing kids all over the country that they too can dream more and be more.”
She closed it out by sharing another legendary Dolly saying:
“There’s another famous Dolly saying, if you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one. Through her songs and her own example, she showed so many musicians, artists and every day folks exactly how to do that. Not by giving them the map that she made, but by encouraging them to draw their own.
So whatever road you’re on, I believe that Dolly’ walking it with every one of us, tonight and always. She’s sprinkling those rhinestones along the path as we walk to be on the lookout for ways to dream more, learn more, care more and be more for ourselves and for each other.”
They then played Dolly’s video, where Dolly talked about how Roots music was the music she grew up on in the Smoky mountains and inspired her throughout her career. She released several bluegrass and acoustic albums later in her career, and Dolly of course graciously thanked everyone for honoring her with this award, calling it a “great honor”:
“Well hey, it’s Dolly. I am so honored to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. I mean, Roots music, or what is now called Americana music, is what I grew up playing back in the Smoky Mountains.
It’s that same music that drew me back to East Tennessee in 1997 to write and record my album, ‘Hungry Again.’ And that project really opened the door to a series of bluegrass and acoustic albums that changed the course of my career in so many ways.
Now, new fans discovered these albums, new Americana music communities embraced them, and now looking back at it all, I see this era of my career as a musical renaissance of sorts. I want to thank everyone at the AMA for recognizing me with this award. It’s a great honor truly, and just know that I will always love you.”
It holds even more weight considering this is one of the last public appearances or videos she made, and the Americana Music Association did a wonderful job with the tribute. To see how Dolly impacted so many people throughout her career in so many ways continues to blow me away, and like I and many others have said, there will never be another like her.
Brandi Carlile also paid tribute to Dolly with a performance of “Coat of Many Colors,” and you can watch the full video here:
