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This conversation originally aired in the Aug. 30, 2026, episode of Inside Appalachia.
After the passing of Dolly Parton on Tuesday, Aug. 25, Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with East Tennessee State University Professor Ted Olson about what the country music icon did for the region.
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Adams: Dolly was such a signifier of Appalachia. As someone who studies Appalachia and its culture, where does Dolly fit in terms of Appalachian culture and identity?
Olson: Well, certainly she was a champion of all things Appalachian. Of course, music, but also every aspect of Appalachian culture, Appalachian community. She advocated for all kinds of folk. People I know and knew in Sevier County and other parts of East Tennessee all speak of her with the highest regards for her honesty and her integrity and her commitment.
And it was almost like she never left, even though she had of course gone on to worldwide fame. They always spoke of her like she was present and there to celebrate life with them and take care of them in a sense. I’m not sure that she wanted necessarily to be seen as an outsider who was advocating for them.
I think she definitely wanted to always be close to the pulse beat of life in Sevier County and beyond, and I think she maintained that even though she relocated at times to other places, and certainly was active on the worldwide stage. Sevier County and East Tennessee were certainly close to her heart. And beyond that, Appalachia.
I know that for a fact. Here at the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University, we often communicated with her over the years, and she was always a big advocate of our work. She very much understood the mission of Appalachian studies, and the larger cause of unifying all the Appalachian areas into one conversation, and she wanted to be part of that conversation.
She also very much understood the history of Appalachia. She at one point reached out to a lot of British musicians and Irish musicians, and brought them to Dollywood to perform, and she made an album in conjunction with some of the artists. It was very clear that she understood what Appalachia was about, and it was part of her and it never left her through the years of engaging with people from all over the world.
In my travels across the world, there are many times when I encountered people in other countries and other places, and when they would ask where I lived, I would say East Tennessee. And virtually all of them, the first thing they would say is, “Oh, do you know Dolly Parton?” And of course, I never met Dolly, but I felt as if, like so many others of Appalachia, I felt as if I knew her through her music and through her generosity of spirit.
Her philanthropy was second to none. There’s so many instances where difficult things happened to people in Appalachia, and she stepped forward to help them out — both fiscally, but also with earnest and very moving statements of support and compassion for people. That’s a famous aspect of Dolly Parton’s character, her philanthropy.
It’s definitely an important part of her legacy. And while we initially knew her as a musician, she was so much more: actress and philanthropist, great citizen, humanitarian. She always knew to navigate the world, and how to do so and how not to make enemies anywhere. She always made friends, and that was quite easy to observe.
So we are definitely going to be missing her presence in our lives, and I think it’s appropriate to reflect upon her legacy. And I know that legacy will last.
Adams: Yeah, I was telling my kids how there’s nobody who dislikes her. Right? Not everybody loves her, but there’s nobody that dislikes Dolly Parton.
It’s interesting to me as we’re talking, it occurs to me that the 1960s and 1970s mark the rise of Appalachian Studies, right? And that’s kind of around the time Dolly was kind of getting her career started. It’s interesting to me that this concept, we have of these mountains and the culture they’re in, is so tightly wound to her career, time-wise, and it feels like image-wise, too. I wonder if you have thoughts on that.
Olson: Well, sure, there was an awakening of Appalachian consciousness during the 1960s and 1970s. Growing up in Washington D.C., I was close to people who worked at the Appalachian Regional Commission. That was my orientation to Appalachia, and it grew from there.
And Dolly Parton was certainly one person who, through her music and perhaps through some of her public comments about her home in Appalachia, motivated me to follow the path of exploring Appalachian culture and cultural history and also natural history through her celebration of place and people.
I think that in many respects, she’s one of our greatest songwriters of any genre. But it’s ever so special that Dolly focused as her primary subject matter, of course, matters of the heart, but also matters of place — of the Appalachian situation, of her memories of growing up in Sevier County, Tennessee, and the people she knew and the hardships that she observed, but also the triumphant story of people working together, coming together to survive tough times and and find a way forward.
Her music definitely expressed what Appalachian Studies is all about. It’s about people, about place, about history, about accepting and celebrating who we are as Appalachians.