The Sunday Magazine

The authentic Dolly Parton

This summer, the young patrons at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England - recently named the most influential music festival in the world - were blown away by one of the event's headliners. But it wasn't Ed Sheeran, or Metallica, or Canada's Arcade Fire who fired up the hip Glastonbury faithful....
This summer, the young patrons at the Glastonbury Music Festival in England - recently named the most influential music festival in the world - were blown away by one of the event's headliners. But it wasn't Ed Sheeran, or Metallica, or Canada's Arcade Fire who fired up the hip Glastonbury faithful.

The clear hit of the Festival was a 68-year-old woman from Sevier County Tennessee - a performer who had first graced a stage some 35 years before most of her audience at Glastonbury was born. 

The performer was Dolly Parton: the "Backwoods Barbie" by her own declaration, a woman with 50 years in the business, 4,000 songs to her credit, 42 albums to her name and a loving, devoted fan base around the world.

The Sunday Edition's "music man" Robert Harris explains the phenomenon that is Dolly Parton.