Dolly Parton was the fourth of 12 children born to a farmer father and a half Cherokee mother. The family was indeed very poor, but music helped them forget the poverty. Dolly's (her real name by the way) mother played guitar and her grandfather, the Reverend Jake Owens was a fiddler and songwriter. Dolly was given a guitar at age seven, and within a few years became a regular on WIVK Knoxville's The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour. She recorded her first single Puppy Love in 1959 at age 13, and signed her first record deal at age 15 with Mercury Records. Dolly continued to attend high school, playing snare drum in the school's marching band.
After high school, Dolly moved to Nashville and in 1967, Dolly began to see some success. She joined forces with Porter Wagoner and they performed as a duo for awhile, but she had little luck as a solo performer until 1974 when she had her first big solo hit with Jolene. She quit traveling with Wagoner after that, and had many more top ten hits in the next decade.
Dolly branched out into other types of music than country western, and also into other types of businesses. She opened her own theme park in 1985, Dollywood which continues to be successful today. She expanded her music to include pop music, and in 1991 began acting in movies.