Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton has been writing and performing country music since 1964, and across six decades she has produced one of the most commercially successful and artistically consistent bodies of work in American music. Her primary instrument is the guitar — specifically a Martin D-28 dreadnought, which she has played since the late 1960s and which appears on virtually every studio recording and live performance. The Martin's balanced, full-bodied tone suits Parton's fingerpicking style, which is rooted in the Appalachian folk tradition she grew up with in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. On Jolene (1974) and the landmark My Tennessee Mountain Home (1973), producer Bob Ferguson captured Parton's Martin and her five-octave soprano voice at RCA's Studio B in Nashville, using the close-miked, relatively dry production style that defined Nashville's countrypolitan era. Parton also plays a Gibson J-200 — the ornate jumbo acoustic that has become synonymous with country music — for songs requiring more bass response and visual presence on stage. Her dulcimer playing, featured on several albums including My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy (1969), connects her work to the pre-commercial folk tradition that preceded modern country. On the iconic "I Will Always Love You" (1974), the arrangement was deliberately minimal: Parton's Martin, a sparse string section, and her voice. The Trio albums with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris (1987 and 1999) showcased Parton's Martin alongside Ronstadt and Harris' guitars, with the three voices and three acoustic guitars creating an unadorned sound that won Grammy Awards and proved that country music's greatest asset remains simplicity.