Country Music Icon Dolly Parton is 78! And for her birthday, Dolly Parton is giving her fans a gift.
On Parton’s official YouTube pages, Parton released the audio to her newest song, The Entertainer. Take a listen:
But that’s not all, as Parton wrote on Instagram, her entire new album Rockstar Deluxe is available to stream on all streaming services!
“Hey, fans and friends, It’s my Birthday so I’m going to give you a present! I’m releasing four never-released songs for my birthday, to go with the Rockstar album, and a few others that you may have heard before that were not on the album. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you all have a happy birthday for me! LOL Thanks for everything, Dolly.”
Dolly Parton has enjoyed a legendary and iconic career that has put her in a league of her own among country music stars and entertainers, in general. She started writing songs in 1964 and began performing several years later. Now nearly 60 years later, Parton is still writing and performing in front of millions.
On July 13, she took some time out of her very busy schedule to talk with Ken Bruce – host of Greatest Hits Radio – about her life, career, and the burning desire she still has for music after all these years. In fact, she describes herself as ‘not one to sit around doing nothing’ and isn’t even thinking about retiring.
“I would never retire,” Dolly Parton exclaimed in a recent interview – she has previously spoken of her plans to avoid a retirement. “I’ll just hopefully drop dead in the middle of a song on stage someday, and hopefully one I’ve written. That’s how I hope to go. Of course, we don’t have much of a choice in that.”
With that being said, there are a few things – three things, to be specific – that could cause her to consider stepping away from her career and they are: ability, health, and her husband. “As long as I’m able to work, as long as my health is good, and my husband is good,” she said of the three stipulations.
Right now, none of those three things are an issue and she plans to ‘make hay while the sun shines.’ I mean, why wouldn’t she continue? On May 31, the country music icon was honored with 3 more records in the Guinness Book of World Records – she was already the owner of 7, bringing her career total to 10.
You can watch her interview in full below:
The three new records are: highest number of studio albums released by a female country singer (65), longest duration between No. 1 hits on the U.S. Top Country Albums chart for a female artist (43 years & 156 days), and most entries in the Top 10 of the U.S. Top Country Albums chart by a female artist (48).
To date, Dolly Parton is one of the best-selling female artists of all-time with more than 100 million records sold worldwide. She had 25 singles reach No. 1 status on the charts and has composed more than 3,000 songs in her career – she won 11 Grammys and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
What’s Next for Dolly Parton and Her Career?
For someone who just turned 77 years old in January, Dolly Parton has no quit in her. In fact, she admits to having ‘new dreams every day’ when asked if there’s anything else she would like to accomplish in the coming years. She shared some of those dreams with Ken Bruce during their interview on July 13.
“I want to have my own network TV show where I can actually do a lot of new things and produce,” she said before explaining one of her first ideas for it. “I want to have my own story called ‘The Life of Many Colors,’ where I have a whole series of my life, stuff that people haven’t seen, or know, or heard about.
If that doesn’t get you excited, she also wants to host more television shows and even mentioned launching her own makeup line, wig collection, and clothing brand. She’s always thinking of new ways to use her platform to entertain fans around the world and she certainly has a lot planned in the near future.
Keep in mind, she’s about to release her first rock album on November 17 and her next book Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinsetones on October 17 – she also recently launched a pet apparel collection and several types of cake mixes and frostings with Duncan Hines. We can’t wait to see what’s next for Dolly!
