Dollywood

“And try to make the most of every moment / ’Cause if you never try, you never win.” There are few more appropriate lines with which to begin an obituary of Dolly Parton, although they do have the slight disadvantage of sounding like something that might be printed on an especially tawdry greetings card. Dolly – always Dolly, never ‘Ms Parton’ – was never particularly concerned about that sort of thing. She understood that sincerity was generally more effective than sophistication, and that if something was true there was little point in making it sound cleverer than it was. She was the greatest singer of her generation, the female Elvis if you will, and she was damned if anyone was ever going to persuade her otherwise.