Before the Wigs: When Dolly Parton Was “Too Much” for Nashville

This is Dolly Parton in the late 1960s, and if you’ve only ever known “full Dolly”—the wigs, the rhinestones, the larger-than-life glamour—this might surprise you.
This was before she became an icon. Before “Jolene.” Before “9 to 5.” Before Dollywood. Before she became one of the most successful entertainers in American history.
This was when she was just a girl from the Smoky Mountains trying to make it in Nashville.
Dolly was born in 1946 in a one-room cabin in rural Tennessee—so poor that her father paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal. She grew up the fourth of twelve children, wearing clothes made from feed sacks, bathing in the creek, using newspapers for wallpaper.
But she could sing. And she could write songs. And she had a dream bigger than the mountains that surrounded her.
The day after graduating high school in 1964, eighteen-year-old Dolly moved to Nashville with her songs, her guitar, and absolute determination.
Nashville wasn’t kind.
Record executives told her she was too country for pop and too pop for country. They told her to change her look—she was too “backwoods,” too “mountain.” They wanted to smooth out her accent, tone down her personality, make her more palatable.
Dolly refused.
In 1967, she joined The Porter Wagoner Show, which made her famous but also trapped her in someone else’s vision. Wagoner wanted to control her image, her songs, her career. For years, she fought for creative control while being told she should be grateful for the opportunity.
During this time—the late 1960s—Dolly made a decision that would define her forever:
If Nashville wanted her to change, she’d change—but on her own terms.
She leaned INTO the “too much” they criticized. She made the wigs bigger. The makeup bolder. The rhinestones more extravagant. She turned their mockery into her armor.
“People always ask me how long it takes to do my hair,” she famously said. “I don’t know, I’m never there.”
The wigs became her trademark. But more importantly, they became her shield. Behind the cartoonish persona, Dolly protected herself while building an empire.
In 1974, she left Porter Wagoner’s show. He was furious. She wrote “I Will Always Love You” as a goodbye to him—a song that would later make Whitney Houston famous and earn Dolly millions.
Then Dolly did what Nashville said was impossible:
She became a crossover superstar. Country AND pop. Movies AND music. Businesswoman AND beloved icon.
She wrote over 3,000 songs, including some of the most iconic in American music. “Jolene.” “Coat of Many Colors.” “9 to 5.” “Islands in the Stream.”
She starred in movies—9 to 5, Steel Magnolias, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas—proving she was more than just a singer.
She opened Dollywood in 1986, which now employs over 3,000 people and brings millions in economic impact to rural Tennessee—the same region she grew up in poverty.
She created the Imagination Library in 1995, which has given away over 200 million books to children worldwide.
During COVID-19, she donated $1 million to help fund the Moderna vaccine.
She’s been nominated for 50 Grammy Awards and won 11. She’s in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and received the Kennedy Center Honors.
And she’s done it all while being unapologetically herself—rhinestones, wigs, mountain accent, and all.
That photo from the late 1960s shows a young woman at the beginning of an impossible journey. Natural hair, minimal makeup, fresh-faced and earnest.
She didn’t know yet that she’d write songs that would define generations. That she’d become one of the most successful songwriters in history. That she’d build a theme park, star in movies, give away millions of books, help fund a vaccine, and become universally beloved across political and generational divides.
She just knew she had talent, she had songs, and she refused to let anyone tell her she was “too much.”
Six decades later, Dolly Parton is 78 years old and still creating. Still performing. Still giving back. Still proving that the girl from the one-room cabin who paid her doctor in cornmeal could become one of the most influential entertainers in American history.
The wigs got bigger. The rhinestones got brighter. The legend grew.
But the heart—the talent, the kindness, the determination that girl had in the late 1960s—never changed.
Dolly Parton didn’t just become famous. She became proof that you don’t have to change who you are to succeed.
Sometimes you just have to turn the volume up on yourself until the world has no choice but to listen.