There was the mountain of blonde hair, the impossible heels and enough rhinestones to make the Nashville skyline look underdressed. There were the curves she joked about before anybody else could, the laugh that seemed to arrive half a second before the punchline, and a wardrobe inspired, she freely admitted, by the woman back home everybody else called "the town tramp".
Yet behind one of the most gloriously artificial appearances in showbusiness was a woman of remarkable authenticity - a songwriter of haunting emotional intelligence, a hard-headed businesswoman and a daughter of grinding Appalachian poverty who never forgot the people she left behind.
Dolly Parton somehow became bigger than country music without ever seeming to abandon it. She sold more than 100 million records, wrote thousands of songs, conquered Hollywood, built a business empire and turned herself into one of the most recognisable people on earth. Yet for all that success, her greatest trick was making millions of strangers feel they knew her. America had few figures so widely loved.
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