Dolly Parton: She's The One With The Accent

That's one way to pick her out of a crowd when she tours Europe for the first time in decades. The Guardian has a thoughtful feature on her. The one bit of sloppiness surrounds "I Will Always Love You," which the Guardian claims was such a money-gusher that they say Dolly was able to accomplish the following:

The money has allowed Parton to create a formidable empire of her own. There's her recording and touring business, whose headquarters are housed in a converted shopping mall in Nashville, 10 minutes from the city centre. And then there's Dollywood, the 125-acre amusement park, where several of her siblings now work.

Sure, that song made lots of money for Parton (it's been a big hit three times over, including the 1992 mega-smash version by Whitney Houston. But Parton had her empire in place long before that song re-entered the charts: she was a massive recording and touring success for two to three decades before that tune hit big and she bought that theme park and turned it into Dollywood in 1986, six years before "I Will Always Loved You" became a bigger hit than ever.